LGBT Rights, Law & practices in Greece
ΔIKAIΩMA - NOMOI
Some facts about the practice of Greek law that seem self-explanatory:
New discriminative bill - Education - Health -
Abuse support - Civil Marriage - the Media
- Sex & Gender equality - Funtamental Rights & Civil Rights
- typical case of Greek homophobia in 2008
New Discriminative Legislation
* In late February 2008, the greek government announced preparing another new discriminative law about some kind of
co-habitation registration, only for heterosexual couples !!!
Please note that this bill is still "under construction" so there's no real information about it's contents,
but the advertising about it is on the lines that "it will make cohabitating couples responsible.." and that
"the cohabitation contract will be automatically broken when one of the members gets married".
Some lawyers have already publicly debated the subject online [http://elawyer.blogspot.com/2008/03/blog-post.html - in greek], reminding us that the existent family law
does not refer to any discriminating detail on the grounds of sex (female/male), except for the neccessary details
about the parenthood of children born to single mothers.
For details or/and complains please contact the competent
Greek minisry of justice [www.ministryofjustice.gr
- grammatia@justice.gov.gr.
- announcement in Athens News, 7 March 2008
*_Greek Bloggers Against Discrimination_*
- Greek bloggers fight for gay partnership equality
- http://qsputnik.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/action-for-lesbian-and-gay-civil-partnership/
Education
* The "Greek ministry of church and education" is no joke, but the official authority of church controlling education. They explicitly forbid
any attempt to educate people about basic human rights and about sexual health. On the contrary, they permeate education with the official church
dark ages views, like abstinence is everything you need to know about your sexual health, abortion is a first degree murder, and the qualities of sound
include the power to demolish city walls, like in Jericho (the last is taken from the primary 5th grade physics book !)
January 2007: a current hot example: the Greek authority for this year (& past years) campaign
"All Different - All Equal"
is the "National counsil of youth", a subsidiary of
the General Secretariat of Young Generation,
which in turn IS a sector of the Ministry of Education and Religion.
Would you suppose it a complete accident that in more than a decade of being financed by european funds to promote equality,
they somehow never managed to promote any equality information to any of the ministry-of-church-education run schools
about any kind of rights the queer people share with everyone else or just about queer people co-existing between us.
We plead to anyone involved in the All Different - All Equal campaign at european, international or administrative lever to push
certain plans or/and practices to promote visibility of queer people, especially lesbians, and their equal rights to all grades
of schools, supporting and informing all students according to age and all teachers.
As a general check-point, please ask the greek "competent authorities" on equality to inform you who supports queer
children and minors, not theoretically but presenting sound proof of any kind of support given.
Please inform us about any kind of official support offered to queer youth in greece to inform everyone asking us for this kind
of support we're not qualified nor trained to offer.
Health
* Just try and tell your medical doctor that you're a lesbian. If he or she doesn't refuse seeing you, they'll just pretend they never heard it.
* Thinking about being a blood donor? Every single time you try it, you got to fill a form, stating that you haven't had any homosexual
practice during the last TEN years ! (note: homosexual is mostly thought to mean male-homosexual, still women have to fill-in the same form)
* HIV-AIDS : Lesbians are arbitrarily considered high-risk population AND they're never offered any kind of
official education nor any relevant information about safe-sex, although they're still never explicitly mentioned, there is no statistics available and
officially they're considered non-existent.
Married heterosexual women on the contrary are arbitrarily considered safe from the virus, are also never told anything about it, are not expected
to dare talk to their long-term male partners about safe-sex unless they're prostitutes and they usually find out they're infected when screened during
their pregnancy. By the way, they're the higher rising infected population group (try the official statistics about this one - we've never heard of any, but they should exist somewhere).
Just keep up the total ban on sexual health information to keep this one going.
Lesbian abuse support
* Abuse among lesbians, sorry, we don't have this anywhere in our lists. The actual word "lesbian" is a taboo and lesbian relationships are unheard of
and untolerated. If you happen to address your problem to some friendly abuse-group, like the SOS helpline, they're sorry, but they only support
domestic violence, as in "accepted - heterosexual family close relatives". Still we must stress the valuable fact that most of
the women in the SOS helpline will offer basic consultation, so if you happen to catch an unfriendly one, call them again later.
The fact is they can't do much, and they don't know much about being a lesbian in Greece, but they're trying their best.
* Family abuse, well you may find some support here, especially if you're a minor and you can prove the abuse. Still mostly you'll be in trouble
when it becomes clear that the abuse was due to your being a lesbian, or even thinking about it, or just being accused of it. You see, the authorities
find it much easier to understand your abusers, after all you have exposed the family to their local society with your lesbianism !
Tips: Don't go to the police (not really dangerous, but no support expected). If you need medical support go to the hospital. Try the SOS help-line for psychological support and advice.
If you want to press charges, contact a friendly lawyer ASAP. If you're a minor avoid the organisation "Hamogelo toy paidioy" (child smile) and other church-based
organizations, unless you're really desperate and out of alternatives, or you can successfully hide your lesbianism.. Minors not needing medical support but
facing intolerant circumstances at home should contact the office of the Greek Ombudsman for children or go directly to the district attorney.
* Hate crimes: no law about them, no statistics, no information whatsoever. They're not non-existent, they're just being made invisible.
Lesbian rights & support
* You can sue anyone calling you a lesbian & the general public believes it's very bad language
* The Greek law mentions nothing about lesbians, neither protective nor against them.
* Any anti-discrimination program supporting minorities is always about large traditional families (with 4 or more minors), emigrates of Greek origin
coming from east Europe, lately a lot of talk (and very few real support) for immigrants and sometimes about people with
disabilities. Very seldom there's some support for jobless women, either young or above 60,
like there's no other women in the country. There's never been any kind of support program about lesbians, not to mention any antidiscrimination information
provided by any authority.
Marriage rights
* Greek marriage law refers to persons and future-weds, but law students are still taught that any marriage between same-sex people is void !!!
Some educators dare refer also to bibliography stating this is un-constitutional, but still remember it's invalid!
So much for equal rights. See Greek law 1250/1982 about civil marriage, pd 391/1982 & later changes & Greek university books about civil and family law..
* The law about officially recognizing couples married abroad says they just have to present their marriage license authenticated
by the foreign ministry of the issuing country. We're still waiting for the first same-sex couple daring to try this and become notorious in the local media about it.
* The only known Greek male person residing in Belgium where he could marry his man, was refused the necessary document
stating he was not married before. The case is taken up with human rights courts .. and we're looking forward for the outcome. Reported in the daily
paper Eleftherotypia on 27 Jan. 2006, see http://www.enet.gr/online/online_hprint?id=22992880 (in Greek).
* LGBT organisations urge us to go to city-halls and apply for mattiage licences. If we are refused, we should take it up
with local, european and international rights courts, and thus the first bunch of "futureweds" should open the road for everyone to follow.
There's a catch here, and it's not just the fact that we've been conditioned that "lesbians and gays NEVER get maried and are forbiden to
even dream about becoming homemakers and beter forget about children on their very first homosexual date..
The more serious problem is the well-known fact that the first "future-weds" to ever dare ask for a marriage licence will become
the laughing scapegoat of all local media for weeks - at the same time escaping them from reporting the real problems they should be reporting.
It may be kind of difficult for you to believe so, especially if you have never been exposed to the local media. But it should be easy enough
to ask anyone that has seen any production of mrs. Lambiri and her folk, concerning homosexuality at large.. ("anomaly" is her term fot it).
Maybe the next generation will dare, if we manage to keep local media lawfull and to educate the young about their real rights.
If you know of anyone raised in Greece and daring to marry a same-sex person anywhere, please inform us. We don't need any details,
we just need to know that someone dared at last.
NEW
March 2008, OLKE and local news-press announced there's a lesbian couple getting married in Athens, and another
homosexual couple in Thessaloniki, by their local (small-municipality) mayors, in accordance with the
civil marriage law 1250/1982.
Wishing them the best, we fully support the newly-weds need for anonymity, keep being apprehensive about
possible legal (unconstitutional) attacks on their marriages and waiting for more lesbian & gay couples to
keep getting married in our hometowns.. :-)
Media & public images
* The law establishing the radio and television authority explicitly mentions that 1. It is forbidden to present people in a way that under the current
circumstances, may promote the humiliation, social isolation or negative discrimination against them from part of the audience especially due to
sex (gender), race, ethnicity, language, religion, ideology, age, health or disability, sexual orientation or profession - and- .
2 It is forbidden to promote diminutive, racist, xenophobic (fearing of strangers), or sexist messages and intolerant views and generally ethnic and
religious minorities and other sensitive or powerless groups of the population must not be attacked.
But the telecommunications authority seems to have never heard about it and keeps fining as high as possible at the slightest
mention of homosexuals as normal people on the media, resulting in stopping the only lesbian and gay radio show there ever was on the
municipality radio of New Heraclium (Athens)
in early 2005 (see decision no. 408/21.12.04 of the radio-TV council of Tuesday, 21 December 2004 against the "Gay & Lesbian Radio Show")
and in all TV and radio stations being extremely reluctant to show anything supporting LG rights !!!
Anyway, no-one ever thought that lesbians and homosexuals are anything close to any sensitive or minority group.
* There's a lot of government work directed at trying to build a "nice" profile about people's rights in Greece in the European Community,
but this is just an empty facade. Ask any Greek "competent authority" on any kind of proof on how they support lesbians, elders, roma people or non-christians,
or at least their statistics about how many they are.. and see what jokes they'll give you. Try the health ministry for a bigger joke.
Sex & Gender equality
* about men-women equality: numerous laws supposedly supporting it, i.e. Greek law 1329/1983 .. but women still have to file their tax declarations
as dependents on their husbands tax declaration and their husband receiving their possible tax-return! Women are still expected to be excellent home-makers
and child-raisers, regardless of the fact that most women work possibly longer hours than their men, usually for a lot less income, and have to be full of guilt
about their children missing them. Women living alone or not "belonging" to any man-master are considered "easy" or public or available to anyone.
* No law protecting real all-gender equality still. Ask the SATTE organization (Solidarity of transexual and transvestite m2f) about this. They're
happy when the police avoids harassing them ! FTM is a totally exotic fruit not happening in this christian state.
more..
* 1930's law about proselytizing is still valid. It actually forbids anything that could be considered proselytizing from anyone but the Greek orthodox church.
* The 1995 law about non-discrimination at work.. does not seem to have any effect on lesbian protection. There's still no publicly available information
about where to inquire about it, though there's supposed to be some kind of relevant sector in the ministry of work. See law 3304/2005 & inquire the Greek
ministry of work. See: Public Discussion about the new greek law for equal treatment .. (some details about the
law in Greek (N.3304/2005), at the April rainbow forum, April 4th, 2005, at the Argo theater, Athens & our
first thoughts about the law - and we still keep them. Back then we were optimistic that the law would be heard and generally known to the public.
* The new law about domestic violence, valid since January 24th 2007, supposedly protects against violence from cohabitating family members,
forbids beating children for any reason, protects child abuse from educators, religious persons or other persons with some kind of authority over the children
and rules that teachers should report any visible abuse signs on their pupils, still offers no protection to teachers that should dare get involved in what is
supposed to be "family matters". We hope for a more detailed report in the future. See law 3500/2006 - published on FEK 232A' on 24.10.2006.
.
We need to declare we'll be extremely happy to remove any of the above facts when they're no longer valid, but we''l need solid proof to do so.
some more stuff..
- the Sapphites 2004 report to the Forumsisters book project of Christian lesbians in Europe
(practically minor changes in law since did not change anything in real life!)
- Marriage Rights & Practices in Greece - (currently available only in Greek)
- For more detailed information about the Greek law, try contacting Cooperation Against Homophobia (Sympraxis)
address: 51 Filippoy st, 546 31, Thessaloniki, Greece, - tel. +30 2310 249591, fax: +30 2310 249614, URL: www.geocities.com/sympraxis/
English page http://geocities.com/sympraxis/index_en.htm
What about lgbt rights in Greece ? Are there any?
Well, it's not so bad. There's not much against homosexuals in Greece, except a few
outdated laws, one against male homosexuals, another one against preaching (the Greek
church is the sole owner of the monopoly of preaching! but it's been used against lgbt
publications not-so-long ago), and the social rejection of course.
Then again there's other forms of perpetuating discrimination, like outdated books teaching
university and police academy students homosexuality is an outlawed disease, and famous TV
personalities witch-hunting at the smallest sign of any healthy lgbt sign and inviting church persons
proffering to be health and law gurus and publicly outcasting queer-lgbt et all along with paedophiles,
drug-users and anything horrible enough to name along.. in the popular afternoon time-zone, sending
their statistics sky-high ! Of cource there's no need for their clue to be related to paedophiles and
drugs or any kind of disease or crime.. the just auto-relate it themselves.
Nor do they need any academic references to proffer their medical and law expertise.
The local saying goes "In Greece, you're whatever you declare".
(And mom believes it all, as "they've said so on TV, it's got to be true"!)
Then the radio-TV authority comes along offering a helping hand to the picture/s, hunting to extinction
the slightest reference to lgbt existence or rights.. closing down the only informative radio show we've
had (started with EC initiative)..
Did I mention the double standards in the army & the consequences on most male lives? I'm not so
well-informed on those, read here: Greece Does Not Want Gays in its Armed Forces, AFP, March 28, 2006
ATHENS, (AFP) - Greece officially does not want gays in its armed forces, excluding both
those serving under its compulsory conscription system and those enlisting voluntarily,
the Greek armed forces general staff said Tuesday.
/www.gaymilitary.ucsb.edu/PressClips/06_0328_FrancePresse.htm
It's even better for lesbians.. the majority believes they don't exist, save the porn films
and the extreme male fantasies. But they know we exist, and every male in the country
wants to be extremely friendly to us, even give us babies.. and forcibly "teach" us to
like males along the way of course.
The cases where a family member tries to do just that, or invited a friend to do it..
or the much more usual case of extreme family violence against lesbian daughters and sisters
are never heard in public, as this is sacred protected private family life - and who would
believe a lesbian, anyway?
There is also a law reported by international lgbt organizations, that seems to support granting
asylum to people that are discriminated against in their countries due to their different
sexual id, but guess what: we've never heard of this law here, and nobody has ever tried
to use it. You see people that really need asylum on grounds of alternative sexual id,
they'd rather go for countries where different sexual id is really supported and discrimination
against it is really banned.
Where would you go if you were discriminated against by your country, institutions,
work chances, family, peers, and the society at large?
Most Greek homosexual people I know of would go to Amsterdam, if they could. Some of my
friends think London would be OK, or San Francisco, or some places in Canada, if they had
a chance to go there, and no close relatives near-by. But that's mostly gay men, and people
that have never actually been there.
If Amsterdam was a little bit more sunny, and we knew their language from high-school ..
I bet there would be a Greek lesbian community up there a long time ago. Well.. maybe not
so much like an organized-community, you know we're not so strong in organizing, but a
community nevertheless.You see, we know that "it's heaven there", we really believe that,
any friend that's ever been there says so anew when they come back.
So, if you were a gay person discriminated against in your country because you're gay or
lesbian or transgender & in great need of a friendly hosting country, would you seek asylum
in a country that says it will support you, but has never supported any gay person in the past,
and the local gays dream of getting away to some place where gay rights are really valid ?
I would rather opt for the place the local gays and lesbians long to go to.. And I would make
sure women are not thought of as belonging to their fathers or husbands or brothers (to the
closest male in the family), and to their kitchens, and paid less for doing the same job as
a man does, and never getting the same promotions there. I would certainly not opt for a
country where 90% of the teachers are women for about half a century, and still less than
10% of the headmasters and almost none of the education gurus are women.
And I would certainly not go to a place where domestic violence is officially protected
along with the "holy" family! while the civil marriage law is rightfully referring to "persons",
but is anti-constitutionally "explained" to mean it is not valid for same-sex couples !!!
So much for equality in civil rights and local law in the proudly democratic country the
locals affectionately call "Banania" since there can't be any worse place in the world..
where you're supposed to have proper rights on constitutional paper, but there's
absolutely no way to get them!
Oh, there's more.. the EU believes we're "a western properly democratic country,
with no equality problems" so.. we're left out of programs especially meant to promote
equality in the rest of South-eastern Europe where they got almost identical problems with us,
(mostly) along with the same ultra-conservative religious control over personal rights !
Want some topping? The church controls the ministry of education and actually (though not
really outspoken) forbids any kind of sexual health education and human rights education. It
is also involved some way (usually underhanded) in most serious sectors of public life in
similar backwards-enforcing ways, i.e.. one of the few members of the council of KEEL (the
special center responsible for STD control in the country) is a church person, and guess what's
the true unofficial policy of the committee.. and why there's no kind of real AIDS control in Greece ..
Did I tell you that lesbians are forbidden from being blood-donors (unless they lie about it)
as any person having had any kind of "homosexual sex" during the last 10 years is unacceptable
as a blood donor !
There's a lot more I would happily rumble about here, but let's keep to the facts ..
OK, now here is the most recent documents I can find online referring to
the actual situation about LGBT rights in Greece, laws and practices and
religious "customs" included, along with our current reports ..
Reporting discrimination & homophobia in Greece
reporting abusive references against homosexuality in the Greek press
reporting racist public declarations against homosexuality by Greek authorities, politicians, public persons ..
reporting outspoken official discrimination against homosexuality from the "competent authorities" that are supposed to offer protection against discrimination.
reporting sexist references degrading womanhood in Greece
Sapphites answer to the COUNTRY
QUESTIONNAIRE for the Forumsisters book project - Feb. 2004, about
being an orthodox christian lesbian in Greece, including references to
law, marriage, protection against discrimination ..
references about womens rights in Greece today
...
links to international lgbt rights info
global womens rights issues
sexual rights
Declaration of Sexual Rights:
Sexual Rights are Fundamental and Universal Human Rights
Adopted in Hong Kong at the 14th World Congress of Sexology, August 26, 1999
.. sampling some..
4. The right to sexual equity. This refers to freedom from all forms of discrimination regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, age,
race, social class, religion, or physical and emotional disability.
5. The right to sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure, including autoeroticism, is a source of physical, psychological, intellectual and
spiritual well being.
6. The right to emotional sexual expression. Sexual expression is more than erotic pleasure or sexual acts. Individuals have a right to
express their sexuality through communication, touch, emotional expression and love.
7. The right to sexually associate freely. This means the possibility to marry or not, to divorce, and to establish other types of
responsible sexual associations.
...
10. The right to comprehensive sexuality education. This is a lifelong process from birth throughout the life cycle and should involve
all social institutions.
11. The right to sexual health care. Sexual health care should be available for prevention and treatment of all sexual concerns, problems
and disorders.
relative links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_rights_in_Greece
