Fun Fast Facts:
Updated: 7 Apr 2014 (An invisible LGBTIQ community)
- Homosexual sex was decriminalised in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) in 1996 and in the Republika Srpska (RS) in 1998, by those two entities adopting their own criminal laws.
- The age of consent is 14, regardless of sexual orientation.
- There is no legal recognition of same-sex couples on a national or sub-national level.
- The Law on Equality of Sexes, adopted in early 2003 and amended in 2009, prohibits discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation (Article 2). The law makes clear distinction between sex and gender but sexual orientation remains undefined.
- In 2008, approximately 12 people were attacked at the start of the Queer Sarajevo Festival by a large group of Islamic fundamentalists. The attacks forced the organisers to make the rest of the festival a private event and to cancel it a couple of days later.
An invisible LGBTIQ community
Broadcast: 7 Apr 2014
LGBTIQ-friendly organisation: Organization Q
- Organization Q supports the promotion and protection of culture, identities, and human rights of queer persons.
- Mission – Organization Q works on the promotion and protection of the culture, identity, human rights and support to the LGBTIQ persons; elimination of all forms of discrimination and inequality based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression and intersexual characteristics.
- Vision – Organization Q’s vision is a society in which all persons live free from fear of themselves and of those who are different; a society which, through all of its segments, improves human rights and accepts and respects diversities of human sexuality.
- History – Although it began working on the issues of human rights of LGBTIQ persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina in September 2002, Organization Q became the first registered LGBTIQ organisation in February 2004. In September 2010, Organization Q finished its work on a longitudinal national project and in early 2011 closed its office in Sarajevo. Officially, since then, the Organization Q stopped being active in BiH and the region. However the website and mailing lists remain open and available for communication, consultations, support and certain types of cooperation.
W3JOY interviewed: Lydia Gall of Human Rights Watch
“I think it definitely helps that outside institutions and organisations do keep track of what’s going on and the lack of response, particularly in this case, by authorities. One of the things we are calling for (is) an official investigation being launched into this particular case with the aim of finding the perpetrators and bringing them to justice”
“However the fact that there are no high-ranking public officials that have made any sort of statements is very problematic and very emblematic of what is going on in terms of the struggle, the challenges that the LGBT community in Bosnia is facing.”
“This is the sad fact that the LGBT community in Bosnia, they are very invisible. And a lot of the LGBT activists and their supporters live in hiding; they don’t feel that they can come out and actively propagate for their rights without either being attacked or being subjected to hate speech or if something happens to them…feeling that the authorities will not take it seriously.”
“There are improvements as well. There are certain regions in the federation where police have made certain commitments in terms of the training of police officers on various LGBT issues and challenges faced by LGBT people.”
“This is not just in Bosnia and Herzegovina – it’s across the Balkans – where we have a similar phenomenon where LGBT people are subjected to constant threats, attacks.”