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Foreign Minister Maas on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia

17.05.2021 - Press release

On the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas today (17 May) issued the following statement:

Human rights are inalienable and universal, irrespective of sexual orientation. In all societies around the globe, however, people who do not fit in with traditional notions of gender continue to encounter discrimination or even violence. We are countering this with our human rights policy. In this endeavour, we use diplomatic and foreign-policy instruments at all levels: in international bodies, we campaign for the human rights of LGBTI people to be respected, protected and guaranteed; we support the work of civil-society organisations engaged at local, regional or international level; we provide spaces for dialogue and promote encounters and support in our project and cultural work. In March, in order to dovetail all these approaches and make the issue a fixed element of our work, the Federal Government adopted the LGBTI Inclusion Strategy for Foreign Policy and Development Cooperation. Because it is clear that our commitment to human rights applies to everyone, but especially to those whose rights are being denied. Love is not a crime.

Background information:

Discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is not compatible with Art. 3 of Germany’s Basic Law. Worldwide engagement for the human rights of LGBTI people is a horizontal function of German human rights policy. To make this engagement more strategic and more visible, the Federal Government adopted its LGBTI Inclusion Strategy for Foreign Policy and Development Cooperation on 3 March 2021. The Strategy states that the human rights of LGBTI people are consistently to be taken into account in foreign policy and development cooperation. The Strategy takes up key demands from civil society, for instance that LGBTI issues be embedded in the context of human rights, or that special emphasis be placed on the particular vulnerability of minors.

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