Subject: LESBIAN STATEMENT AT WCW PLENARY
From: Sabina Astete <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Oct 1995 05:33:55 GMT

Date: 10:07 PM  Oct 13, 1995 
From: [email-masked]
APC Conference: igc:women.unwcw

International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
Beijing, China
13 September 1995

Statement delivered by 
Palesa Beverley Ditsie of South Africa

Madam Chair,

It is a great honor to have the opportunity to address this 
distinguished body on behalf of the International Gay and Lesbian 
Human Rights Commission, the International Lesbian Information 
Service, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, and over fifty 
other organizations.  My name is Palesa Beverley Ditsie and I am 
from Soweto, South Africa where I have lived all my life and 
experienced both tremendous joy and pain within my community.  
I come from a country that has recently had an opportunity to 
start afresh, an opportunity to strive for a true democracy where the 
people govern and where emphasis is placed on the human rights of 
all people.  The Constitution of South Africa prohibits discrimination 
on the basis of race, gender, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual 
orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, or 
language.  In his opening parliamentary speech in Cape Town on the 
9th of April 1994, His Excellency Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, State 
President of South Africa, received resounding applause when he 
declared that never again would anyone be discriminated against on 
the basis of sexual orientation. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the 
"inherent dignity and . . . the equal and inalienable rights of all 
members of the human family," and guarantees the protection of the 
fundamental rights and freedoms of all people "without distinction of 
any kind, such as race, color, sex, language . . . or other status" (art. 
2).  Yet every day, in countries around the world, lesbians suffer 
violence, harassment and discrimination because of their sexual 
orientation.  Their basic human rights -- such as the right to life, to 
bodily integrity, to freedom of association and expression -- are 
violated.  Women who love women are fired from their jobs; forced 
into marriages; beaten and murdered in their homes and on the 
streets; and have their children taken away by hostile courts.  Some 
commit suicide due to the isolation and stigma that they experience 
within their families, religious institutions and their broader 
community.  These and other abuses are documented in a recently 
released report by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights 
Commission on sexual orientation and women's human rights, as well 
as in reports by Amnesty International.  Yet the majority of these 
abuses have been difficult to document because although lesbians 
exist everywhere in the world (including Africa), we have been 
marginalized and silenced and remain invisible in most of the world. 
In 1994, the United Nations Human Rights Committee declared 
that discrimination based on sexual orientation violates the right to 
non-discrimination and the right to privacy guaranteed in the 
International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.  Several countries 
have passed legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual 
orientation.  If the World Conference on Women is to address the 
concerns of all women, it must similarly recognize that discrimination 
based on sexual orientation is a violation of basic human rights.  
Paragraphs 48 and 226 of the Platform for Action recognize that 
women face particular barriers in their lives because of many 
factors, including sexual orientation.  However, the term "sexual 
orientation" is currently in brackets.  If these words are omitted 
from the relevant paragraphs, the Platform for Action will stand as 
one more symbol of the discrimination that lesbians face, and of the 
lack of recognition of our very existence.  

No woman can determine the direction of her own life without 
the ability to determine her sexuality.  Sexuality is an integral, 
deeply ingrained part of every human being's life and should not be 
subject to debate or coercion.  Anyone who is truly committed to 
women's human rights must recognize that every woman has the 
right to determine her sexuality free of discrimination and 
oppression.  

I urge you to make this a conference for all women, regardless 
of their sexual orientation, and to recognize in the Platform for 
Action that lesbian rights are women's rights and that women's 
rights are universal, inalienable, and indivisible human rights.  I urge 
you to remove the brackets from sexual orientation. Thank you.