WUNRN
Direct Link to Full 75-Page Guide:
Activist's Guide to the Yogyakarta
Principles
New Toolkit to Advance Equality on Grounds of
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
We are glad to share
with you a new toolkit for LGBTI advocacy the
Activist's Guide
to the
Yogyakarta Principles.
This toolkit, the product of a collective effort, is designed to assist
activists around the world in drawing upon the Yogyakarta Principles to advance
LGBTI rights.
It presents several creative examples of ways in which LGBTI activists have already used the Yogyakarta Principles to make significant gains, and suggests strategies for further engagement with the Principles.
The Yogyakarta Principles are a set of principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity. They were developed in response to well-documented patterns of abuse directed toward persons because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
In India, Voices against 377 and the Naz Foundation used the Yogyakarta Principles to support a successful challenge to s. 377 of the Indian Penal Code - a relic of the colonial era used to harass and criminalise members of the LGBTI communities. Sunita Kujur of CREA, a member of Voices against 377, noted: "It is difficult to ignore something that is based on international human rights law. The Activist's Guide is a much needed document because it is not easy for everyone to understand the applicability of the Yogyakarta Principles. It is a powerful advocacy document that can equip the community to use international human rights law in the domestic sphere - otherwise there is this big divide between the worlds of international human rights law and grassroots advocacy or activism."
Please click here for press release and click here for backgrounder about the Guide. Copies of the Activist's Guide may be ordered or downloaded, in English and Spanish, from www.ypinaction.org.