World Wide Wave

27 Oct 2012

Norway: Promoting worldwide LGBT acceptance

Europe

 “I think Scandinavia is different from the rest of the world…in terms of accepting homosexuality,” says Per-Kristian Foss, who was the first openly gay head of state during his brief tenure as Norway’s prime minister..

Norway passed decriminalisation laws in 1972, anti-discrimination laws in 1981 and equal marriage laws in 2009.

And now they are working with other countries, such as Kenya and Nepal, to support the international gay rights movement.

“It’s a highly politicised field what we’re working in, it’s interesting coming in from the West.” comments Marna Eide, of LLH, Norway’s LGBT-rights organisation.

But LLH is approaching LGBT equality as a partnership and mutual learning process. “There’s lots to learn from our point of view when entering into these partnerships…for example the way that transgendered are seen in Nepal,” says Ms Eide.

Her co-worker, Ida Bergstrom, believes that Norway may achieve LGBT politically emancipation within the next decade. “In a society where most of our formal rights are in place…what we have to work with now are people’s attitudes.”

“We’re not very good at transgender rights. We still lag behind there, as with the other European countries,” says Ms. Bergstrom.

Read, listen and learn more on W3JOY’s Norway webpage.

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