ERA’s Annual General Assembly is the biggest LGBTI event organized in the region since 2015. The conference is a lobby, advocacy, capacity building and visibility event which brings together more than 160 participants from across the region, Europe and beyond. LGBTI activists, state officials (governments, Parliaments, equality bodies etc.), donors, researchers, journalists, diplomatic community, representatives of international organizations and members of the local community attend the event.  

The EU accession process has been, and continues to be, a driving force for change in the recognition of the human rights of LGBTI people throughout the region not only through the criteria that countries have to meet, but through the annual Enlargement Reports.

Public opinion polls have shown that LGBTI persons, along with Roma persons, are the least accepted minority group in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The vast majority of the citizens of BiH continue to see homosexuality as a disease and support criminal prosecution and punishment of LGBTI persons. The vast majority of families would not accept an LGBTI family member and would reject and exclude them solely by reason of their different identity and personal characteristics.

The “Intersex research study in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia” was commissioned by UNDP to stimulate the development of a framework of action and provide a possible way forward in advancing the human rights of intersex people.

ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey in close partnership with its members: Aleanca LGBT, PINK Embassy Albania, Pro LGBT and Streha; and with technical support from ILGA World submitted this Written Contribution to the 3rd Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Republic of Albania, which focuses on the position of LGBTI persons in the country.

The results of the survey on the experiences of LGBTI people in Southeastern Europe reveal a collective experience of discrimination, harassment, exclusion and violence. The report “Life on the Margins: Survey Results of the Experience of LGBTI people in South Eastern Europe” was published by the World Bank in partnership with IPSOS Strategic Marketing, ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey, and the Williams Institute at UCLA.

This report has been developed as part of the project “Being LGBTI in Eastern Europe: Reducing In­equalities & Exclusion, and Combating Homophobia & Transphobia Experienced by LGBTI people in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia” (BLEE). The project considered LGBTI issues in each of the countries from a human rights and development perspective, contextualizing these against the backdrop of civil society capacity development, com­munity mobilization and government competence.

Širom Zapadnog Balkana, lezbejske, gej, biseksualne, transseksualne i interseks (LGBTI) osobe bore se za svoja prava da vode normalan život. Dok još uvek postoje zakoni i mere koje kriminalizuju i diskriminišu, nasilje i govor mržnje zasnovan na seksualnoj orijentaciji i rodnom identitetu, potrebno je još mnogo toga učiniti kako bi se postiglo puno razumevanje i jednakost.