Annual Report 2020

The silent and empty streets of 2020 have offered little visibility for the LGBTI movement. Prides and protests have been replaced by lockdowns and social distancing. But, as an online community emerged – activism followed.  

– From one day to the next, our LGBTI partner organizations saw the number of requests for help increasing drastically, says Mina Skouen, Head of the NHC Equal Rights Section throughout 2020.

– Social distancing and lockdowns forced people into quarantine, many of them experiencing violence from homophobic and transphobic family members. Hate speech increased online. We also saw attempts at scapegoating of LGBTI persons for the Covid-19 pandemic, by representatives of religious communities and authorities, for example in Ukraine, Turkey, and Poland.

– At the same time, from one day to the next – our partners found new ways to work. They took part in developing an online community, moving their services into the virtual sphere, assisting with conflict mitigation in families, and negotiating with the police. I am incredibly proud to say that more, not less, people have received assistance this year – even though the methods of work have had to change, says Skouen.

Disproportionate impact  

The UN Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on SOGI, along with the World Bank and others have pointed out that Covid-19 has a disproportionate impact on LGBT persons, and that the response to the pandemic reproduces and exacerbates the patterns of social exclusion and violence the community is already experiencing.

ILGA Europe pointed out that for the first time in ten years, there were more backlashes than progress for LGBTI in Europe. Although this came from more than the pandemic, the pandemic limited the ability of civil society to work on improvements, and LGBTI issues lost priority on the international agenda.

While the spotlight has been on the pandemic for the past year, states are imposing laws and policies disadvantaging the community. Legal gender recognition was banned in Hungary. In Russia the constitution was amended to include a definition of marriage as an institution between man and woman. In Kazakhstan a new bill prohibits legal gender recognition for trans people between 18 and 21 and trans people with “behavioural disorders” of all ages. These laws lead to people losing their lives, and systematic discrimination.

Stronger together 

– As public events, protests and prides have been cancelled one by one, we started to fear that it would make the LGBTI community invisible, echoing the policy of “LGBT free zones” in Poland. Only a couple of days before Norway shut down, we were gathered in protest against this policy in front of the polish Embassy in Oslo, fearing we would have to picket there on a regular basis, Skouen says.  

– Almost 100 Polish cities and municipalities have declared themselves as so-called zones free from LGBT ideology. A year later, we see that this issue has not become invisible. Resistance is there. When we shared pictures from brutal attacks and arrests of 47 persons in Warsaw in a protest this fall, we had 170 000 reactions and 820 shares within few hours. People care. And in 2021 EU declared all its member states to be an “LGBT freedom zone”.

A different kind of parade 

With public manifestations being prohibited all over Europe, we were at risk of losing all visibility for LGBTI issues in countries with harsh policies against LGBTI, like Russia. Our annual manifestation Barents Pride, which is carried out as a Norwegian-Russian solidarity event in Kirkenes every year, could not go ahead as planned. Barents Pride was different this year compared to what it has been before. The Barents Pride has, however, always been a different Pride. It has always proven that physical distance and borders do not stop friendships, relations, and cooperation.

Maybe because of this, the 2020 event was able to cope well with the new and strange situation. On the Norwegian side, people gathered with banners on the border, and during the parade the streets of Kirkenes were filled with people carrying signs with “I walk for Igor”, “I walk for Anastasia”, “We miss you”. On the Russian side, they had an indoor festival, out of safety reasons.

It was not possible to be together physically – but it was still a way of being together. 

– When I saw pictures of our friends on the border with posters "we miss you", I cried because it touched me so much. I realized that we are not alone, said Valentina Likhoshva, who was following the events from the Russian side of the border.

Important victories  

– The most significant achievement this year has no doubt been that we have seen that we can stand firm with our support and activity level even when an unprecedented crisis emerges, says Mina Skouen.

– And not the least how advocacy on important law proposals came through. In North-Macedonia the adopted law against discrimination was repealed, but later readopted, after massive international protests. The attempt to introduce a ban on legal gender recognition in Russia was redrawn, after a campaign from both national and international civil society. 

This all shows us that we can overcome the silence of empty streets.