24/05/2013 Equality and Non-Discrimination
Strasbourg, 24.05.2013 - At the end of a hearing on the situation of transgender persons, the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination decided to further discuss the issue with a view to improve the situation of transgender persons particularly in the fields of health care, transphobic hate crime and gender recognition.
According to Amnesty International, about three in 10 of all transgender respondents said they were victims of violence or threats of violence more than three times in the past year; “While for lesbian, gay and bisexual people there is a geographical divide in Europe, with some countries having achieved great progress in terms of tolerance, there is no geographical divide for transgender people. They are discriminated against everywhere in Europe”, Nicolas Berger, Director of the Amnesty International European Institutions Office, said.
"Transgender issues have historically been doused with stigma and stereotypes. Europe is starting to grow in awareness, starting to realise that transgender people have suffered injustice for too long."
"Education is the passport to the future," Vanessay Lacey, an Irish Health and Education Officer, Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI), stressed in a presentation of her own situation as a transgender person. She particularly underlined the need to combat transphobic hate crimes which come in different guises: hate speech, psychological abuse, domestic abuse, property damage, rape, physical abuse and murder.