On 10 May 2018, Colombia went to the drawing board and had the most important human rights evaluation, the Universal Periodic Review, better known as the UPR. Prior to this evaluation, more than 500 civil organisations in Colombia joined together so that the UN member countries, who evaluated us, would take into account the human rights failures that exist in the country in terms of Afro-Colombian, indigenous and women's issues, among others.

Thus, Colombia Diversa went to Geneva to expose to the different States the importance of not forgetting the rights of LGBT people in their evaluations, because, although Colombia already has rights such as marriage for same-sex couples, there is the will of ultraconservative sectors to reverse the provisions that the Constitutional Court has made clear in its more than 10 rulings. We also made it known that the Colombian State, five years after the last recommendations made in the last UPR, has not complied with all of them.

The assessment was done and these were the conclusions on LGBT issues following the Universal Periodic Review 2018:

1. Unlike the last UPR, this time, Colombia had one more recommendation than the last evaluation, which shows that equality and our rights continue to be an issue of vital importance on the international and Colombian agenda.
2. The Colombian state committed publicly and before all UN member states to the non-regression of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. This is an extremely important point if we consider, as mentioned above, the desire of ultra-conservative sectors to push for reforms to roll back our rights.
3. Colombia Diversa, as a human rights organisation, is pleased to have contributed with our work to the successful outcome of the Universal Periodic Review and that the Czech Republic, Mexico and Iceland made recommendations on LGBT issues, not to mention Chile, which joined and congratulated the Colombian State for its commitment to non-regression.

Relive here the working group session in the original language and the intervention of the Minister of the Interior on LGBT rights in which he commits himself to the non-regression of our rights at minute 19:21