and freedoms regardless of gender,
race, nationality, language, origin,
property and official position, place
of residence, religion, benefits,
membership of public associations
or other circumstances. As you
can notice sexual orientation is
not listed here. Therefore there
isn`t the direct prohibition of
discrimination and
abuse . As a result there is no
sanctions in criminal and labor
law for infringement of sexual
minorities rights. On the one hand
it is a gap but on the other hand
any law reflects the views of the
certain society. So, it is not a gap,
it is unreadiness or unwillingness of
the society to accept the existence
of queers and recognize their
normality. In Russia it is a wide-
spread opinion that homosexuality
is a disease, psycho abnormality.
So queers are often afraid to make
coming out because not only
social isolation can take place
threat to life
and health . And danger
but also real
threatens not only queers but
social activist and lawyers who
defend queers rights too. It isn`t
worth mentioning the names of
Russian homophobic organizations
but some of them actively call for
killing representatives of queers
society. The police must carry out
investigative actions aimed at
identification, prosecution and
punishment of these organizations
according to
the criminal code
but nowadays there are no specific
laws that defend sexual minorities
rights. The police often doesn`t
provide necessary help to victims.
So queers don`t exist for those who
must first and foremost protect
human rights and ensure their
safety.
To sum up
the task of
paramount importance in Russia
is firstly to change the society, to
get rid the society of stereotypes
concerned with queers. And then
it will become possible to change
legislation. There are different ways
how to do it. It can be in two ways:
from the top to the bottom and from
the bottom to the top. Speaking
about the first one it should
be the initiated by the state to
propagandize the queer culture, to
educate teens and youth in schools,
universities and support in media
including state media. But speaking
about the second one activists
should struggle against prejudice
by uniting progressive interested
people for whom it is important to
protect humans rights, organizing
different events, workshops,
projects. It can be even
smaller
impute – you should just
release you friends, colleagues,
relatives from stereotypes.
So, DO it!
*partly based on the article «Law position of sexual minorities in Russia today» by A.A. Romanova