They urged Congress and the U. S. State Department to take an active role in monitoring and responding to these violations. A Turkish witness also testified on his direct experience of abuses there. Turkey has been a huge prison for all of us, most of all for homosexuals.
Gays are in fear all the time.
Sexual orientation, too, is such a quality, a deeply rooted and profoundly felt element of selfhood. Ralph cited the long stuggle for recognition of women's human rights as a model for the expansion of existing protections. Yet by exposing abuses against women and the role of governments in perpetrating or allowing the abuse, women have claimed the recognition that they too are entitled to enjoy their basic rights. Women are often harassed, are subjected to rape, sexual abuse, and forced pregnancy, and ultimately suffer from sexism as well as homophobia in any given society. Witnesses called on the US government to ratify human-rights treaties it has so far refused to endorse, including the Convention on the Eliminationof Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.