HistoryThe Habeas Corpus Working Group was founded on 30 April 1996. The foundation came in the wake of a series of events. Some members had been involved in various gay and lesbian initiatives: the first HIV/AIDS day film festival, and most notably the foundation of the Rainbow Association for the Rights of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual People. This organization promised to be an umbrella organization for GLB people but by 1996 it was clear that the Hungarian state would not register that organization officially, which, it was feared, would have prevented it from operation. Therefore another gay and lesbian organization, Háttér was founded. However, the ten members that finally founded the Working Group felt a need for a broader view on issues of sexuality, gender, race, and human rights in general. This need may have come from a more varied background of identities that remains with the organization to this day: one member is bisexual but used to be exclusively gay, others used to be lesbian or gay but now lead a predominantly heterosexual lifestyle, one member used to be heterosexual and now identifies as a bisexual woman, some members have been straight or gay all through their lives. We also concurred in a liberal world-view: that all rights are deductible from general human rights and that despite our differences some fundamental similarities between all people must be presumed to have a standard of equality. As a result, our organization does not claim to represent sexual minorities or women but acts as a human rights organization that specializes in GLBT and women's issues.Nevertheless we also felt that we need to cooperate with everyone that is willing to work for the same purposes; hence our name Working Group - a congregation of people working on the same issues regardless of philosophical beliefs. Therefore ever since the beginning we have been seeking affiliations with organizations and individuals that shared our fundamental view that self-determination rights connected to our bodies need to be protected by law and social norms, that the public needs education on topics of sexuality, feminism, race and ethnicity, etc, that people need actual legal protection against human rights abuses. One of our first activities, to realize one of these goals, was to organize several series of discussions in various cafĂ©s in Budapest, on issues of sexuality and gender with experts from a number of fields including sociology, etology, film and media studies, philosophy, and activism. We also organized an essay contest on the same topics. One year after the foundation the Working Group launched its Legal Aid Service serving sexual minorities. This was possible under the Phare-Democracy program of the European Union. The Legal Aid Service has been in operation ever since, with minor changes. As a result of contacts with feminist organizations, our attention was called to the issue of domestic violence and rape. Work in the Legal Aid and the Working Group was extended to cover this topic two years ago, and now approximately 60% of our activities are connected to the target group of abused women. Meanwhile, in 1998 we started publishing human rights information materials, which activity has recently increased. Relationships with other organizationsOur cooperation with NANE (Women Against Violence) started as a personal relationship with individual members of that organization and developed into a professional one when the Working Group started to deal with legal cases of battered women. NANE directs a number of callers to our Legal Aid Service, and where necessary the two organizations work as a united team on the case.Apart from raising our awareness to the problem of domestic violence and rape, cooperation with NANE has been useful in working out new methodologies. In the autumn of 2000 we held a campaign at a village where one of our clients lived whose life was endangered by her ex-husband. On leaflets, we asked the inhabitants of the village to prevent the violence by intervening when they heard shouts and cries from the client's house, and by not serving the man with alcoholic beverages. The campaign intimidated the ex-husband who stopped battering his ex-wife. This kind of work opens up the possibility of providing aid other than strict legal aid; to represent our clients' interests in conflicts outside the courtroom. Our cooperation with Labrisz, the Hungarian lesbian organization started when a member of the Working Group took part in Labrisz's project in 2000, in which a peer group held workshops about LGBT issues in secondary schools. This project received huge publicity in Hungary, which offered an opportunity for further cooperation in drafting press releases, complaints to media authorities, in preparing for and participating in television and radio shows. At present, HCWG participates, among other LGBT-organizations, in a series of discussions on LGBT issues with the Governmental Office of Equal Opportunities, and takes an assertive role in facilitating cooperation between the NGOs concerned. Main activities of the organization at presentCurrently the Habeas Corpus Working Group deals primarily with the equality of women and sexual minorities, and self-determination rights connected to sexuality. We condemn all forms of sexual violence and exploitation, depictions and use of women and children as sexual objects. We support the equality of lesbians and bisexuals as minorities within a minority, the dismantling of the institutions and consciousness of heterosexism and patriarchy.Legal Aid Service for women and sexual minoritiesOur main activity at present is a legal aid service that deals with human rights abuses against sexual minorities and women, and has some HIV-positive clients, as well. Most of our women clients are survivors of domestic violence or rape, or mothers or grandmothers of child survivors. The Service provides legal counseling and advocacy.In discrimination cases against our gay or bisexual men clients have achieved some serious successes. However we cannot report to have been able to provide efficient help for female and child survivors of domestic violence. These cases are more serious, include several types of law branches (civil, criminal, family law), and our organization is unable to substitute the work not done by authorities. In most cases we have only been able to assist the offended woman or the mother of the child survivor to find her way through the labyrinth of police, attorney's office, court, child custody authorities, notaries and experts of the court, to make complaints on what they neglect. In a number of cases involving discrimination against gay people we may report significant results. Contrarily, we cannot state that we have been able to provide effective help for women and children who became victims of violence. These cases are more complex, they follow multiple threads and our organization cannot supplement the work of authorities that do not take action against such violence. In most cases all we can do is help the injured women or mothers of sexually abused children to find their way in the labyrinths of the police, the state attorneys office, the courts, the office of guardianship, the notaries and legal experts and be able to point out on a legal basis which authority failed to take what action. We had some success in cases of lesbians, bisexuals and gays, though the legal remedies provided by the current regulations are poor and inadequate. On 3 September 2002, the Constitutional Court abolished the last penal section openly discriminative against lesbians, bisexuals and gays, concerning the age of consent. As far as the information at our disposal is concerned, at the time when the Constitutional Court abolished Section 199 in 2002, procedures were being conducted against 26 or more persons. Thirteen of the above mentioned 26 persons under criminal procedures have been the clients of the Habeas Corpus legal aid. The other defendants are not clients of other advocacy organizations. The court suspended the procedure in the case of 8 clients of Habeas Corpus and requested the Constitutional Court to examine the constitutionality of the section. The Habeas Corpus Working Group submitted the only complaint against Section 199 at the Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights in a case where a binding sentence had been passed. The legal protection of women and children and of sexual minorities seem complementary to each other. Many times the ways and nature of discrimination are much clearer as the cases are put in comparison: according to our experiences, state authorities tend to prosecute and discriminate against homosexuals, instead of perpetrators of violence against women and children. Just one example: a gay policeman was discharged because of having sex with his boyfriend privately, without causing public nuisance, while the case of a policeman practicing wringing someone's neck on his mother was smothered up. PublicationOne member of the Working Group writes editorials in one weekly newspaper and a monthly magazine on domestic violence, the discrimination against women in general and discrimination against sexual minorities. Members are also appearing on television and radio and talk about sexual minorities and domestic violence.The Working Group has issued and has been distributing four human rights education materials recently. These provide immediate information on how fundamental civil liberties are protected by the law, and three are for sexual minorities on cohabitation, sexual crimes and inheriting from a same-sex spouse (see: Appendix 2). Several more are being designed, among other target groups, for lesbians, and for abused women and parents of child survivors. We are also planning to publish a series of Human Rights reports on the situation of sexual minorities and women in Hungary. Currently our public discussion series are not being continued for lack of capacity. The Habeas Corpus Working Group submitted a joint report with NANE Women Against Violence Association in August 2002 to the CEDAW Committee of the United Nations. Following to the report and some tragic defaults of the Hungarian authorities, HCWG joined the campaign of two other organizations attacking violence against women and children. We are still actively campaigning and try to bring more of our cases of violence against women to the international tribunals, since the Hungarian authorities are still reluctant to investigate cases of sexual violence against children, as well as the abuse of women. In August 2003 we have initiated a new parallel campaign to support the victims of prostitution and trafficking, especially of the sex-trade. We fight for stronger protection of these victims and for strict state prosecution of sexual exploitation and violence. Discussions with politiciansThe Working Group has developed numerous proposals for amendments of laws on sexual crimes, and discusses these with politicians. At present we are in contact with three to four members of parliament. Recently a member has pressured two leading politicians of the liberal and social parties at a conference to invite representatives of sexual minorities to the minorities commission of the Hungarian Parliament.Again, as in the case of the Legal Aid Service, in our long standing lobbying efforts we have come to the realization that LGBT and women's issues may only become political issues in Hungary if our lobbying activities are backed up by a number of politically active communities and NGOs. Our main sponsorsOur main sponsors have been the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Institute in the past three years (2000-2003). | ||
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