Description
VERSION 1.0. JUNE 2021
In the past two decades, social workers, who have no legal background, have handled legal cases of LGBTIQA according to their capacities and have tried to assist and seek redress for the traumatized survivors. They have extensive experience in handling such cases.
The new generation of social workers and LGBTIQA community members run immense risks when handling legal issues and crisis cases related to LGBTIQA. Sometimes their good intention of assisting the Party puts them in precarious situations regarding the law, financial support, and long-term dependency issues.
Inexperience, insufficient knowledge of the law, absence of linkages/referral systems, financial constraints, lack of understanding of their limitations and the risks involved, inability to devote sufficient time for crisis cases, lack of objectivity, absence of documentation of past experiences, lack of understanding of choices involved in taking any decision and the potential risks involved with each of these choices makes their task difficult. On a personal level, handling legal cases take a toll on social workers- many face great emotional stress and eventual burnout.
With a rich source of experience available with social workers and organizations who have been working on these issues for the past two decades, it is felt that documentation of their learnings in this manual will enable social workers, community members, and organizations who have no legal background to be better equipped to deal with similar cases that they may face.
OBJECTIVES
- To increase the documentation of typical LGBTIQA legal cases faced by social workers, LGBTIQA community and organizations.
- To increase awareness and understanding of social workers, community members and organizations for handling typical LGBTIQA legal cases.
- To increase the quality of legal assistance provided to LGBTIQA.
I, Bindumadhav Khire, am an LGBTIQA rights activist with over two decades of work experience in Pune (Maharashtra, INDIA).
I was the founder and president of Samapathik Trust (Reg. E3662, Pune) and am currently the director of Bindu Queer Rights Foundation (a section 8 Company), which works on health and rights issues of the LGBTIQA community. From 2022, I am a member of the ‘Transgender Grievance Redress Board’ (Pune district).
I have worked on reading down IPC 377 (which criminalized adult, consensual same-sex intercourse);
I have been the organizer of the Annual LGBTIQA Pride Walk in Pune;
I have been the Director of ‘Advait’- Pune Queer International Film Festival;
I have been Director of ‘Mooknayak’ the first Marathi LGBTIQA Sahitya Sammelan;
I have been the Project Director of the MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) / TG /HIV/AIDS Targetted Intervention Project.
