Geographically, the mandates of Special Procedures cover all the parts of the world, and they made SOGIESC-inclusive communications or country reports on states from all five UN geographical clusters.

Taking into account the local situations and regional trends, this distribution is generally balanced. The highest number of references were made on countries from the Asia-Pacific Group (15 items), followed by the African Group (13 items), the Latin American and Caribbean Group – GRULAC (12 items), the Eastern European Group – EEG (10 items), and then the Western European and Others Group – WEOG with only 8 items.

2019 SOGIESC communications and country visits – According to UN regions

Communications

29 new communications on SOGIESC – letters concerning allegations of human rights violations – were sent by thematic mandates for the period from 1 June 2018 to 31 May 2019 and published in three Human Rights Council (HRC) reports in 2019.   

The vast majority of the communications (26) were made with the Independent expert on SOGI. The other top three mandates were the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression (16 communications each), and the Working Group on discrimination against women (13 communications). In a welcome advance, five mandates (food, sale of children, counter-terrorism, trafficking, and water and sanitation) made their first communications covering LGBTI topics.

Communications covering SOGIESC issues were sent to 21 states in all regions: Armenia, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritius, Peru, Romania, Russian Federations, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United States of America.

Countries that received communcations

While most of the communications were addressed to states, one was sent to the UN Refugee Agency – UNHCR, and another to the International Association of Athletics Federations – IAAF.

When it comes to specific populations and topics, the vast majority of communications were related to the situation of LGBTI human rights defenders and challenges they face due to their activities. Some communications went beyond this important area, and examined other areas of human rights where LGBTI face challenges.

Only one communication concerned intersex persons specifically. Three communications referred to discrimination and violence against LGBTI migrants or refugees, and two communications raised the problem of criminalisation of consensual same-sex sexual acts. Four communications addressed limitations on dissemination of SOGIESC-related information, particularly in education.

Country visits

In 31 reports on visits thematic mandates made to 25 different countries, the Special Procedures referred to LGBTI issues.

Country visit reports published

The countries are in all regions: Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Bhutan, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, Georgia, Honduras, Ireland, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Malaysia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Poland, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Thailand, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Uruguay.

Thematic reports

Special Procedures also included SOGIESC elements in their thematic reports to the Human Rights Council and General Assembly. 34 reports (almost 50% of all the thematic reports presented in 2019) mentioned at least some LGBTI topics, with 11 of these reports – set out in the table below – including good or strong references to LGBTI populations.

_{Photo credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten}