In the city of Cuenca various activities were carried out in order to promote awareness, and voice claims to fight against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia. The second Public Kissing Festival took place under the slogan “We are all People”.

On Friday May 15 the auditorium of the Faculty of Law of the Cuenca University hosted a Forum about homophobia and xenophobia where activists and professionals shared their lived experiences. It was organized by the organization Silueta X.

On Saturday 16 at the Glorieta Parque Calderon multiple artistic activities took place.

Please visit our Spanish Page for the full report.

As in previous years, various events in several cities were organised in commemoration of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia in Ecuador

The organization Alfil from Quito, organized in the framework of the activities planned for the week of May 17 a show of videos/short films, signed a public manifesto to be sent to the President of Ecuador, and held community performances.

Meanwhile the Silueta X organization co-ordinated a series of public kiss-ins in several cities in Ecuador, from Cuenca to Guayaquil.

The organisation invites everyone to kiss publicly with the goal to make the demands of the LGBT population in Ecuador visible and to make use of the right to Freedom of Expression.

The association Silueta X is a grassroots organisation that was founded on May 12, 2008 and is legally constituted since May 5, 2010 under the ministerial approval #9989. It is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to fight for Human Rights of LGBTI people, having young transgender and transexual women, men and intersex people as their target group. In addition, their work also focuses on Sexual Health Care (preventing the impact of HIV in trans population and the risk of illnesses) and environmental care. Silueta X was founded by Diane Rodriguez, who has established herself as one of the major leaders of transsexual Ecuadorians.

For more information visit the organisation’s webpage or their Facebook site.

Asociación ALFIL was born in 1999 as a self-support group for gay men who accompany people living which HIV. Since 2006, Asociación ALFIL, Identidades en Dialogo, is formed legally as a non-governmental organisation with ministerial approval MIES 0272, whose work is concentrated on political impact, the defense of rights and the context of HIV/AIDS with respect to sexual diversities in Ecuador.

Asociación ALFIL is a group of people of LGBTI diversity which has integrated heterosexual members who have an open mind and are sensitive to our realities, who affiliate to our cause. Our organisation started its activities for the defense of Human and Civil Rights of the LGBTI Community in 1999 as a group of gay men who worked towards the sensitisation and prevention of HIV/AIDS. In 2001 our lesbian comrades joined us, while our bisexual and transgender companions joined us in 2002. Completing this process of equalisation of sexual diversity, heterosexual people joined in 2003.

Shortly, ALFIL will announce the venues and times for the activities.

For more information you can visit their website or follow on Twitter.

Photo: The Union and Hope Clinic – Image Released by Ecuadorian Officials.

The raid puts the spotlight back on the Ecuadorian state’s capacity to deal with what has been described by the Public Health Minister (and LGBT rights campaigner), Carina Vance Mafla, as “a mafia, a network that operates nationally in each of the provinces, which are violating human rights”.

The centre will be the 20th to be shut down in 18 months, as part of a nationwide campaign to regulate the clandestine centres – many of which are backed by local and national political elites.

During the investigation it was discovered that the clinic was owned by the provincial health commissioner. 7 people were detained, amongst them an official from the justice system.

The clinic was situated in Pisulí, 500 km north of the capital, Quito. Since yesterday the building has been emptied and the doors sealed.

Among those released, a minor reports that they were “tortured with electricity to ‘cure’ their behavioural problem”, advised the State Prosector (Fiscalía General del Estado – FGE) via their twitter account.

According to the Ecuadorian newspaper, El Telégrafo, the establishment contained a water trench, supposedly used “to torture those interned”, together with “cables that would have been used to apply electric shocks”.

AFP reports an officer as saying “One victim said that her treatment for alcohol dependence and drugs involved being forced to take off her shoes on a wet floor rigged with an electrical charge”.

“These people were being held against their will, overcrowded, in degrading, unhealthy conditions. They were sleeping on the floor. They had no sewer system,” a justice official said.

The raid took place between 4am and 11am. At the site were found lists of debtors and collection receipts, as well as serums, drugs, cell phones, computers, body armor and property deeds.

Public Health Minister, Carina Vance Mafla, described the issues surrounding these clinics as “absolutely critical”. In 2013 alone, various charges have emerged of torture, corrective rape and psychological abuse as part of regimens used to “detoxify” those interned against their will – often young people, and in many cases LGBT. Two deaths have also been confirmed from the clinics this year.

The centre was discovered as part of a search operation for David Romo, who went missing on May 16 in Quito. One of the young people imprisoned in the clinic claims to have shared a room with someone matching David Romo’s description. The Public Prosecutors Office released a statement last night saying it was possible he was there, although his whereabouts are as yet unconfirmed.

David Romo in Santiago. Source: El Comericio

For more information see:

• IDAHO Committee: New Torture Claims Emerge from Ecuador’s “Gay Cure” Clinics
• Global Post: Ecuador addiction clinic accused of torturing patients
• Latin American Current Events: 17 Rescued from brutal “clinic” in Ecuador

At 15 years of age, Freire’s mother discovered her in her bedroom with a female schoolmate. She then sent her to an Evangelical-linked ‘Christian camp’, in a remote area of the state of Guayaquil, with the aim of ‘curing’ her. There, Freire experienced extreme physical and psychological abuse, including rape and other forms of sexual assault and punishment conducted with the express aim of ridding the teenager of her attraction to women.

“I was tortured continuously… They tortured me with electric shocks, didn’t let me bathe for three days, gave me almost nothing to eat, hit me a lot, hung me by my feet… They told me it was for my own good,” she explained at an international press conference this weekend (July 28) in the Ecuadorian capital, Guayaquil.

“They told me it was for my own good”

Whilst the centre operated officially as an Evangelical Christian rehabilitation clinic for people with drug and alcohol problems, Freire advised that she was there with four other young people – all because they were gay. Freire managed to escape after two months detention at the centre. Now, aged 25, she has broken the silence around her experiences, and become the latest in a growing list of LGBT people to go on the record about this kind of abuse.

Last month, 22-year-old student Zulema Constante also managed to escape from a different clinic, based in the eastern city of Tena. In March, Constante had come out to her parents, and told them she had a girlfriend, Cinthya Rodríguez (21), whom she was moving in with. On May 17, 2013 she accepted an invitation from her parents to have lunch together to ‘make things right’.

After getting into her father’s car – a prominent local figure with significant political links – and driving 300m down the street, the car was attacked and Constante was kidnapped by five men who dragged her into an adjacent vehicle. Her father could be heard screaming ‘it’s for your own good’, as her clothes were ripped from the resistance she gave. Constante was handcuffed for the seven hour drive out of the capital.

“We are talking here about a mafia, a network that operates nationally in each of the provinces, which are violating human rights.”

When she arrived at the ‘Feminine Hope Therapeutic Unit’ (Unidad Terapéutica Femenina Esperanza) Constante was taken to the chapel and greeted by two uniformed women who explained the house rules: no escaping, no theft and no lesbianism. Psychological abuse was constant, she recalls. Constante was held in a straight jacket, made to clean toilets with her bare hands, was fed rotten food and, as a result, suffered repeat food poisoning. This aside from routine misidentification as a substance abuser, and admonitions to prayer. “I do not remember how many times I heard about the Bible and that God had made man and woman and that I had to change,” she recalled.

Unlike others held at the centre – nine, including five under-18s – Constante had her internation cut dramatically short. An online campaign spearheaded by her partner Rodríguez, as well as friends and local LGBT activists, such as Lia Burbano of the lesbian group Mujer y Mujer, publicised Constante’s disappearance, demanded her return and called on the government to hold the perpetrators accountable. The campaign quickly went viral, capitalising on recent high-profile online petitions – notably backed by Allout.org and Change.org – aimed at pressuring the Ecuadorian state to take further actions to address the prevalence of clandestine ‘conversion’ centres. After negotiations with the centre, and with her father, Constante was released on June 5, and has since become a key figure in denunication of the centres in Ecuador. Silvia Buendía, Constante’s lawyer, has filed a formal complaint with the courts and is awaiting a hearing date.

These are not isolated examples. “We have lesbians who have reported what the clinics called ‘sex therapy,’ but which consists of being raped by men… We have reports of physical attacks, the use of ice water on inmates… We are talking here about a mafia, a network that operates nationally in each of the provinces, which are violating human rights,” Ecuador’s Health Minister Carina Vance Mafla explained at an international press conference this weekend (July 28). Two people, admitted for addiction issues, died last year at the clandestine centers, she told foreign reporters.

Vance is herself openly gay, and is the former Executive Director of Fundación Causana, an Ecuadorian lesbian rights organisation which has long been at the frontlines of campaigns to close the clinics. Her appointment to the head of the Ministry, in March 2012, was interpreted by many as a signal of the current administration’s commitment to shutting them down.

Since her appointment, a total of 18 clinics have been closed for failing to meet human rights and health standards (15 for human rights violations, 3 for sanitary conditions). The ‘Feminine Hope Therapeutic Unit’ is now one of them. Nevertheless, the Ecuadorian government estimates that – of the 200 religious retreats or drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres in total which exist in the country – at least 80 remain unlicensed. And many continue to offer the sorts of illegal and abusive ‘sexual reorientation’ therapies experienced by Freire and Constante.

“This is not a struggle between parents and children. It’s a struggle against these clinics.”

One problem in closing the clinics, aside from their clandestine nature, is that the so-called ‘mafia’ which owns, supports and profits from them very often includes elected government officials – as in the case of the clinic where Constante was held. Vance also advised that Ecuadorian law permits forced treatment of an ‘addict’ if the treatment is ordered by a judge. Activist Lia Burbano notes also that many gay people are placed into these clinics by close family members, which ‘creates an emotional weight’, that may prohibit people coming to terms with conditions, and coming forward to denounce them. Burbano also points out that families are very often unaware of the inhumane treatments and conditions fostered at the centres, when sending their relatives to them: “This is not a struggle between parents and children. It’s a struggle against these clinics.”

Report also available in Spanish.

Occupation and kiss-in mark May 17 in Ecuador

Media Reports

• Extra: ¡Besame mucho!
• La Hora : Plantón en Guayaquil por el Día Internacional contra la Homofobia

Activists also hosted an artistic installation at the Contemporary Arts Center in Quito. The installation represented a look at the processes of dignifying sexual diversity and respecting differences, and came about after discussions with lesbian-feminist collectives, popular educators, communication activists, intellectuals and artists, each of whom were invited to examine their own fighting processes and life stories from the perspective of thinking about the conditions exclusion imposes on a society that has naturalized and institutionalized homophobic and sexist practices.

The installation aimed to make lesbian movements’ struggles visible in the country, particularly their fight to eradicate the clinics that attempt to “cure” sexual diversity. Those clinics are seen as a trace of fear, representing religious dogmatism and a lack of respect for homosexuality, despite the 1998 Constitution acknowledging the right to sexual freedom.

To mark IDAHO, there was a free concert by young artists at the Contemporary Arts Center on behalf of the “Cures That Kill” Campaign.