CHILE:
Anti-Discrimination Bill
Undermined by the Right
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, (IPS) -
The Chilean Movement for
Homosexual Integration
and Liberation (MOVILH),
together with members of
Congress belonging to
the centre-left
governing coalition
parties, have complained
that conservative groups
are attempting to water
down an
anti-discrimination
bill.
The bill was sent to
Congress on Mar. 22,
2005 by the government
of then President
Ricardo Lagos
(2000-2006), and at
present is being debated
in the Senate, the
second stage of the
approval process.
An article of the
original text states
that arbitrary
discrimination shall be
understood to mean any
distinction, exclusion
or restriction on the
basis of race or
ethnicity, colour,
national origin,
socioeconomic status,
geographical area, place
of residence, religion,
belief, or language.
It also includes
discrimination for
ideological or political
views, union membership
or participation in
trade associations, sex,
gender, sexual
orientation, marital
status, age, parentage,
personal appearance,
genetic constitution, or
any other social
condition.
"The right is waging a
tremendous campaign
against the bill, with
the aim of removing the
clause about sexual
orientation from the
text," Rolando Jiménez,
the head of MOVILH, told
IPS at a recent press
conference.
Jiménez was accompanied
by Socialist Party (PS)
Senator Carlos Ominami,
Party For Democracy (PPD)
Senator Guido Girardi,
and Christian Democrat
lawmaker Gabriel Silber,
all from the governing
Coalition for Democracy.
The opposition rightwing
Alliance for Chile is
made up of the National
Renewal (RN) and
Independent Democratic
Union (UDI) parties.
"(Some UDI lawmakers)
have behaved deceitfully
and treacherously, as
whenever we have
contacted them they have
said they agree with
non-discrimination on
grounds of sexual
orientation, while they
continue to introduce
amendments to remove the
sexual orientation
clause from the bill,"
Jiménez said.
He said that one of the
amendments proposed by
the opposition
legislators is to
replace the article
defining specific kinds
of discrimination with a
"generic declaration"
that would omit the
detailed
characterisation and
delete the explicit
mention of sexual
orientation. In his
view, this would render
the draft law less
effective.
"Furthermore, they have
applied pressure and
sown a perverse campaign
of terror among the
Evangelical churches" to
persuade them to oppose
the bill, he said.
Jiménez also said that
"the Catholic Church has
sent documents to the
government, expressing
its concern about the
draft law and asking for
(various different)
churches to be exempt,"
due to their beliefs
which condemn
homosexuality.
When consulted by IPS,
the Chilean Bishops
Conference’s
communications
department declined to
comment.
"We have been very
flexible. For instance,
we agreed to eliminating
the provision for
special judicial action
against discrimination,
and negotiated instead
with the conservatives
to reform current
protective instruments"
for punishing
discrimination, Jiménez
said.
Se negoció con la
derecha reformar los
recursos de protección e
incorporar ahí elementos"
para perseguir la
discriminación, recordó.
"But these changes they
want to introduce are
unacceptable to us. If
they succeed, we will
protest the draft law
and take our fight to
international human
rights organisations,"
he said.
On Jan. 29, Jiménez was
due to meet with the
president’s chief of
staff, José Antonio
Viera-Gallo, who is in
charge of relations with
the legislative branch,
"to demand that the
government work for a
proper
anti-discrimination
law."
However, he is concerned
by the "negative
precedents" already
established by Viera-Gallo,
who negotiated with
conservatives to modify
other key draft laws,
such as the one creating
the Institute of Human
Rights, and the one
ratifying International
Labour Organisation (ILO)
Convention 169, on
indigenous peoples.
This earned Viera-Gallo
criticism from human
rights and indigenous
organisations.
The press conference was
also attended by teacher
Sandra Pavez, and former
assistant chief of
investigative police
César Contreras, who
said that if an
anti-discrimination law
had existed before, they
would not have been
dismissed from their
jobs because of their
sexual orientation.
After working for 21
years as a religious
education teacher, Pavez
"came out" as a lesbian,
and the Catholic Church
refused to renew the
certificate she is
required to have in
order to teach her
subject.
"My undergraduate and
postgraduate degrees in
religious studies are
worthless without the
certificate," which is
issued by the Church,
she told IPS. Although
she was not fired from
the public school where
she works, and where the
head teachers, teachers
and school trustees
support her, she has
been relegated to
administrative duties.
Contreras, in turn, was
discharged from the
investigative police in
2006 after 18 years of
active service, with
only two years to go to
his retirement.
His superiors accused
him of belonging to a
paedophile ring after
finding links on his
computer to web pages
with homosexual content.
But the justice system
threw out these charges
brought against him by
the police.
Contreras has been out
of work for two years,
during which time he has
made several judicial
and administrative
appeals, so far without
success. At the moment
he is waiting for the
executive branch to
respond to his request
to be reinstated into
the service.
"There was no
administrative
prosecution against me,
and they did not wait
for the court’s decision
on the crime I was
alleged to have
committed. I was
discharged in an illegal
and unconstitutional
manner, because of the
vacuum in the
constitution itself, and
in the laws, which
allows institutions and
anyone else who so
wishes to discriminate,"
he told IPS.
"We are supporting
MOVILH, because if this
bill is approved, even
with the amendments and
cuts that the opposition
are proposing, we’ll
still be better off than
we are now. At present
there is no law to
protect people who have
suffered
discrimination," he
concluded.
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