An updated report by a human rights group in Europe found that over 1,700 transgender people have killed worldwide in the past seven years — and those are just reported murders, writes Adrian Gonzalez on the HRC Blog.
Transgender Europe (TGEU), a human rights organization working towards the elimination of all forms of discrimination against transgender Europeans, released an update of its Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) report for The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT) 2015.
The TMM IDAHOT 2015 report outlines an alarming total of 1,731 cases of reported killings of transgender and gender-diverse people around the globe from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2014. While the circumstances around many of the killings are unknown due to lack of proper investigation, many “involve[d] an extreme degree of aggression, including torture and mutilation.”
According to Transrespect Versus Transphobia, a TGEU research project, “The TMM project systematically monitors, collects and analyses reports of homicides of trans people worldwide” with the intention of assisting activists in raising visibility and public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people.
The report indicates that there were “1,356 killings in 23 countries in Central and South America, 155 killings in 16 Asian countries; 112 killings in North America; 94 killings in 14 European countries; 9 killings have been reported in 4 African countries; and 5 killings in 4 countries in Oceania.” The highest absolute numbers, accounting for 57 percent of all reported killings around the globe, took place in Brazil (689), Mexico (194) and the United States (108). It is important to highlight that these countries have a strong presence of transgender and LGBT organizations doing professional monitoring. TGEU indicates that “this correlation points to the unknown number of unreported cases” elsewhere in the world.
According to TGEU’s Senior Researcher Carsten Balzer, there has been a worrisome increase in killings of transgender children and youth. Balzer explained, “in the last seven years, 131 trans and gender-diverse persons under 20 years of age have been reported murdered, accounting for 12 percent of all reported murders where the age was known. Forty-eight of these 131 victims were under 18. An extremely distressing tendency is the fact that in the last two years five trans people under 14 have been reported murdered.”
More detailed information and analysis including maps and tables can also be found here.
