“This is a great day for rainbow communities in New Zealand,” Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said, adding that “conversion practices have no place in modern New Zealand.”
The bill, presented by the government last year, was approved with 112 votes in favor and 8 against, the ANSA agency reported.
Conversion therapies, still legal and in use in many parts of the world, are practiced to try to change people’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
From the new legislation it will be a crime to carry out conversion practices on a minor under 18 years of age, or on a person with reduced decision-making capacity.
In this case, the crime will be punished with up to three years in prison.
The approved law also defines what is not a conversion practice and protects the right to express opinions, religious beliefs or principles that are not intended to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
Likewise, it will also be punishable to carry out conversion practices on any person, regardless of their age, where the practices cause serious harm, and in this case, offenders are exposed to sentences of up to five years in prison.
The bill, one of the electoral promises of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, was approved on Tuesday by 112 votes in favor and eight against.
The new legislation also opens a way for victims to claim compensation in civil courts for having undergone conversion therapy.
Meanwhile, in Australia there are growing calls for sexual conversion therapies – which the UN considers to be a form of torture against the LGTBIQ community – to be banned after the state of Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria outlawed in 2020.
Laws against conversion therapy are gaining ground around the world.
The Canadian Parliament voted unanimously last year to ban them and France did so last January.
For its part, from the United Nations (UN) they demand the global end of sexual conversion therapy for homosexuals and transgender, currently prohibited in only five countries, and stressed that “it can be equivalent to torture.”
The practice is currently banned in five countries: Germany, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway.
In nine countries around the world, including three in Latin America, there is constitutional protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation, either explicitly or by court order: South Africa, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nepal, Portugal, Sweden, Fiji and Switzerland.
Source: Ambito
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