The Outright UN Rights and Religion Fellowship is an 8- to 12-month program that supports human rights defenders of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) to harness the New York-based United Nations system to add value to their existing work. The program is designed to support the existing work of activists in the global South and East working to defend people of diverse SOGIESC from the impact of religiously motivated violence and discrimination.
The goal of the program is four-fold: 1. Facilitate the use of United Nations spaces for activists of diverse SOGIESC from the global South and East to enhance their networks and to identify new entry points for progressing the protection and promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people’s human rights in their country and/or region. 2. Increase visibility and engagement of human rights defenders of diverse SOGIESC from the global South and East within high-level UN fora, specifically in response to religiously-motivated homophobia, biphobia, interphobia, transphobia and queerphobia. 3. Build the capacity of United Nations agencies and state representatives in advancing the human rights of people of diverse SOGIESC. 4. Strengthen networks, including relationships with New York-based diplomats and organizations that focus on combating religiously motivated violence and discrimination.
In 2023, Obioma joined Outright as a UN Rights and Religion Fellow to advocate for the human rights of intersex people at the United Nations
You can learn more from Obioma Chukwuike, Executive Director of Intersex Nigeria, about the increased acceptance but continued pushback their community faces by watching this video:
The Center for Healthcare Development and Youth Empowerment (Intersex Nigeria) is a body by and for people with intersex variations. They promote the human rights, self-determination and bodily autonomy of intersex people in Nigeria. They build community, evidence, capacity, education and information resources.
