A proposal seeking to force parliamentarians across the world to recognize gay rights in their respective legislations has been rejected at the ongoing Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly in Kampala.
The Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected the proposal pushed by New Zealand and the Netherlands.
The New Zealand proposal caused a heated debate that was eventually pushed to voting after the consensus approach failed. At the end of the voting, New Zealand, supported by delegates from Netherlands and Finland lost with only 10 countries voting in support.
A total of 46 countries participated in the debate that took place at the Imperial Royale Hotel, one of the venues for the Inter-Parliamentary Union – IPU.
The New Zealand delegate had argued that IPU MPs should affirm Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights through their national legislations.
Chairperson of the Committee, Ghanaian delegate Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu Osei, explained after the voting that if the New Zealand proposal meant that all the parliaments under the IPU would have to enact legislations compelling their countries to acknowledge gay rights.
Osei said that since the proposal has been rejected, his committee will on Thursday report to the general assembly to adopt their stand.
Two other proposals seeking to legalise abortion and narcotic drugs respectively, were also rejected by the same committee. Sweden proposed that abortion should be decriminalized in countries such as Uganda where it is still considered illegal while Colombia wanted drugs to be made legal under the IPU parliaments through legislation.
Colombia’s suggestion was based on the argument that once legalized, drug dealers and laundering would be regulated officially and they would stop being a problem to Democracy.
But delegates who opposed the Colombia suggestion argued that IPU had already adopted controlling smoking of tobacco and legalizing drugs would then be a contradiction.
Committee chairperson Osei said that legalizing drug business does not offer any logical alternative to the challenge of drug trafficking internationally.
The committee report will be presented to the general assembly and adopted before the 126th IPU officially closes.
