ABGLT – Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals – is concerned with the organization of the 1st National GLBT Conference. This is what the letter sent yesterday to Minister Paulo Vanuchi of the SEDH – Special Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic indicates.
Toni Reis, the president of the NGO, highlighted in the statement that the deadlines for holding the Conference are tight and asks the SEDH to bring together more human resources efforts, since in 17 States monitored by the association, only Alagoas has called for its GLBT State Conference .
The National Conference is scheduled to take place between May 9th and 11th. Before that, the states must organize their preliminary Conferences, called by each governor. Gay NGOs from Paraná and Rio de Janeiro are getting together and have already scheduled a meeting for today and tomorrow to discuss details about their regional conferences.
ABGLT asks for greater effort from SEDH to make the Conference happen. “We know the political difficulties of convening a Human Rights Conference aimed at the GLBT population. Therefore, it increases the responsibility, work, and focused effort that the Federal Government, particularly the SEDH, needs to make to make the process viable. If there is no total, full, day-to-day engagement of the entire Secretariat team, it will be very difficult for us to be able to sensitize all governors and guarantee the state stages.”
Ivair Augusto, special advisor to SEDH, said in an interview with the website The Cape that within its possibilities the Secretariat has worked towards the execution of the Conference. For Ivair, the notes made by ABGLT are important. The advisor says that SEDH is currently selecting CVs and conducting interviews to hire professionals who will work at the Conference. "But this takes a little time. Things are progressing. Everything is under control," he declared.
Ivair also said that regarding updating the website with information, the secretariat is opening a notice to select the company that will be responsible for this.
See below the full ABGLT Letter sent to SEDH:
"ABGLT has been working day in and day out in the process of building the 28st GLBT Conference, called by the federal government, through a presidential decree published on November 2007, XNUMX.
From the beginning, we have been apprehensive about the short deadlines and the structural difficulties that this Secretariat has presented to make the process viable. However, we are fully engaged, both in the National Organizing Committee and in mobilizing the network of NGOs of the GLBT movement in order to interact with state governments in the construction of the stages throughout Brazil.
However, we cannot fail to note that, despite the efforts made, there has still been a predominant low management and execution capacity on the part of the Federal Government with regard to the process of making the First GLBT Conference viable. From the beginning, we identified the structural limitations of the Secretariat and were assured that there would be a substantive reinforcement of human material and physical and material structure for the construction of the Conference. Unfortunately, the hiring of three specialists per notice and the addition of two new technicians to the Brazil without Homophobia team does not remotely alleviate this serious management deficiency.
A clear example of this is that, with the decree published on November 28th, the SEDH ordinance on December 21st and the regulations on January 10th, we did not find any of these documents (and ANY) other information about the XNUMXst Conference on the website electronic version of SEDH!
That was just one example. There is a lack of more effective coordination with all Ministries and Secretariats of the Federal Government so that they can engage in the process. And, above all, there is a lack of HUMAN RESOURCES to carry out the multiplicity of tasks placed on a calendar, which, we repeat, is too tight.
Another aspect that has greatly concerned us is the construction of the state stages. Although there is some type of movement, from what we have been monitoring, in around 17 states, in only one of them (AL), the convocation decree was published. In others, there is no sign of movement at all, and this includes states like São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul.
We know the political difficulties of convening a Human Rights Conference aimed at the GLBT population. Therefore, it increases the responsibility, work, and focused effort that the Federal Government, particularly SEDH, needs to make to make the process viable. If there is no total, full, day-to-day engagement of the entire Secretariat team, it will be very difficult for us to be able to raise awareness among all governors and guarantee the state stages.
We end by reiterating our confidence in this government's commitment to GLBT citizenship, as well as our full willingness to collaborate (always constructive and critical) in the implementation of this political framework. However, we reiterate: the situation is worrying and requires immediate measures to guarantee the success of the 1st GLBT Conference."
