Lobbying the Commonwealth on Decriminalization

Following a successful relationship developed with the Commonwealth over the last two years, especially its Human Rights Unit, we have continued to impress on the Commonwealth the need to take the discussion to the table at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth Australia.

Read our letters from here…

• Kevin Rudd, Australian Foreign Minister

• William Hague, UK Foreign Secretary

• David Cameron, UK Prime Minister

• David Dauth, Australian High Commissioner to the UK

The Commonwealth has never discussed the criminalization of LGBT people in its existence and as such, do not have any official position. In the two years we have worked with the Commonwealth, this has been one of our constant request and as we saw in July, the Secretary General finally did make a somewhat public statement. We welcomed that.

It was the first time a Commonwealth Secretary General has talked about homosexuality in such an open manner… at least recognizably so. We met with the Secretary General’s office after his speech and impressed on him the next level: to take this matter to CHOGM so as to get the appropriate mandate to work on it.

As CHOGM draws near, we have written to Australian officials, who according to the style of the Commonwealth, holds greater say in drawing up the agenda for the meeting. We have also written to other key officials including the UK Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary as well as the Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Our letter is simple; discuss this matter.

We hope this would yield fruits. We have a meeting scheduled to meet the Human Rights Unit of the Commonwealth Secretariat again at the end of October to begin drafting further steps.

We will not stop until the appropriate and right steps are taken towards removing hate and violent laws from the Commonwealth.