The Permanent Secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy (RedLad) platform to boost Democracy and Human Rights, composed of more than 450 organizations, Official Member of the Civil Society Forum of the OAS and Regional Chapter of the World Movement for Democracy (WMD), fully supports the inclusion of issues of sexual orientation and gender identity in the project "American Convention on Human Rights of the Elderly Persons in the Organization of American States".

The Working Group on the Protection of Human Rights of the Elderly is currently carrying out the project, in which the original text of April 30, 2012, included sexual orientation and gender identity as categories relevant to identity of older people and therefore protected by Articles 2 °, 5 °, 6 °, 8 ° and 30 ° of that text. However, the Peruvian delegation to the OAS has proposed removing the topic, not using the term sexual orientation not be established in the Peruvian Constitution.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity and / or gender expression is common in the continent. Patterns of abuse are widespread in every country in the Americas, in some cases carried out by civil society actors and / or state authorities.

This situation has led to countries like Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, United States, Uruguay and others to implement local, state or national protection tools against sexual orientation discrimination.

For this reason, a group of activists has drafted a letter to express concern about the performance of the Peruvian Delegation and its proposal to exclude sexual orientation as a protected category against discrimination of the draft Convention, despite the latter that section 2, subsection 2 of the Constitution of Peru prohibits discrimination on origin, race, sex, language, religion, opinion, economic or other nature. Leaving this last sentence an open clause to identify any other possible cause of discrimination other than those expressly enumerated in the constitutional provision.

Appreciating the support offered so far by the delegations of the countries of the Working Group on the Protection of Human Rights of the Elderly Person, and the important initiative that the government of Argentina is underway in this area, is sought adhesion of Civil Society Organizations in this important action. [Here you can view the text of the letter].

In order to include the signatures in the request, organizations must send an email to the address personasmayoresoea@yahoo.com.ar, including country of origin and the name of the organization.

Finally, send the accessions no later than January 23, 2013, because the committee meets again on Monday, 28 January.

It invites all Redlad organizations, Civil Society Organizations of continent and governmental and intergovernmental authorities of the OAS and its dependencies, to join this important initiative for the vindication of human rights and the deepening of social equity and non- discrimination in all sectors of society.


Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe para la Democracia
San José, Costa Rica
http://www.redlad.org/