Global InformationLGBT rights by country or territory information
| Same-sex intercourse illegal. Penalties: | |
Death | Prison; death not enforced |
Death under militias | Prison, with arrests or detention |
Prison, not enforced1 | |
| Same-sex intercourse legal. Recognition of unions: | |
Marriage | Extraterritorial marriage2 |
Civil unions | Limited domestic |
Limited foreign | Optional certification |
None | Restrictions of expression |
Restrictions of association with arrest or detention | |
1No imprisonment in the past three years or moratorium on law.
2Marriage not available locally. Some jurisdictions may perform other types of partnerships.
| | Neither | States which did not support either declaration |
| | Non-member states | States that are not voting members of the United Nations |
| | Oppose | States which supported an opposing declaration in 2008 and continued their opposition in 2011 |
| | Subsequent member | South Sudan, which was not a member of the United Nations in 2008 |
| | Support | States which supported the LGBT rights declaration in the General Assembly or on the Human Rights Council in 2008 or 2011 |
| Rights |
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| Theoretical distinctions |
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| Human rights |
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| Rights by beneficiary |
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| Other groups of rights |
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Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, as of February 2024[update], 36 countries recognize same-sex marriage.[1][2] By contrast, not counting non-state actors and extrajudicial killings, only two countries are believed to impose the death penalty on consensual same-sex sexual acts: Iran and Afghanistan.[3][4][5][6] The death penalty is officially law, but generally not practiced, in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (in the autonomous state of Jubaland) and the United Arab Emirates.[7][8] LGBT people also face extrajudicial killings in the Russian region of Chechnya.[9] Sudan rescinded its unenforced death penalty for anal sex (hetero- or homosexual) in 2020. Fifteen countries have stoning on the books as a penalty for adultery, which (in light of the illegality of gay marriage in those countries) would by default include gay sex, but this is enforced by the legal authorities in Iran and Nigeria (in the northern third of the country).[10][11][12][13][14]
In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed its first resolution recognizing LGBT rights, following which the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report documenting violations of the rights of LGBT people, including hate crimes, criminalization of homosexual activity, and discrimination. Following the issuance of the report, the United Nations urged all countries which had not yet done so to enact laws protecting basic LGBT rights.[15][16] A 2022 study found that LGBT rights (as measured by ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index) were correlated with less HIV/AIDS incidence among gay and bisexual men independently of risky sexual behavior.[17]
The 2023 Equaldex Equality Index ranks the Nordic countries, Chile, Uruguay, Canada, the Benelux countries, Spain, Andorra, and Malta among the best for LGBT rights. The index ranks Nigeria, Yemen, Brunei, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mauritania, Palestine, and Iran among the worst.[18][better source needed] Asher & Lyric ranked Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands as the three safest nations for LGBT people in its 2023 index.[19]
- ^ "Countries that allow same-sex marriage". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
- ^ "Same-Sex Marriage Around the World". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
- ^ "LGBT People in Afghanistan After the Taliban Takeover". Human Rights Watch. 26 January 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
- ^ Ahmady, Kameel Et al 2020: Forbidden Tale (A comprehensive study on lesbian, gay, bisexuals (LGB) in Iran). AP Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany.
- ^ Kumar, Ruchi (26 January 2022). "Lives of LGBTQ+ Afghans 'dramatically worse' under Taliban rule, finds survey". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
- ^ 'They Torture And Kill Us': Gay Afghan Men Fear For Lives Under The Taliban, 7 November 2022, retrieved 10 February 2024
- ^ "United Arab Emirates". Human Dignity Trust. 13 February 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
- ^ "Saudi Arabia: Man sentenced for homosexuality. Amnesty" (PDF).
- ^ "He Was Targeted in Chechnya for Being Gay. Now, He's Being Hunted in Europe". TIME.com. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
- ^ Hazzad, Ardo (2 July 2022). "Nigerian Islamic court orders death by stoning for men convicted of homosexuality". Reuters. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
- ^ Milton, Josh (5 July 2022). "Three men sentenced to death by stoning for being gay". PinkNews. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
- ^ "Ahmady, Kameel, LGBT In Iran: The Homophobic Laws and Social System in Islamic Republic of Iran, PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of Egypt / Egyptology, Volume 18, Pages 1446- 1464, Issue, No. 18 (2021)". PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of Egypt / Egyptology.
- ^ Mendos, Lucas Ramón (2019). State-Sponsored Homophobia 2019 (PDF) (13th ed.). Geneva: ILGA. p. 15. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 December 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
- ^ Dick, Samantha (4 April 2019). "Brunei not the only place LGBTQI can be killed for who they love". The New Daily. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
- ^ Dougherty, Jill (17 June 2011). "U.N. council passes gay rights resolution". CNN. Archived from the original on 30 September 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
- ^ "UN issues first report on human rights of gay and lesbian people". United Nations. 15 December 2011. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
- ^ Stojanovski, Kristefer; King, Elizabeth J.; Amico, K. Rivet; Eisenberg, Marisa C.; Geronimus, Arline T.; Baros, Sladjana; Schmidt, Axel J. (2022). "Stigmatizing Policies Interact with Mental Health and Sexual Behaviours to Structurally Induce HIV Diagnoses Among European Men Who Have Sex with Men". AIDS and Behavior. 26 (10): 3400–3410. doi:10.1007/s10461-022-03683-9. PMC 9556380. PMID 35434774. S2CID 248220063.
- ^ Staff (1 January 2023). "LGBT Equality Index: The Most LGBT-Friendly Countries in the World". Equaldex. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
- ^ "The 203 Worst (& Safest) Countries for LGBTQ+ Travel in 2023". Asher & Lyric. 5 June 2023. Retrieved 20 August 2023.