Transgender Europe: Press Release: March 23 2012
Again alarming figures: Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project reveals more than 800 reported murders of trans people in the last four years
The Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) project started in April 2009 and systematically monitors, collects and analyses reports of homicides of trans people worldwide. Updates of the preliminary results are published two to three times a year on the website of the “Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide” project in the form of tables, name lists, and maps:
http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/tvt-project/tmm-results.htm
The March 2012 update reveals a total of 816 reported killings of trans people in 55 countries worldwide from January 1st 2008 to December 31st 2011.The update shows an exponential increase in reported killings of trans people over the last four years. In 2008, 141 cases were reported, in 2009 213 cases, in 2010 214 cases, and in 2011 a shocking number of 248. These are mainly the reported cases that could be found through Internet research and cooperation with trans organizations and activists. In most countries, data on murdered trans people are not systematically produced and it is impossible to estimate the numbers of unreported cases.
The reasons for this increase might be manifold. Every year, TGEU’s TVT research team has improved its monitoring methods, started new collaborations with organizations that contributed their data, and received information from activists from many parts of the world. Also, the increase in the visibility of trans people and of trans issues in public discourse may have led to a better reporting of cases. However, the data also show also that there is no decrease, that the shocking amount of violence against trans people still poses a major problem and threat to trans people in many countries. The again alarming figures demonstrate once more that there is an urgent need to react to the violence against trans people and to seek mechanisms to protect trans people. Some international trans activists even started to introduce the term ‘transcide’ to reflect the continuously elevated level of deadly violence against trans people on a global scale.
Cases have been reported from all major World Regions (Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, and Oceania), evoking an evermore gruesome picture, especially given the very partial knowledge we are able to gain in many places.An interactive map showing most of the 816 reported murders of trans people is available at:
http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/tvt-project/tmm-results/all-tmm-reports-since-2008.htm
Most reported cases were from Central and South America, which amount to 643 cases in 21 countries and account for roughly 80 % of the globally reported murders of trans people since January 2008. In this region, there has been the strongest increase in reports (2008: 94, 2009: 165, 2010: 180, and 2011: 204). In Colombia, 59 killings have been reported in total, numbers steadily increasing since 2008 (2008: 13, 2009: 13, 2010: 15, 2011: 18). In Mexico, 60 cases have been reported in total, roughly doubling each year (2008: 4, 2009: 9, 2010: 14, 2011: 33). In Venezuela, there have been 48 reported killings in total, peaking in 2009 and 2011 (2008: 4, 2009: 22, 2010: 5, 2011: 17). In Brazil, the country with most reported killings (325 in total), there has been a steady increase (2008: 57, 2009: 68, 2010: 99, 2011: 101). Reports from countries with smaller population sizes are also extremely worrying, in particular the Dominican Republic (12 total),
Guatemala (31) and Honduras (34). Killings of trans people in the region have also been reported from Argentina (18), Bolivia (7), Chile (3), Costa Rica (3), Cuba (1), Ecuador (9), El Salvador (7), Jamaica (1), Nicaragua (2), Panama (1), Paraguay (3), Peru (9), Puerto Rico (8), and Uruguay (2).
The new result update moreover reveals that in the last 4 years, 59 killings of trans people have been reported in Asia (2008: 12, 2009: 14, 2010: 16, 2011: 17), 53 killings have been reported in North America (2008: 18, 2009: 13, 2010: 8, 2011: 14), 53 in Europe (2008: 13, 2009: 19, 2010: 9, 2011: 12), 4 in Oceania (2008: 3, 2009: 1) as well as 4 in Africa (2008: 1, 2009: 2. 2011: 1).
Regarding Asia,since January 2008 59 killings of trans people have been reported in 13 countries (Afghanistan: 1, Azerbaijan: 2, China: 6, India: 10, Indonesia: 4, Iran: 1, Iraq: 3, Malaysia: 6, Pakistan: 12, Philippines: 10, Republic of Korea: 1, Singapore: 1, and Thailand: 2).
In Europe,53 killings of trans people have been reported in 11 countries (Albania: 1, France: 1, Germany: 2, Italy: 14, Poland: 1, Portugal: 1, Russia: 2, Serbia: 1, Spain: 4, Turkey: 23, and UK: 3). The data also show a continuously elevated number of reported murders in Turkey in the previous years (2008: 4, 2009: 7, 2010: 6, 2011: 6).
In Oceania, 4killings have been reported since 2008 (Australia: 1, Fiji: 1, New Caledonia: 1, and New Zealand: 1) and in Africa also 4 (Algeria: 1, Mauritius: 1, Uganda: 1, and South Africa: 1).
Attached to this press release you can find a map, which demonstrates the absolute figures of reports found worldwide since January 2008.
While the documentation of killings of trans people is indispensable for demonstrating the shocking extent of human rights violations committed against trans people on a global scale, there is also a need for in-depth research of various other aspects related to the human rights situation of trans people. Therefore, Transgender Europe developed the Trans Murder Monitoring project into the ‘Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide’ research project (TvT). TvT is a comparative, ongoing qualitative-quantitative research project, which provides an overview of the human rights situation of trans people in different parts of the world and develops useful data and advocacy tools for international institutions, human rights organizations, the trans movement and the general public. A research team from Transgender Europe is coordinating the project, which is funded by the Open Society Foundations, the ARCUS Foundation, and partly by the Heinrich Boell
Foundation.The TvT research team is assisted by an Advisory Board composed of international LGBT, trans and human rights activists and academics from Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, and Oceania. It furthermore cooperates with more than a dozen partner organizations in these six World Regions.
Since December 2011, the TvT project has been constantly updating a comprehensive and detailed Mapping of the Legal and Health Care Situation of trans people on a global scale, which can be found at:
http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/mapping.htm
In November 2011, the TvT research team together with six partner organizations from Asia, Eastern Europe, Oceania, and South America started a new survey in form of a peer research on trans people’s experiences with Transrespect and Transphobia.
If you have further questions or if you want to support the
research project, please contact the TvT research team:
Dr Carsten Balzer and Dr Jan Simon Hutta
research[at]transrespect-transphobia.org
or check our website:
www.transrespect-transphobia.org
If you want to support the “Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide” project, you can also contribute with a donation to Transgender Europe (details below). Please enter “TvT project” as reference of the payment.
Account Holder: Transgender Europe
Bank: Nordostsee-Sparkasse
Swift/BIC: NOLADE21NOS
IBAN: DE 47 2175 0000 0163 4963 67
Reference of payment: TvT project
