by Rex Wockner
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The Non-Governmental Organizations Committee of the United Nations' Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Feb. 4 again rejected a request for consultative status from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (also known as ILGA).
The committee voted to take "no action" on the request and to reconsider it in May.
Seven nations supported moving to an actual vote on granting ILGA the status to access U.N. meetings, deliver oral and written reports, contact country representatives and organize events at the U.N. They were Belgium, Bulgaria, India, Israel, Turkey, Peru and the United States. Opposed were Burundi, China, Morocco, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Sudan and Venezuela. Kyrgyzstan abstained and Cuba and Mozambique were not present.
The NGO Committee only rarely has approved consultative status for LGBT organizations, though its refusals have several times been overridden by the full ECOSOC.
Groups that have finally achieved consultative status include International Wages Due Lesbians, Australia's Coalition of Activist Lesbians, ILGA-Europe (an autonomous division of ILGA), Landsforeningen for Bosser og Lesbiske (Denmark's National Association for Gays and Lesbians), Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland (Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany), the Swedish national LGBT group RFSL (whose former initials now are its full name), Coalition Gaie et Lesbienne du Quebec (Quebec Gay and Lesbian Coalition), COC Netherlands (a national LGBT group whose former initials are now its full name), Associacao Brasileira de Gays, Lesbicas e Transgeneros (Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians and Transgenders), and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
ILGA had ECOSOC status from 1993 to 1994 but was stripped of it following a scandal, orchestrated by the U.S. right wing, in which a small number of ILGA's hundreds of member organizations were accused of not taking a strong enough position on age of consent.
Around 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have U.N. consultative status.
