Belarus European outsider in LGBTI rights

May 15, Pozirk. For the second year in a row, Belarus has ranked 45th of 49 countries included on the 2024 Rainbow Map of sexual minority rights in Europe and Central Asia.

Compiled by the ILGA-Europe non-profit, the ranking showed that LGBTI people in Belarus had 11.2 percent of their rights secured compared with 12 percent in 2023.

Of the seven indicators that form the ranking, Belarus scored the highest, 47 percent, in legal gender recognition, yet in the equality and non-discrimination category it remained below 4 percent.

In the categories of hate crimes, intersex bodily integrity, civil society space and asylum Belarus did not score anything.

Only Armenia (9.16 percent), Turkey (4.75 percent), Azerbaijan (2.25 percent) and Russia (2 percent) ranked worse than Belarus this year.

Malta tops the ranking with almost 88 percent, followed by Iceland and Belgium with 83 and 78.5 percent, respectively.

Among Belarus’ neighbors, Lithuania is leading with 27.5 percent, followed by Latvia, Ukraine and Poland.

The rainbow map is traditionally released ahead of International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on May 17.

Belarusian long-time ruler Alaksandar Łukašenka called homosexual men “perverts” and once famously said, “It is better to be a dictator than gay.”

In late December 2022, Natalla Kačanava, chair of the upper chamber of the Belarusian National Assembly, suggested following Russia in adopting anti-LGBTI propaganda legislation.

Also read: Belarusian LGBT+ community faces stigmatization – poll