On September 6, India's Supreme Court repealed the Article 377 of 2013 which punished people from the LGBTI community

As of Thursday, September 6, a ruling from 2013 that validated a colonial law more than 150 years ago was still in force in India. This established that "carnal access against nature with a man, woman or animal, will be punished with life imprisonment, or imprisonment for a term or that may be extended to 10 years and a fine."

Leer en español: India despenaliza la homosexualidad: ¿cómo va el resto del mundo?

"The Article 377 is arbitrary. The LGTB community (Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals) has the same rights as others. The majority view and the general morality cannot dictate the constitutional rights," assured the president of the Indian Supreme, Dipak Misra, when reading his sentence.

According to El País, outside the court, where the five judges individually pronounced their sentences to nullify the validity of Article 377 of the Penal Code, a crowd of members of the LGTBI collective and their supporters waited from early morning to hear the final decision of the Supreme Court.

According to La Vanguardia, Judge DYChandrachud said that the treatment of homosexuality as a disease has an impact on the mental health of these people, to which Judge Indu Malhotra added that "the history owes an apology to the LGTB people for the ostracism and discrimination suffered."

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And the rest of the world?

The report "Homophobia of State 2017" of the International Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Trans and Intersex indicates that at least 70 countries in the world contemplate punishments such as fines, imprisonment, life imprisonment, lashes and even the death penalty for those who maintain a homosexual relationship.

The newspaper Kien y Ke points out that the Arab countries and some Africans condemn homosexuality with death penalty, according to the Islamic Sharia law in which cases against nature are prohibited. Included in this list are Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Brunei, and Iraq.

The other countries condemning homosexuality in some way are: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Botswana, Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea , Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu.

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Finally, Latin America has the highest rates of violence against the LGBTI community, according to research conducted by Transgender Europe, although it also has some of the most progressive laws for LGBTI equality and protection. These include laws on same-sex marriage and adoption, gender change in national identity cards and anti-discrimination laws.

However, people in the community are still afraid of coming out because of the constant situations of discrimination and the lack of laws that guarantee their protection against homophobic or transfobic attacks, according to CNN.

LatinAmerican Post | Luisa Fernanda Báez

Translated from "India despenaliza la homosexualidad: ¿cómo va el resto del mundo?"