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New Delhi: Discouraging the « discrimination » and « intolerance » towards homosexuals in India, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that he stood firm for equality for everyone in the society.
« I am proud to stand for the equality of all people, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. I speak out because laws criminalising consensual, adult same-sex relationships violate basic rights to privacy and to freedom from discrimination. Even if they are not enforced, these laws breed intolerance, » the UN Secretary General said.
Advocating for the abolition of the controversial Article 377 in the Constitution that criminalizes homosexuality, he said, « Indian government should really promote the human rights of those people with different sexual orientation, homosexuality. This penal code should be decriminalized for those people of homosexuality. »
His comments came after Goa Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar on Monday sparked a row by saying that government is contemplating setting up centres to make LGBT youth ‘normal’. Tawadkar said that the LGBT youth will be trained and administered medicine in order to make them ‘normal’.
After facing flak for his comments, the Goa minister took a U turn and said that he was misunderstood and misquoted on the issue. « I was not talking about the LGBT (youths) but about drug addicted and sexually abused youths, » Tawadkar said.
« Youth policy speaks about drug addicted youths and sexually abused youths as a focused group. There are provisions in the central government sponsored Social Justice Scheme for such youths which can be implemented in Goa, » the minister said while clarifying his remarks.
The minister had refused to acknowledge LGBT as a focused group, though the youth policy document which is currently in public domain has mentioned them as one. « We will make them normal. We will have a centre for them. Like Alcoholic Anonymous centres, we will have centres. We will train them and give them medicines too, » the minister had said.
« Like in the case of other target groups such as juvenile offenders, drug afflicted youth, marginalised or migrant youth, geographically disadvantaged youth, a detailed survey would be carried out among state LGBT community, so that their problems could be specifically addressed, » he had added.