Chile: Capital city metro stations join effort to stamp out anti-gay discrimination
Metro stations in the Chilean capital have signed up to efforts to raise awareness and acceptance of LGBT people.
The metro stations in Santiago have joined forces with the Movement for Integration and Homosexual Freedom (MIHF).
The campaign, which consists of posters in all 108 metro stations across the city, was launched on Tuesday with a press conference of campaign organisers.
As well as featuring images of same-sex couples, the campaign is also aimed at raising awareness and acceptance of disabled people, with one poster portraying a boy with Downs Syndrome.
Elderly and pregnant passengers are also featured on the posters.
Santiago Metro general manager Ramon Canas said: “The metro is a public space and a service used by 2.5 million people. As such, the passengers are very diverse, with different needs and different origins.”
“To travel [by metro] is to share a space, to share a moment together, and this is only possible if we respect one another, valuing our differences. We want a better metro, to be better people, a better city.”
Canas went on to note that Metro Universidad Catolica would be dedicated to murdered gay 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio.
Zamudio’s attack took place just blocks from the station in 2012.
Social Development Minister Maria Fernanda Villegas took to the podium to say she hoped the campaign was a step forward in Chile’s aim to reach developed nation status.
“Macroeconomic statistics are good indicators [of development], but they are not the most significant for the people,” Villegas said. “With a campaign like this, we are advancing and getting at the heart of what it actually means to build a developed country.”
She said she hoped the posters would spark positive debate and a dialogue among the public.
