Human Rights WatchIn recent years, there have been significant advances for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people worldwide. But many countries impose legal sanctions that target LGBT people, often for political gain. Today, 80 countries criminalize consensual same-sex relations or discussion of LGBT rights, and punishments include prison sentences, flogging, and even the death penalty.
Countries outlaw consensual, same-sex relationships in various ways. Many laws prohibiting often ill-defined “sodomy,” “buggery,” and “unnatural acts” were first imposed by European colonial powers. Others have been introduced more recently: Russia, Nigeria, and Gambia, for example, have introduced laws that restrict people’s ability to discuss LGBT rights or to organize a gathering of LGBT people, stripping them of their capacity to advocate for change.
Such laws are used to legitimize violence and discrimination against LGBT people. They are a threat not only to LGBT people, but to fundamental human rights to which all people are entitled.
This link includes (1) an interactive map that includes information about each country's laws, (2) bar graph of type of law and sentence length, (3) circle graphic that illustrates type of "crime," grouped by wording used in the law, (4) circle graph that showing the number of countries that explicitly criminalize same-sex relations between women, and (5) circle graph that groups the number of countries by type of law.
