On Friday, June 30, we held the webinar Why open data is key in the fight for diversity, with the participation of activists from organizations that fight for the rights of LGBTIQ+ people.

The panelists included Hassel Fallas, Data and Inclusion Coordinator of ILDA; Dennis Castillo, Executive Director of IRCA Casabierta; Elvin Ponce, Coordinator of Somos CDC Honduras; Karen Anaya, Technical Secretary of Red SinViolencia LGBT and Colombia Diversa; and Diego Lima, Researcher of Asociación Lambda.

The following are some of the main ideas shared at the webinar:

• There is a need for analysis and data collection that reflects the realities of the LGBTIQ+ community. This will allow for informed decisions regarding public policies and allocation of public resources that impact this community as well as legal changes, access to public services, representation and visibility.
• Fake news and data without evidence are an obstacle to making the LGBTIQ+ community’s issues visible, as they are frequently used by anti-rights groups to expand their discourse of hate and/or discrimination.
• Open data on the LGBTIQ+ community is fundamental to advocate for their rights, for strategic litigation (as in the case of Honduras and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights) and to support their complaints with evidence and is an important tool for awareness-raising and advocacy or activism. In turn, the data serve as indicators of progress in advancing equality.
• The LGBTIQ+ community is a community that is not uniform, but diverse as it is composed of migrants, people with disabilities and people in diverse socioeconomic situations, so it is essential to have data that reflects this plurality. It is also important to generate disaggregated data on violence and specific conditions.
• In general, in Latin America there is a lack of political will on the part of governments to generate open data regarding the LGBTIQ+ community. For this reason, it is important to socialize and share data among organizations.
• There must be well-defined categories that respond to the particularities of the community and allow them to be properly identified.
• The communication of the data and the generation of the context in which it can be useful is of utmost importance so that the data can have a significant impact.
• There must be a framework for the protection of people’s sensitive data.

 

In addition, during this meeting the new project that ILDA is part of together with 5 organizations in Central America (Asociación LAMBDA, Somos CDC, ASPIDH Arcoiris Trans, AMATE and IRCA Casabierta) was presented. The objective of this project is to use data to make violence against LGBTIQ+ people visible and to influence public and private policies that support human rights and the strengthening of more inclusive democracies in the region. The project has 4 goals: capacity building, data collection methodologies, data collection and analysis, and advocacy. You can learn more at this link.