A human rights group has warned a travel ban on 12 countries imposed by Donald Trump will disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ people and other vulnerable groups.
The 78-year-old US president signed a proclamation in the early hours of Thursday (5 May) banning travel to the US for nationals of several countries.
Countries whose citizens are now banned from entering the US are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
The White House cited several national security concerns in a statement after Trump signed the travel ban, claiming it would help protect the US from “foreign terrorists.”
But the proclamation was described as “truly punitive” by Human Rights First attorney, Robyn Barnard, who said the US is trying to punish the countries on the travel ban list.
Speaking to BBC World Service, Barnard, who describes herself as an “immigrant several times over,” said the travel ban mirrors an executive order signed during Trump’s first term in 2017 which banned citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days.
“There is no clear thread between each,” she said, noting the only “commonalities” between the two travel bans are that several of the countries have “restrictive policies against women and girls and [LGBTQ+] individuals and others,” the travel ban will make it impossible for these discriminated-against groups to “reunite with loved ones in the US”, in the words of Human Rights First.
She continued: “It really feels like it’s about punishment and creating more chaos and dysfunction in our immigration system.”
LGBTQ+ people, women, and girls would be disproportionately affected by the travel ban, experts have said. (Getty)
Hours after Trump signed the travel ban, the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform: “We don’t want them.”
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He cited a recent attack in Boulder Colorado in which 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman threw a set of Molotov cocktails into a crowd of protestors, injuring at least 15 people, according to AP.
Mr Soliman, who was being held by Colorado Police on a $10 million cash-only bond, is an Egyptian national; a country which does not appear on Trump’s travel ban.
Regardless, Trump wrote that the attack “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted,” as well as those who “come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas.”
On the same day, the president also signed an executive order restricting the right for foreign students to study at Harvard University under temporary visas.
Tens of thousands of Romanians joined an LGBTQ Pride march in Bucharest on Saturday, demanding civil union partnership legislation and equal rights after a highly-contested presidential election last month buoyed the far right. The European Union state has so far ignored a 2023 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which found Romania had failed to enforce the rights of same-sex couples by refusing to recognise their relationships.
Socially conservative Romania decriminalised homosexuality in 2001, decades later than other parts of the EU, but still bars marriage and civil partnerships for same-sex couples. In Bucharest, marchers danced and carried the rainbow flag 20 years after the first Pride parade was held, carrying banners such as “Love is the worst feeling you could hate”, “Equality in love, equality in inheritance. Civil partnership for all”. Roughly 30,000 people attended the parade, ACCEPT estimated.
Victor Ciobotaru, executive director of ACCEPT Association, an LGBTQ+ rights group, told The Associated Press that throughout the 2024-2025 election cycle, the organization registered “a huge increase” in hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community.
“We had more people complaining about being harassed on the streets or being attacked,” he said. “This hate speech doesn’t remain without effect. We can feel the tension within the society … We are going to continue to fight for our rights, no matter the political climate.”
Earlier on Saturday, right-wing groups who advocate for traditional family values and oppose same-sex marriage held an anti-LGBT countermarch in the capital, with many waving Romania’s tricolor national flag and others holding placards depicting religious icons.
Trump’s US ambassador to Romania, Darryl Nirenberg, is the former chief of staff to infamously anti-gay Sen. Jesse Helms, who croaked in 2008.
A “warm-hearted” London-based scientist was lured on Grindr before being killed and dismembered, police in Colombia have said.
Alessandro Coatti, 38, was last seen leaving his hostel in Santa Marta on 4 April.
The microbiologist, who had recently left his role at the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) after eight years as a senior policy officer, had told staff at his hostel that he wanted to learn about the local flora and fauna.
On 6 April, Coatti’s head, hands and feet were found in a suitcase near the Sierra Nevada Stadium. His other body parts were found the following day in a suitcase by the Minuto de Dios Bridge, the day after his legs were found a coffee bag in the Villa Betal neighbourhood.
Police, who initially thought Coatti’s death could have been linked to a violent war between two rival gangs in the city, now believe he was lured to his death by a group of thieves who target their victims on Grindr.
A coroner determined that he died of blunt force trauma to the head.
‘Loved by everyone he worked with’
The RSB remembered Coatti, who was also known as Ale, as someone who was “funny, warm, intelligent” and “loved by everyone he worked with”.
Tribute adds that he “will be deeply missed by all who knew and worked with him”.
A memorial page, organised for Coatti by RSB, features a memory wall of comments from people who knew him.
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One person wrote that he was a “delightful person toward with” and “warm-hearted”.
Another wrote: “He was knowledgeable, insightful and brought a warmth and humour to his role. Ale often had a mischievous twinkle in his eye before saying something that made me laugh.”
“Words cannot adequately express the profound sorrow I feel for a beautiful life cut so short,” someone else shared on the page.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, local human rights activist Vera Salazar said there have been 13 similar murders in the region in the last year.
In a statement posted on X, Santa Marta mayor Carlos Pinedo Cuello offered a reward of 50 million pesosfor information in the case.
The post was captioned: “The Santa Marta District Mayor’s Office emphatically rejects any act of violence and reiterates its commitment to defending public space and the safety of public officials who work towards a more orderly and safer Santa Marta for everyone.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Grindr has been linked to the death or harm of an LGBTQ+ individual. Last year, a 20-year-old was found guilty of bludgeoning an army veteran he met though Grindr to death with a hammer, as well as the attempted murder of another man he met on the gay app.
A Grindr spokesperson has previously told The Guardian that the company was aware of attempts to misuse its service but said they worked hard to ensure “a safe and authentic environment, free of harmful and fake accounts”.
In a major victory for lesbian couples, Italy’s top court ruled this week that the same-sex partners of women who conceive via in vitro fertilization (IVF) have the right to be legally recognized as their children’s parents.
As Reuters reports, in a ruling announced on Thursday, May 22, Italy’s Constitutional Court found that it is unconstitutional to deny legal recognition to the nonbiological mother of children conceived abroad via IVF. Doing so, the court said, violates the children of lesbian couples’ rights to care, education, and emotional continuity from both parents.
Prior to the court’s decision, a 2004 law prevented the nonbiological mom in a same-sex couple from being registered as their child’s parent. But as the judges noted in their decision, confusion over the 2004 law has led to a patchwork of interpretations across Italy, with some mayors allowing nonbiological moms to be listed as parents on their children’s birth certificates while others only list the birth mothers.
“These divergent outcomes reflect a shifting social reality to which the legislature has yet to respond,” the judges wrote, according to Reuters.
In 2023, under the leadership of far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Interior Ministry began cracking down on cities that allowed both members of same-sex couples to be listed as “parents”— as opposed to “mother” and “father” — on their children’s birth registrations.
Thursday’s ruling, which strikes down part of the 2004 law, was hailed as “historic” by LGBTQ+ activists. Marilena Grassadonia, an advocate with the Italian Left opposition party, told Reuters that the decision “restores dignity and serenity to the many rainbow families who live in our country.”
However, the ruling did not extend the right to IVF treatment to single women or women in same-sex relationships. Under Italian law, only married heterosexual couples have the right to access medically assisted reproduction treatments like IVF. The court’s ruling only applies to women who seek IVF treatment abroad.
While same-sex civil unions have been legal in Italy since 2016, same-sex couples do not have the right to adopt, thanks in part to opposition from the Catholic Church. Surrogacy remains illegal as well, and restrictions preventing the adoption of “stepchildren” by nonbiological parents present major hurdles for gay fathers seeking to adopt children conceived via surrogacy abroad.
However, as Agence France-Presse reports, a court in northern Italy also ruled Thursday in favor of a nonbiological father’s right to adopt his child conceived abroad via surrogacy.
Chiara Soldatini, a lesbian mother who moved from Italy to Spain last year, celebrated the Constitutional Court’s decision. “I am happy no one will now be able to challenge the fact our son is our son,” she told Agence France-Presse. However, she noted that she would “only uncork the champagne when all those families with two dads can toast with me.”
Ugandan authorities have perpetrated widespread discrimination and violence against LGBT people in the two years since the Anti-Homosexuality Act became law.
The Ugandan authorities have spread misinformation and hatred against LGBT people, making existing discrimination even worse.
The Ugandan authorities should end their crackdown on LGBT people, repeal the bill, and introduce legislation barring discrimination and promoting equality.
(Nairobi, May 26, 2025) – Ugandan authorities have perpetrated widespread discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, their families, and their supporters in the two years since the Anti-Homosexuality Act was enacted on May 26, 2023, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 69-page report, “‘They’re Putting Our Lives at Risk’: How Uganda’s Anti-LGBT Climate Unleashes Abuse,” documents the actions by Ugandan parliament members, government institutions, and other authorities that culminated in the enactment of the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act. Human Rights Watch found that the law has ramped up already existing abuse and discrimination against LGBT people to unprecedented heights. They also detailed the rights violations enabled by the law and the devastating impact it has had on the lives of LGBT people, activists, allies, and their families in Uganda.
“For the last two years, LGBT Ugandans have suffered a range of abuses because of the government’s willful decision to legislate hate against them,” said Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Ugandan authorities need to urgently improve this environment, which enables a wide range of human rights violations and puts countless Ugandans at serious risk of abuse.”
During the months leading up to and following the law being passed, the Ugandan authorities, including high-profile political and government figures, used traditional and social media to spread misinformation and hatred against LGBT people, leading to an uptick in attacks and harassment against LGBT people and LGBT rights groups.
Researchers interviewed 59 people, including LGBT people, family members, representatives of LGBT rights organizations, activists, journalists, and lawmakers between August 2022 and April 2025. They reviewed the parliamentary records of the house debates about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, speeches by government figures and religious leaders, and media reporting in the lead-up to the passage of the bill.
Human Rights Watch found that in the lead-up to, and since the enactment of, the Anti-Homosexuality Act, the government has deliberately negatively shaped the public discourse about LGBT people in Uganda. This has encouraged attacks and harassment of individuals and independent organizations perceived as supportive of LGBT rights.
During this period, the authorities arbitrarily arrested and detained LGBT people, used entrapment via social media and dating apps, and extorted money from LGBT people in exchange for releasing them from police custody. LGBT people told Human Rights Watch they faced a range of physical attacks and online harassment because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or their LGBT rights activism. Many victims said they reported these attacks to the police, who took no discernible action.
The authorities, primarily the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations and the police, also led a crackdown against LGBT rights groups, shutting down organizations that provide vital legal, sexual, and mental health services, arresting and detaining their staff, and in some cases seizing equipment and soliciting bribes from their staff.
Many of the people Human Rights Watch interviewed said that while violence targeting LGBT people and anti-LGBT rhetoric existed well before the law was introduced, the hostility intensified during its adoption and since.
One LGBT rights activist said: “Before the bill was tabled [in February 2023], you would receive calls once in a while, where someone would say: ‘We know what you are doing.’… But when they started tabling the bill, that is when these calls started becoming a lot. Where people would keep on calling you [saying]: ‘We know where you stay. We know what you do.’”
On April 3, 2024, the Constitutional Court upheld most provisions of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, after a cross-section of human rights activists challenged the law on the grounds that it violates fundamental rights guaranteed in Uganda’s constitution. The court did, however, strike down sections that restricted healthcare access for LGBT people, criminalized renting premises to LGBT people, and created an obligation to report alleged acts of homosexuality.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the director of public prosecutions; the inspector general of police; the minister of health; the minister of information, communications technology, and national guidance; and the executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission, to provide a summary of research findings and to request information. None responded.
Ugandan authorities should end their clampdown on LGBT rights groups, refrain from engaging in anti-LGBT rhetoric and hate speech, and ensure that those responsible for incitement to hatred and other human rights abuses and crimes against LGBT people are held to account, Human Rights Watch said.
The government should repeal the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act and the Penal Code provisions criminalizing consensual same-sex conduct between adults. It should introduce comprehensive equality and nondiscrimination legislation that would protect everyone from violence and discrimination, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
“The state-sanctioned bigotry and discrimination that has only become more entrenched in Uganda over the past two years has no place in a society that upholds human rights and the rule of law,” Nyeko said. “Uganda should end its assault on LGBT people and choose a future of dignity, equality, and freedom for all those who live there.”
In a series of rushed hearings closed to the public at Apple’s request, a Moscow court on Monday fined the tech giant in three separate cases for violating Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda laws.
They’re the first cases brought against the company under the latest iteration of laws meant to erase LGBTQ+ identity, which President Vladimir Putin has called evidence of moral decay in the West.
Apple was found guilty of three administrative offenses related to “LGBT propaganda” and fined 7.5 million rubles, or about $93,500. A fourth case alleging Apple failed to take down unspecified non-LGBTQ+ online content that Moscow deems illegal earned a fourth fine for the company.
At the start of the first hearing, Apple’s representative, Elena Chetverikova, requested the proceedings be closed to the press and public because proprietary information about the company would be disclosed. It remains unclear precisely what Apple’s violation of laws related to “LGBTQ+ propaganda” was.
Adding to the confusion, the judge in the case, Alexandra Anokhina, rushed through her summary after the public was invited back into court following the first hearing.
Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona elaborated: “Our reporter notes that the judge read the decision at such a rapid pace it was virtually impossible to grasp the precise details of the claims. We then approached the court’s press secretary to request that a summary of the official court record be released for clarity. The response was terse: ‘The hearing is closed.’”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Apple has often yielded to Roskomnadzor, the country’s censorship agency, enabling the company to largely maintain its operations in Russia.
Based on research from digital rights group GreatFire and Apple’s own transparency report, the tech giant removed twelve applications at Russia’s behest in 2023. The apps allegedly violated laws enacted to silence dissent and counter “fake news” about the military, contrary to the state’s narrative about the war.
Amid a resurgent crackdown on dissent in 2024, Apple removed nearly sixty applications at Roskomnadzor’s request from the Russian App Store between July and mid-September, many without any public notification. Among them were several major VPN services, which enable secure, encrypted connections between servers and users.
In the aftermath, Amnezia VPN’s developers described Apple as “the largest provider of censorship in the world.”
Apple went on to restrict access to podcasts from BBC Russian, investigative news site The Insider, and Ekho Moskvy, a liberal radio station. In November, another fine was levied against the company for failing to delete unspecified “prohibited information.”
Apple was subject to Moscow’s first major punitive action around “LGBTQ+ propaganda” in August 2023, when a Moscow court fined the company for failing to remove “inaccurate” content concerning the war in Ukraine and accused it of targeting minors with LGBTQ+ content in a “destabilization” effort directed at the government.
That hearing was also held behind closed doors at Apple’s request, with company representatives citing “commercial confidentiality.”
Apps depicting same-sex couples were reportedly among the content in violation of “LGBTQ+ propaganda laws.”
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return to the U.S. a gay asylum-seeker it wrongfully deported.
In his Friday, May 23, ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, noted that the man, identified only by the initials O.C.G., has no known criminal history and was the victim of multiple violent anti-LGBTQ+ attacks in his home country of Guatemala prior to seeking asylum in the U.S. last year. As the Guardianreported, a U.S. immigration judge ruled earlier this year that O.C.G. would likely face persecution and torture if sent back to his home country and granted a withholding of removal protecting him from deportation to Guatemala. But two days later, with no warning, the Trump administration loaded O.C.G. onto a bus to Mexico, a country where he said he has also experienced violence.
Murphy noted that during previous immigration proceedings O.C.G. had expressed fear of being sent to Mexico, presenting evidence that in April 2024, while traveling through the country to reach the U.S., he was raped and held for ransom there.
“The immigration judge told O.C.G.—consistent with this Court’s understanding of the law—that he could not be removed to a country other than his native Guatemala, at least not without some additional steps in the process. Those necessary steps, and O.C.G.’s pleas for help, were ignored,” Murphy wrote.
Given the choice to remain in Mexico or return to Guatemala, O.C.G. chose to return to his home country.
As Advocate reported, in a declaration submitted to the court last week, O.C.G. said that for over two months he has been essentially living in hiding in Guatemala, largely staying indoors and relying on family to bring him groceries and other necessities for fear of being recognized by those who had previously attacked him.
“I feel fear and the danger anytime I go out. For me, it’s not easy. The people who targeted me before know who I am and they have shown me twice before what they’re capable of. I don’t want to get attacked a third time,” he wrote, adding that a normal life is impossible for him in Guatemala. “I can’t be gay here, which means I cannot be myself. I cannot express myself and I am not free.”
Murphy described the circumstances around O.C.G.’s deportation “troubling,” noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had twice provided the court with “false information” in the case.
“Defendants had submitted a declaration, made under oath, that O.C.G., prior to removal, affirmatively stated that he had no fear of being sent to Mexico,” Murphy wrote.
But hours before a May 16 deposition, DHS admitted that they could not find a witness to support that claim, acknowledging an “error” in their previous court filings.
Murphy determined that “O.C.G. is likely to succeed in showing that his due-process rights were violated.”
“At no point in this litigation have Defendants put forth an account of O.C.G.’s removal that would comport with what this Court has found due process requires,” the judge wrote.
Murphy ordered DHS to take immediate steps to “facilitate” O.C.G.’s return to the U.S., noting that in this case, the term “should carry less baggage than in several other notable cases.”
Murphy was likely referring to Kilmar Ábrego García, a legal permanent resident of Maryland who was among hundreds of men the Trump administration deported to El Salvador in March, accusing them with little evidence and without due process of being members of a Venezuelan gang. Like O.C.G., Ábrego García had no criminal history and had been granted protection by a U.S. immigration judge from deportation to El Salvador. The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return to the U.S. But the administration has refused to do so, arguing that it is not within its power now that he is incarcerated in another country.
Unlike Ábrego García, Murphy noted, “O.C.G. is not held by any foreign government. Defendants have declined to make any argument that facilitating his return would be costly, burdensome, or otherwise impede the government’s objectives.”
Murphy ordered DHS to provide a status report on O.C.G.’s return within five days of his May 23 decision. He also ordered DHS to turn over discovery, including depositions of the individuals involved in the false declaration that O.C.G. did not fear removal to Mexico.
O.C.G. is at least the second gay asylum seeker that the Trump administration has wrongfully deported this year. Andry José Hernandez Romero, a Venezuelan makeup artist who came to the U.S. seeking protection from anti-gay persecution in his home country, was one of the men sent to El Salvador in March. In April, Romero’s lawyer expressed “grave concerns” about his likelihood of survival in CECOT, the notorious Salvadoran mega-prison in which he is being held.
After two years together, Ramita and Shilu—both pseudonyms to protect their identities—traveled to Sindhuli this month to register their marriage under Nepal’s June 2023 Supreme Court ruling which allows for same-sex marriages. But instead of recognition, the couple reportedly faced harassment, delays, rejection, and were forcibly separated, with police complicity and family hostility exacerbating their ordeal.
As local officials stalled the registration process, citing uncertainty about legal procedures, Ramita’s family reported her “missing.” Despite Ramita’s insistence that she felt unsafe with her family and wanted to marry Shilu, police handed her over to relatives she described as abusive. According to both women, police mocked their relationship and subjected them to verbal harassment. One officer allegedly made demeaning comments questioning the legitimacy of their relationship.
The 2023 Supreme Court interim order instructed the Nepali government to create a separate register for marriages between people of the same sex as well as third gender people, who have been recognized in principle based on self-identification for over a decade. The intention was to give queer couples interim legal recognition while the court deliberates a pending marriage equality case. But officials have been inconsistent in applying the order.
Since 2023, a handful of same-sex couples have successfully registered their marriages. Additionally, two same-sex couples in which one partner was Nepali and the other a foreigner were able to obtain spousal visas, but both had to take their cases to the Supreme Court.
Ramita and Shilu’s experience also reflects a broader pattern: lesbian women often face pressure, frequently enforced by their families, to conform to “compulsory heterosexuality,” a societal expectation that women should be in relationships with men. Ramita has said she fears being sent to a faith healer. “Even if you die or become disabled, I’ll still make you marry a man,” her sister-in-law reportedly told her. Shilu remains in fear and grief, unable to contact Ramita, whom she described as being held in a “hostage-like condition” since the attempted registration.
Rights advocates have condemned the incident as a grave human rights violation, calling for immediate protections and an investigation into local authorities’ conduct.
Same-sex couples who want to marry in Nepal have the legal right to do so. But the prolonged period under the interim order and lack of accountability for officials’ actions are undermining Nepal’s reputation as a global LGBT rights leader.
Municipal officials in the town of Łańcut, Poland, have abolished the country’s last remaining “LGBT Ideology Free” zone, righting more than five years of political assault on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) people across the country.
Between 2019 and 2024, while the right-wing Law and Justice party was in power, provinces, towns, and municipalities across Poland adopted discriminatory “family charters” pledging to “protect children from moral corruption” or declared themselves free from “LGBT ideology.”
Over time, authorities in one-third of the country adopted anti-LGBT resolutions after the Law and Justice ruling party made “protecting” Poland from “LGBT ideology” a centerpiece of its successful 2019 electoral campaign. Under the resolutions and charters, regional and local governments were to refrain from encouraging tolerance toward LGBT people and cut funds to organizations promoting nondiscrimination and gender equality.
Although legally unenforceable, LGBT activists told Human Rights Watch the “LGBT Ideology Free” zones – in their attempts to stigmatize, exclude, and indirectly discriminate against LGBT people – sent the message that LGBT people were not welcome in these areas. As a gay man in eastern Poland told Human Rights Watch: “In 2020, one of my good friends who had never before had an issue with my sexual orientation suddenly accused me of being ‘an ideology.’”
The situation in Poland offers a lesson for the region. In recent years, alongside the rise of right-wing populism, there has been manufactured hostility towards the concepts of “gender” and “genderism” in Europe, with opponents labeling it “gender ideology.”
Opponents have weaponized undefined “gender ideology” as a tool to curtail sexual and reproductive rights and LGBT equality by playing on people’s fear of social change and claiming a global conspiracy of great influence and scale.
Some observers refer to “gender ideology” as “symbolic glue,” or an “empty signifier”: it simultaneously means nothing and everything, and is consistently used to attack feminism, equality for trans people, the existence of intersex bodies, the elimination of sex stereotyping, family law reform, same-sex marriage, access to abortion, contraception, and comprehensive sexuality education.
The removal of Poland’s last “LGBT free” zone is reminder of the profound harm such symbolic policies inflict on people’s lives, a lesson that should be heeded across the region and the world.
A law enacted in Peru on May 12 purports to combat sexual violence against children and adolescents, but instead undermines freedom of expression and access to information and discriminates against transgender people, Human Rights Watch said today. The law’s vague and overly broad provisions could also be used to suppress expressions of identity, artistic content, and educational materials while failing to effectively address pervasive sexual violence against children and adolescents in the country.
The law, the stated aim of which is to “safeguard the right to sexual integrity of children and adolescents,” also mandates that public restroom access be restricted based on “biological sex,” effectively barring transgender people, including trans youth, from using public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“Protecting children and adolescents from sexual exploitation and abuse is an important state obligation, but this law turns child protection into a pretext for repression and discrimination,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The law opens the door for authorities to censor expression that they deem ‘inappropriate’ under the guise of safeguarding children, while scapegoating trans people, a group already at high risk of violence in Peru.”
The levels of sexual violence against children and adolescents in Peru are high. According to the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations, from January to March 2025, the Women’s Emergency Centers received 4,910 cases of sexual violence against children and adolescents (out of 15,293 total cases received). In 2024, the total number of such cases was 22,798 (out of 63,489). While Congress has a responsibility to respond to this crisis, the new law fails to provide an effective or rights-based solution, Human Rights Watch said.
Article 4 of the law prohibits the “exploitation and sexualization” of children and adolescents in media, advertising, and entertainment. However, because the provision does not define what constitutes its key concepts of “sexual connotation” or “objectification,” it could be used to censor personal or cultural statements, artistic creations, or learning resources. Resulting arbitrary enforcement and censorship could also undermine children and adolescents’ ability to access information relevant to their own sexual development, including as part of an age-appropriate and science-based comprehensive sexuality education curriculum that could help prevent sexual violence.
The law also modifies the provision of the criminal code concerning “obscene exhibitions and publications” by increasing the minimum prison sentence from three to four years for “anyone who shows, sells or delivers to a minor … objects, books, writings, images, visual or auditory, which due to their nature may affect their sexual development.” The maximum prison sentence remains six years.
Human rights standards call for specificity and proportionality for any restriction on the freedoms of expression and access to information, particularly when criminal penalties are involved, as vague or overly broad legal language can lead to unjust restrictions and discrimination.
Article 5 of the law states that “entry and use” of public restrooms is prohibited for individuals whose “biological sex” does not align with “the sex for which the service is intended.” Such provisions not only discriminate against transgender people but also reinforce harmful and unfounded fears that equate the presence of transgender people in restrooms with a threat to children.
Studies have shown no correlation between inclusive restroom policies and increased safety risks to women or children. On the contrary, it is transgender people who face elevated risks of harassment and violence in public spaces, including restrooms. Enforcing such a discriminatory policy also emboldens intrusive and humiliating scrutiny of individuals’ bodies or identities, potentially exposing people, including transgender and gender nonconforming youth, to suspicion and mistreatment.
On May 7, Human Rights Watch wrote to President Dina Boluarte, urging her to veto the then-proposed law as it curtailed the freedom of expression, the right to information, and the right to nondiscrimination. No response was received.
On May 12, the Congressional Ethics Committee voted to open an investigationagainst Congresswoman Susel Paredes for her alleged encouragement of trans women to use the women’s restrooms in congress during a March event focused on gender diversity. The complaint alleges that she violated the Parliamentary Code of Ethics; she faces a suspension of 120 days without remuneration. Peru’s new law is likely to lead to more arbitrary and baseless legal actions targeting both transgender people and their allies.
Peru has an obligation to uphold children and adolescents’ right to comprehensive sexuality education, an essential element of the right to education. At its core, comprehensive sexuality education consists of age-appropriate, affirming, and scientifically accurate curricula that can help foster safe and informed practices to, among other things, prevent gender-based violence, including sexual violence. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on Peru to provide all children with appropriate and accessible education on sexual and reproductive health. This new law will threaten that access.
Additionally, Peru is a party to several human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights, which oblige the State to protect all individuals from discrimination on any grounds, including age and gender identity. Enactment of this law violates Peru’s commitments as outlined in these treaties.
“Peru should urgently repeal this law, which fails to respond effectively to sexual violence against children and threatens the rights of the very people it seeks to protect, including trans children and adolescents,” González said. “Instead, Congress should pass targeted and evidence-based laws to prevent sexual violence as well as the high levels of discrimination against transgender people.”
