Australia Wednesday is hosting one of the world’s largest LGBTQ Human Rights Conferences. The event is part of Sydney WorldPride 2023, which half-a-million people are expected to attend.
Discrimination and abuse are the focus of the three-day human rights conference that is one of the centerpieces of the festival in Sydney.
The conference runs March 1-3 and brings together dozens of Australian and international experts. Organizers say it will highlight the “horrific abuse” of people in 70 countries where being gay is illegal.
There has been significant social change in Australia over the years. Marriage equality laws were passed in 2017 and the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex is the same. But in dozens of other countries being gay is illegal.
Anna Brown, chief executive of the advocacy organization Equality Australia, told VOA that homophobia is rife.
Brown said that, “Around the world we see LGBTQ+ people criminalized because of who they are or who they love. There’re still 70 countries that criminalize same-sex sexual acts and we need to make sure that as a community we move forward together.”
She listed the actions still needed, including, “ending conversion practices that try and tell LGBTI people that we are somehow disordered or broken; protecting LGBTI people seeking safety and asylum; First Nations justice; and responding to these increasing threats to trans and gender-diverse inclusion, including in places like Australia, the US and UK.”
WorldPride promotes LGBTQ rights around the world. It was first staged in Rome in 2000 and has also been held in Jerusalem, London and Madrid.
The next festival will be in Washington, DC in two years.
One of the highlights of Sydney WorldPride 2023 was the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade last Saturday. Anthony Albanese became the first Australian prime minister to march in the event, joining 12,500 others.
Albanese said his government is committed to ending inequality based on sexuality or identity.
