RedR UK and EISF hosted a workshop on Friday 22nd January 2016, exploring current practices and issues that international development and humanitarian organisations’ encounter when approaching the inclusion and security of both international and national LGBTI aid workers. The need for this workshop arose from the lack of current discussion on these topics, as well as the wide-scale lack of adequate polices or best practices in ensuring the inclusion and security of workers within the humanitarian and development sectors. Related to this is the huge lack of available data on the experiences of LGBTI aid workers, including; regional and country data on the number of aid workers identifying as LGBTI, any correlation or trends between identifying as LGBTI and the type and frequency of security incidents, and documented incidents of labour discrimination related to LGBTI workers.
This report captures outcomes from the workshop along two broad aims: i) Explore the experiences of LBGTI humanitarian field workers and organisations, through expert speakers, participants’ experiences and case studies, in order to understand and capture the challenges faced in operating as an LGBTI aid worker. ii) Hear from international private sector firms, which have successfully integrated LGBTI inclusion into their organisational policies and practices, in order to look at ways the humanitarian and development sectors can adopted or adapt such practices in their work and organisational identities.