In addition to ongoing harassment and discrimination, LGBT people are routinely subjected to violent, physical attacks, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein, adding there have been hundreds of LGBT hate-related killings across the globe since 2011.
According to information provided by an LGBT rights group, more than 1,700 people have been killed because of their sexual orientation and or gender identity across 62 countries between 2008 and 2014. That amounts to about two LGBT people a day.
Cited in the report are the “grotesque” murders of a transgender woman in Uruguay, and of lesbian women in South Africa. Also detailed in the report is the murder of a gay man in Chile, said to have been murdered by neo-Nazis who went on to mutilate his body with swastikas.
In Syria, several men accused of engaging in homosexual acts were pushed to their deaths from atop a building by members of the extremist group the Islamic State.
Police are often slow to investigate suspected hate crimes, and LGBT people are often slow to report the violence for fear of retribution, according to the U.N. report.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has reported nearly 600 hate-related murders of LGBT people in the 25 countries of the Organization of American States.
