A new ILGA survey has found that more than a quarter of people worldwide believe that homosexuality should be criminalized.
The survey (Minorities Report 2017: attitudes to sexual and gender minorities around the world) polled more than 105,000 participants from 77 countries and territories to respond to the statement “People who engage in romantic or sexual relationships with people of the same sex should be charged as criminals”.
Of those respondents, 28.5 percent believe engaging in same-sex relationships should be a criminal offence.
The report says “in criminalising states, unsurprisingly, the percentages that agree that same-sex romantic or sexual relationships should be criminalized increases substantially.”
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SBS reports:
“Much of the data elicited in this survey simply acts to confirm what sexual, gender and sex minority communities already know from personal or anecdotal experience,” the report adds.
“A finding that emerges repeatedly in this survey is that when respondents know people belonging to sexual and gender minorities, their opinions tend to be more inclusive and less harsh.”
Africa (45 per cent), Central Asia (45 per cent) and South Asia (42 per cent) were more in favour of punishing people in same-sex relationships, while Western Europe and North America had similar results to Australia and New Zealand, generating strong disagreement rates.
In Australia, 16 percent of respondents said that homosexuality should be criminalized.
