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By Rex Wockner International News Report The International Lesbian & Gay Association was denied reinstatement of its consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) January 23. The decision was made by the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations. "I am disappointed but not surprised," said ILGA Co-Secretary General Kursad Kahramanoglu. "The countries which voted against us and the ones which abstained behaved exactly like they are behaving at home, and they want to pretend that we do not exist." ILGA was stripped of its U.N. status in 1994 following a scandal in which some of ILGA's member organizations were accused of not taking a strong enough stance against pedophilia. According to the U.N. Web site: "The Committee [rejected ILGA's reinstatement] after a heated procedural debate that spanned the morning and afternoon meetings, following a morning question-and-answer session with a representative of the NGO. Much of the controversy in the questioning period revolved around the strength of the organization's condemnation of pedophilia, as well as contrasting views on the notion of equality based on sexual orientation." Eight nations opposed reinstating ILGA's status: China, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Sudan and Tunisia. Six nations favored reinstatement: Bolivia, Chile, France, Germany, Romania and the United States. Algeria, Colombia, Cuba, India and Turkey abstained from voting. According to the U.N.'s summary of the meetings: "Members and State representatives with observer status continued to inquire about ILGA's condemnation of pedophilia, and its apparent opposition to age-of-consent laws and restrictions on juvenile sexuality. They asked about the status of ILGA members who had not signed on to the pedophilia condemnation." In 1995, in an effort to satisfy the U.N., ILGA circulated an anti-pedophilia pledge and demanded that all member organizations sign it -- but many did not do so. According to the U.N. summary, ILGA's representative, Claudine Ouellet, director of the Coalition gaie et lesbienne du Québec, testified that ILGA members who failed to sign the pledge have been expelled. In fact, ILGA withdrew the requirement that members sign the document in 1996 after over half refused to do so. The summary continued: "In addition, [Ouellet said] ILGA recognized the age of consent as 18, as required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the [North American] Man-Boy Love Association had been definitively expelled, along with other organizations that advocated any similar views. Some of those organizations were, indeed, founding members, but that was a historical fact based on events of the late 1960's and early 1970's; the organization had changed much since then." ILGA, which is composed of hundreds of gay organizations from around the globe, acquired ECOSOC consultative status in July 1993, which allowed it to observe meetings and conferences and present papers to U.N. human-rights bodies. |
