by Rex Wockner
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
ILGA-Europe –
The European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association — has launched a large-scale project to document the advance of LGBT rights and related social changes across the continent.
"Rainbow Europe: ILGA-Europe Annual Report on the Situation for LGBTI People in Europe" will appear on the group's website at the beginning of next year.
"Already for a couple of years, ILGA-Europe produced the Rainbow Europe Map identifying the legal situation for LGB people in Europe, and in 2010 we started comparing and indexing them," said Communications Manager Juris Lavrikovs. "We want to cover LGB and TI issues, we want to monitor and document developments in many more areas. … More importantly, we want to start a proper indexing and comparison so it will be easy to identify and follow the changes and developments."
The project will track legislation and policy, statements by politicians and other prominent or influential individuals, law-enforcement activity, court activity, research and polls, LGBTI-movement developments and other areas.
It also will follow all LGBTI-related developments at the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"For European decision makers, politicians, media, researchers and students this will be an 'all in one' annual document providing them with an overview of the situation across Europe," Lavrikovs said. "We believe this will be a valuable tool to advocacy work on the national level as the advocates at the national level will be able to compare their countries, to measure their national situation and developments to established European standards and consequently build stronger claims and arguments."
The project will rely, in part, on information provided by activists on the ground. Information can be submitted to [email protected].
