• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Canada

Canada Reintroduces Bill Against LGTB Conversion Therapy

  • The legislation establishes a range of offenses from advertising conversion therapy services to taking a minor out of Canada to undergo this therapy abroad.

    The legislation establishes a range of offenses from advertising conversion therapy services to taking a minor out of Canada to undergo this therapy abroad. | Photo: AFP

Published 1 October 2020
Opinion

According to Canada´s government survey, between 2019 and 2020, 1 in 5 men belonging to a sexual minority "have been subjected to sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression change efforts."

Canada's government reintroduced a bill on Thursday to ban LGTB conversion therapy for children and adults. If the legislation is passed, the government says that "it will make Canada’s laws on conversion therapy the most progressive and comprehensive in the world."

RELATED:

Latin America Registers Advances in LGTBI Rights

The Minister of Justice David Lametti and the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth Bardish Chagger brought back the amendment to the criminal code initially introduced in March but did not move forward as the parliament shut down sessions because of the COVID-19.

The legislation establishes a range of offenses, from advertising conversion therapy services to taking a minor out of Canada to undergo this therapy abroad. Also, it considers crimes to profit from performing conversion therapies, forcing a person into the therapy and causing minors to endure this method to alter their sexual identities.

According to Canada´s government survey, between 2019 and 2020, 1 in 5 men belonging to a sexual minority "have been subjected to sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression change efforts."

Moreover, lower-income, Indigenous, and trans people are the most vulnerable to such practice. Research published in January in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry points out that over 30 percent of queer and trans people who experienced conversion therapy have attempted suicide or killed themselves.

Although several activists warned that in religious contexts and families, the practice might continue, the legislation is a milestone as it will allow the elimination of conversion therapy from the health care system. Thus far, only four out of the ten Canadian provinces have banned the harmful practice.

     

  

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.