Homophobia Caused 141 Deaths in 2019 Alone, Says Report

By Arkady Petrov

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On National Anti-Homophobia Day, the Gay Group of Bahia (GGB) released a new report that registers 141 deaths, including homicides and suicides, as a result of homophobia from January to May 15th, 2019.

According to the document, released this Friday, 17th, in addition to the confirmed occurrences, there are eighteen cases of alleged LGBT-phobia deaths that remain in “limbo”, waiting for more detailed investigation.

The research was carried out by Prof. Marcelo Domingos Oliveira, author of a doctoral thesis on LGTB-phobia and is based on information collected from 82 media outlets, including newspapers, TV news, news agencies, blogs, Facebook, WhatsApp, search engines and internet research websites, web portals, radios, personal information of relatives and acquaintances, and police records.

According to the NGO, since there is no government statistical information on such deaths, these figures are under-reported and may have a discrepancy of five to ten percent. However, other national and international research agencies, both public as well as NGOs, confirm the veracity of such data.

Compared to last year’s statistics, if we take the 2018 Brazilian LGBT-death-report as reference, we may conclude that its number remains stable: between January and May 2018 there were 140 deaths, an average of 28 homicides and suicides per month, 141 of which were registered in the current year, up to May 15th, 2019.

“We hope that such data, which confirms that Brazil is the world leader in LGBT deaths, will contribute to making LGBT-phobia legally equivalent to the crime of racism and to eradicating this epidemic that in early 2019 led to the death of an LGBT every 23 hours,” says the GGB.