The UK will host its first global LGBT conference next June, the Government has announced.
‘Safe To Be Me: A Global Equality Conference’ will focus on tackling inequality around the world, tackling violence and discrimination, and ensuring equal access to public services for LGBT people.
Countries across the world are to be invited to attend the conference in London.
Currently, 69 countries around the world still criminalise consensual same-sex acts and evidence suggests that the coronavirus pandemic has worsened the inequality, discrimination and violence that LGBT people regularly experience around the world.
Lord Herbert of South Downs has been appointed by Boris Johnson as the UK’s Special Envoy on LGBT rights and will chair the conference. Speaking about the conference, Lord Herbert said;
“With our immense soft power, and as a global force for good, the UK has an important role to play in leading international efforts to tackle the violence and discrimination against LGBT people which should have no place in the modern world.”
“I am committed to the cause of advancing LGBT+ rights worldwide and I look forward to continuing that in my role as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy and as the Chair of the Global LGBT Conference. At a time when Covid has pulled many of us apart, the conference offers a real chance to bring people together and drive change for good”
More details about the conference, attendees and speakers are still to be announced.
The event, which will take place both virtually and in-person on 27-29 June 2022, will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first official London Pride marches.
