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Salzburg Global LGBT Forum invited to offer human rights consultations to European politicians and diplomats

As sympathetic governments gradually adopt LGBT-supportive foreign policy strategies, local LGBT organizations can provide essential “on the ground” insights and advice. In turn, embassies can offer support through wider networks, funding and protections to vulnerable human rights defenders. To help explore and strengthen this burgeoning relationship, the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum was invited by the German Federal Foreign Office to meet representatives in Berlin in 2014. 

Following its inaugural session in 2013, the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum was invited by the German Federal Foreign Office to bring together a select group of human rights leaders from across the world to Berlin for three days of consultations in May 2014 as part of the session Creating Long-Term Global Networks to Sustain LGBT Human Rights Organizations.

The Federal Office arranged for Klaus Mueller to meet in advance with a range of key personnel whose inputs ensured that the meeting was as wide and relevant in scope as possible. The primary objective of this session was to look at the specific ways in which LGBT issues are addressed by the German Federal Foreign Office and their embassies across the world, but especially in the Global South and East. The session was also designed to assess how German governmental support for human rights issues can help ensure that LGBT and other human rights organizations, embassies and other actors build closer networks and more effective relationships.

Placing the issues into context, Christoph Straesser, the German Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, noted that: “The question before us, as societies, organizations and persons wishing to protect and promote human rights, is how to halt negative developments, and further advance positive developments. There is no simple answer to this question.” Conceding that also in Germany, the process of recognition of the rights of LGBT persons has been a slow one, Straesser called on the Fellows of the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum “to help us identify answers.”

Having commenced his work in this position in January 2014, Straesser gave a clear message:

“Strengthening human rights across the world is a priority of Germany’s foreign policy. To achieve this goal, building sustainable networks of human rights defenders is of course of central importance. These can be formalized networks in the form of human rights organizations like those that many of you represent, but also more fluid networks, such as the one you are building with the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum.”

Straesser also stressed that Federal Foreign Office policy is based on the basic truth that “LGBT rights are human rights.”

Over the course of three days, the group of Salzburg Global LGBT Forum Fellows from China, India, Germany, Lebanon, Russia, South Africa, Syria, Uganda and Venezuela reflected on the progresses and setbacks in their own countries before meeting with and advising representatives from the German Foreign Office, the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European External Action Service, German and international human rights NGOs, as well as security experts, German parliamentarians, and representatives from the German Ministry of Family Affairs and the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Fellows had the opportunity to share experiences, ideas and concerns with key stakeholders in the German government as well as with diplomats from the embassies of Argentina, Brazil, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Spain, the US and the European Union. Besides encouraging embassy staff to engage more closely with local activists and integrate them in their outreach to civil society, the activists were encouraged to pro-actively seek and maintain contact with respective embassies.

To this end, Fellows were also offered valuable insights into the operation and procedures of the German Foreign Office, including internal hurdles such as small staffs with multiple portfolios and high turnovers – challenges faced by many other sympathetic countries’ diplomatic missions.

The Forum Fellows emphasized that on-the-ground activists provide valuable information for embassies representing LGBT-friendly countries. Well-intentioned actions – including fast-tracking asylum applications or posing for solidarity photos with local activists – can have both positive and negative consequences. Economic aid sanctions against hostile governments, such as those levied against Uganda in face of its 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act, or boycotts of international events in hostile host countries, such as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, among many other examples need continuous and close communication between embassies and human rights groups to help prevent backlash and advance shared goals.

Greater engagement with local activists can not only better inform embassies and international organizations of the LGBT situation in specific countries, but also when support should be discreet or public: the diplomatic pressure on the Serbian government that helped to secure freedom of assembly and Pride March in Belgrade, was discussed as one successful example. Diplomatic intervention by EU members, Germany included, led to integrating LGBT rights into the general human rights framework in some Balkan countries.

The session in Berlin culminated in the issuing of eleven concrete recommendations.

The meeting provided an invaluable opportunity to build on the foundations laid in Salzburg in 2013.

“The opportunity to engage in dialogue and debate in an open, conducive environment cannot be over-estimated,” said Mueller. A consensus was established that this “fluid network” can make a meaningful contribution towards creating long term global networks and sustaining LGBT human rights organizations.

“The combined expertise of the German Federal Foreign Office and the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum as well as the diverse range of participants collectively contributed to an enriching, mutually-beneficial experience,” added Mueller.

“For a network to truly live and thrive, there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. The momentum of Salzburg was sustained in Berlin through the processes of discovery, empathy and learning. It must now continue.”

Fellows’ recommendations on creating long-term global networks to sustain LGBT human rights organizations

There are no easy answers and no “short-cuts” to supporting, enhancing and sustaining LGBT rights. What does make a difference is ongoing networking, engagement and dialogue between diplomatic missions and LGBT human rights organizations. Some of the concrete recommendations resulting from the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum include:

1. Roundtables and dialogs between donors and activists to discuss LGBT strategies should be increased, not only in countries where LGBT rights are under threat, but before they are under threat. For example, the EU-supported NGO Forum in Lebanon works well in this regard and could be replicated elsewhere.
2. Donors and supporters of LGBT groups should focus on a multiplicity of issues, not only hate speech or physical violence. In many contexts the major challenges faced by LGBT communities relate to labor, health, housing, family and educational policies.
3. International groups need to focus on mainstreaming LGBT rights in accepted rights like freedom of expression, assembly and association.
4. In countries where LGBT activists are facing persecution, imprisonment, and even the death penalty, the international community should consider creating systems for travel visas and protection programs in support of human rights activists.
5. Training and capacity building for LGBT activists and groups plays a critical role in many places and support for these kinds of activities needs to be increased. Capacity building is critical to advancing the ability of civil society and activists and to building a common thread in countries affected by this issue. However, this support needs to move beyond capital cities to expand work in rural areas and secondary cities.
6. In countries where LGBT communities are being persecuted, international sanctions should best be leveled against individual politicians – not aid budgets in general. A global reduction in development aid or development support creates a tool for governments to suggest that LGBT communities are to blame for reductions in international support.
7. International donors should not only support human rights activists, but also the communities and individuals affected by LGBT repression (evictions, job losses, etc.). It is critical to build support for programs that address special circumstances where communities are affected but where support is going to activists themselves.
8. Diplomatic missions should carefully manage public and non-public tools and engage with local civil society partners in order to ensure that the correct tool is chosen.
9. Overseas diplomatic missions should, wherever possible, attend Gay Pride parades and other LGBT events, as they can provide a critical safety mechanism for activists and communities.
10. More international pressure needs to be brought to bear on the people and organizations that are funding the politics of hate and anti-democratic movements.
11. The international debate needs to be shifted away from talking about the “developed” and “developing” world, and toward a discussion focusing on countries that protect the human rights of LGBT communities and those that do not. For example, countries like Argentina, Brazil and the Philippines can play a significant role in changing the dynamics of the North vs. South debate.

Following their meeting in 2014, many of these recommendations from the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum are now being implemented by the German Federal Foreign Office and have since been developed further through our regular discussions with foreign ministries in our subsequent sessions.