Foreign and Security Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
LGBTI Core Group Event, 24 September 2019
- Hate speech or discrimination – online or offline – against LGBTI or any other person should have no place in our societies. Still, far too many LGBTI persons in many countries face discrimination and hate speech in their everyday life. Some face physical violence, others are targeted in the social media platforms. In worst cases, people are raped or even killed only because of their orientation or identity. This is not acceptable.
- Finland is a strong supporter and donor for LGBTI rights. We are happy to support, for example, the work of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, ILGA and the Global Equality Fund. Finland is also a member of the Equal Rights Coalition since its establishment.
- LGBTI rights are also addressed during the on-going Finnish EU Presidency. For example, Finland together with the European Commission, organised a high-level conference in Brussels. The title of the conference is “Advancing LGBTI Equality in the EU: From 2020 and Beyond”.
- In August, we invited several prominent women human rights defenders to a human rights luncheon that was organised in the context of the informal EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Helsinki. One of the human rights defenders invited was a LGBTI activist from Ukraine.
- Vitalina’s message was loud and clear: the EU needs to give visible and active support to LGBTI activists that work under very challenging circumstances.
- This is a message that we need to take seriously; While working behind closed doors is at times the right way to go forward, sometimes public statements are needed. The human rights defenders need to know that we are there to support them.
- Together with our governmental and non-governmental allies, we need to support LGBTI rights also within the UN and it’s normative context.
- The renewal of the SOGI mandate this summer at the UN Human Rights Council was very encouraging. This shows that – together – we can achieve results that may sound unrealistic at first. In this case, the leadership role of many Latin American countries was key to the successful outcome. We need to make sure that the same positive outcome is achieved also this fall.
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