Ministry Statements & Speeches:
New Zealand supports equal rights for all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. We remain concerned at instances of inequality based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
We welcome the work undertaken to date by the Independent Expert and wish to express our continued support for the mandate.
We wish to stress the importance of his work and we welcome the Independent Expert’s focus on the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Despite the well-established framework within international human rights law that prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, the UN human rights mechanisms continue to receive reports, from all regions, of violence against individuals in the LGBTI community.
These reports include acts of physical violence, (such as murder, beatings, kidnappings and sexual assault), and psychological violence (such as threats, coercion and the arbitrary deprivation of liberty, including forced psychiatric incarceration). Further, when individuals from the LGBTI community seek protection from such violence, they can be subject to harassment, humiliation, abuse or arrest.
New Zealand considers the level of violence faced by individuals in the LGBTI community to be of significant concern. We urge member states to support the renewal of the Independent Expert’s mandate and allow for his continued work on the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.