In a “Human Rights Comment” published on Thursday 16 February, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, notes that “positive momentum” has been built in Europe to ban conversion “therapies” for LGBTI people, but says she is “well aware” that “progress is not straightforward”.
In 2016, Malta became the first European country to ban these practices, which are generally based on psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioural therapy, or even methods involving electroshock or nausea-inducing substances, medical intervention and a faith-based approach sometimes involving insults or exorcisms.
Germany has banned their advertising. Many regions and cities in Spain have already taken steps to ban them. France and Greece have taken action, and Albania has adopted guidelines to prohibit psychologists from promoting or applying them.
Plans for a ban are under consideration in Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where the process has been held up - but not stopped - by debates over whether it should continue to apply to trans people.
It is estimated that in the European Union 2% of LGBTI people have experienced conversion therapies and 5% have been offered them.
The actual figures may be much higher, since [these practices] often take place under secretive conditions, says Ms Mijatović.
Prohibitions must be “precise and enforceable”, the Commissioner warns, urging governments to “challenge” rhetoric that portrays LGBTI people as “deviant or abnormal”.
“Diverse sexual orientations and gender identities or expressions are not to be repressed or changed,” she concludes. “They are an expression of the rich diversity of human beings.”
Link to the “Human Rights Comment”: https://aeur.eu/f/5d3 (Véronique Leblanc)