ILGALAC is the International Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Trans and Intersex for Latin America and the Caribbean. Its Regional Office, based in Buenos Aires, contributes to improving communication and interconnection with the more than 250 member organizations present in all the countries of the region. Learn in detail who we are and what our work is in the region.

Regional Office - Buenos Aires, Argentina.

With the opening of its Regional Office in the City of Buenos Aires, Latin America and the Caribbean it becomes the second region of ILGA in the world to have its own headquarters, after ILGA Europe. The new regional headquarters will contribute to closer contact with the member organizations of ILGALAC.

Latin America and the Caribbean is a large region, with a diversity of cultures and regulations that directly impacts LGBTI rights, whose status differs markedly among its Nations, as can be seen in the ILGA State Homophobia Report. It can be said that Latin American countries stand out among those who are leading the promotion of LGBTI equality worldwide, thanks to laws, public policies or judicial decisions that have taken place in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico City , Colombia, Costa Rica or Uruguay. However, there is still a hard work ahead with a focus on the eradication of prejudices, the so-called "traditional values", religious and political fundamentalisms - whose most terrible consequences are hate crimes -

ILGA contribution with the UN and the OAS

ILGA has consultative status at ECOSOC, the United Nations Economic and Social Council, which allows it to be an active participant in all conferences and sessions of the Organization, providing greater visibility to the struggles of its members, helping them to ask their governments on LGBTI rights, or campaigning for LGBTI organizations to access their own name in the UN forums, participating in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), among other possibilities and actions.

Precisely, to improve its promotional work at the United Nations, the Association will move its global operations from Brussels to Geneva, during the spring of 2014. Also, from Latin America and the Caribbean, ILGALAC has been developing an articulated work with the Unit for the Rights of LGBTI Persons of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) at the OAS, a collaboration that will also be provided to the new Rapporteurship on the Rights of LGBTI Persons, of the same organization, which will take office next year in Washington.

Lines of action
ILGALAC works in the region developing different activities, programs and lines of work to support member organizations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. At the moment it advances on three axes of action:

The ILGALAC office seeks to increase contact with organizations in order to improve communication to and from ILGALAC. Under this line, the aim is to develop a regional strategy that responds to local needs and challenges.

From ILGALAC there is a need to create networks between LGTBI organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean in order to share relevant information on specific topics. These networks are constituted into groups in which ILGALAC works as a facilitator in the exchange of documents, news and actions that are of thematic interest for the network. Currently it is suggested to work on 7 thematic networks:

• LGBTI persons deprived of liberty.
• Inclusion of trans and intersex people.
• LGBTI youth.
• LGBTI seniors.
• Hate crimes.
• Bisexual Lesbian Health.
• Health.
• Asylum, refugees and migrations.
• Afro-descendants.
• Original towns.
• Sexual and Reproductive Rights.