LGBT rights monitoring

Rainbow cake

During September-October 2012 “Public Information and Need of Knowledge” NGO implemented LGBT rights monitoring.

The monitoring aims to study the situation of LGBT rights in Armenia focusing on the last two years. This monitoring is intended to supplement two reasearches conducted earlier by “Public Information and Need of Knowledge” NGO, which were implemented in the frames of “We and Our Rights” project.

During the monitoring LGBT rights violations were studied in institutions and spheres of life such as education, employment, family, healthcare, police, army, religion and social life.

Overall, 111 people took part in the survey, from which 13 are females and 98 are males.

During the monitoring of the survey some interesting details were brought out about LGBT people’s rights violations in different spheres that were studied.

Education

The fear that discrimination against them is inevitable, if their sexual orientation or gender identity is disclosed in an educational institution, prevails for LGBT people. Moreover, in most cases LGBT people get subjected to discrimination by other students in educational institutions. The most common type of discrimination in educational institution is hate speech, which was addressed to them based on their sexual orientation and gender identity (hereinafter SOGI). It is interesting that there is even a limit of scientific research work related to LGBT topics. According to this, the student is limited in their own work and that topics related to LGBT people are still considered to be impermissible in educational institutions.

Employment

At first sight it may seem that LGBT people do not have any problems in the labor sphere, as discrimination based on SOGI seems to mostly not exist. However, there is another explanation to this phenomenon. The overwhelming majority of respondents feel the need to conceal their SOGI in the workplace. It is interesting that private sector employees are more inclined to hide their SOGI (54%), than the employees of other sectors. In this sense, non-governmental organization employees are more open.

Family

In families LGBT people prefer to keep silent about their SOGI. So, more than half of the respondents (54%) did not come out about their SOGI in families, which means that the fear of being discriminated and alienated from their families prevails for LGBT people, if their family members get to know their SOGI.

Psychological pressure is one of the most encountered forms of discrimination in the family. The second most popular form of discrimination in the family are the pressures to change one’s SOGI. There were also cases, when, finding out about the LGBT person’s SOGI, they were kicked out of their home.

Healthcare

The most common form of discrimination within healthcare institutions are mockery and ridicule.

Police

Police is one of the institutions which is directly related to detection of discrimination cases and the work done around the issues. At the same time it is also considered to be a separate institution, where LGBT people often face manifestations of discrimination. Comparing to other spheres, forms of discrimination towards LGBT people in this sphere manifest the most.

Almost half of the respondents, 41 people, faced a disrespectful and ironic attitude by police officers. 21 were asked very personal questions. Cases where LGBT people applied and were refused to sign a protocol about their violated rights were common as well.

Military

Military service is compulsory in Armenia, which means that every male citizen, who is eligible to military service, must serve in the Armenian military. It is assumed that GBT people must serve in the military as well, but if their SOGI is disclosed then they are exempted from compulsory military service. As a reason a person’s mental health problems are mentioned.

However, 34 of GBT respondents have served in compulsory military service. 65 GBT people did not complete compulsory military service, but only 13 of them brought up their SOGI as a reason for their exemption. There are also cases when a person was subjected to a discriminatory attitude during military service after their SOGI was revealed.

As it was expected, 10 of the GBT respondents report that their SOGI was considered a disease at the military commission.

More than half of the 18 GBT respondents whose SOGI was revealed within the military commission noticed that their SOGI has been discussed with other military commission co-workers, so their right of private life had been violated. 9 respondents reported about another violation of right of private life when they were asked very personal questions.

LGBT people explain their own vulnerability as the result of the lack of public awareness, intolerance, and with LGBT people’s vulgar and offensive behavior.

Overall, LGBT people consider themselves happy, they have people towards whom they feel close, are surrounded with loved ones and do not have a feeling of emptiness.

Human rights violations form a small number in the results of the survey, which may lead to the assumption that LGBT people are fully protected. However, this is conditioned by the fact that LGBT people prefer to conceal their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Lusine Saghumyan