Ban electric shocks and pills to ‘cure’ gay people globally, insist campaigners
(Adam Berry/Getty Images)
Did you know that conversion therapy is only banned in Brazil, Ecuador and Malta?
That’s why a group of international LGBT campaigners have gathered to rally for an end to ‘gay cure’ therapy across the world.
Meeting at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s annual two-day Trust Conference, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, aka the ILGA, have met to raise awareness of the grim everyday reality for gay people in the likes of Nigeria, China, and the US and the UK.
For Nigerian gay man Bisi Alimi, undergoing conversion therapy at the age of 17 catapulted him to attempt suicide.
“It’s a very common thing,” said Alimi to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Change will not happen unless people realise that at the centre of this abuse are human beings.”
In the talk, Alimi also said lesbian women in Nigeria often undergo another ordeal, with family members sometimes arranging for them to be raped in the belief that it will make them attracted to men.
As found earlier on in the week, 17 victims of conversion therapy in China reported being fed nausea drugs while watching gay porn, as well as electric shocks.
They were also kept in solitary confinement and not allowed access to their mobile phone.
Although conversion therapy may be less physically aggressive in the US and the UK, the effects are still incredibly damaging.
There is now a petition to make ‘gay cure’ therapy illegal in the UK, which can be signed here.
