Ecuador’s transgender community decries lack of government aid during pandemic
An interview with LGBTIQ+ rights activist Rashell Erazo
This article is part of our special coverage of LGBTQI+ pride.
By Carlos Flores | Translated by Eleanor Weekes
In Ecuador, the transgender community is surviving the pandemic thanks to solidarity from their peers, as LGBTQI+ advocates claim the State is failing to respond sufficiently — or respond at all. At the time of writing, Ecuador has approximately 74,000 confirmed cases and over 5000 people have died from COVID-19 as the country tries to restart economic activity.
Ecuador’s legal framework has protected people of all sexual orientations and gender identities since 2008. However, the trans community is being faced with a dire situation, as Rashell Erazo told Global Voices. Erazo is the president of the Ecuadorian LGBTQI+ organisation ALFIL and the national representative for Redlactrans (the Latin American and Caribbean Trans Network).
The lockdown has affected the trans population disproportionately, due to the community’s vulnerability in terms of labor in the services sector and discrimination in public health. For this reason, Erazo believes that the LGBTQI+ community should be classified as a “priority population” according to the definition in several rulings by the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) also called on its Member States in April 2020 to guarantee LGBTQI+ people’s rights as part of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Erazo condemns the fact that Ecuador is not helping this group and she is now looking to take legal action against the State.
She describes the State’s lack of response as essentially trying to force the Ministry for Economic and Social Integration (MIES) to deliver humanitarian aid to the transgender community. She reveals that NGOs have presented a list of 100 people within the transgender community who are living in extreme poverty to MIES so that the government could provide them contingency payments in response to the pandemic — which consist of a transfer of $120 for 950,000 people. Yet, none of the trans people have received assistance.
In Ecuador, solidarity is coming first and foremost from the trans community itself. Rashell Erazo discussed the situation and the actions planned by the trans community in Ecuador via Whatsapp with Global Voices author Carlos Flores. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Carlos Flores (CF): What is the situation facing the trans community during this pandemic?
Rashell Erazo (RE): The state of emergency was introduced on 16 March (by executive degree), and since then it has been clear that the pandemic is bringing to light exactly how invisible the trans population is. This is without mentioning the other struggles that we face, like extreme poverty and workplace survival (under-employment), which for us often involves sex work, hairdressing or manual labour. As a result of the executive decree, these have been deemed non-essential and this has put the trans population’s safe spaces at risk, forcing us to violate the executive decree because it was impossible to carry on, a month into the state of emergency, without a livelihood. It’s dramatic. Some people are saying that we’re all in the same boat, but you can’t compare a community that is as highly vulnerable and excluded as ours with the rest of the cisgender, heterosexual population.
CF: At the end of March, Guayaquil was hit by the pandemic. How did the trans community deal with this?
RE: We’ve had messages of support from LGBTI groups, like Plan Diversidad or Casa de las Muñecas. The situation for sex workers has been dramatic, I think. First, they had to fight with all their strength to comply with the State of Emergency because of the gravity pandemic and the serious predicted contagion curve. There were signs of solidarity among us in Guayaquil, since waiting for the State to recognise international conventions, like the appeal from the IACHR that the State must consider LGBTI groups a priority for assistance during this pandemic, has come to nothing. We aren’t sure if they’ve recorded a high number of sex workers affected. We actually can’t even be sure how many sex workers could be infected with COVID in Guayaquil or in the bigger cities. The LGBTI community have practically no access to tests.
CF: What actions are going to be taken against the State to fight for a specific policy, now that the pandemic is expected to continue for several more months?
RE: Palliative actions are being taken, like delivering food parcels, which sometimes temporarily solve problems like the sex workers’ lack of food, but this shouldn’t be our responsibility as civil society organisations; it should be the responsibility of the State. We have to recognise that it’s the State who should be responsible for providing humanitarian aid and ensuring everyone has provisions. There is a high level of unemployment among trans women and the State limits our right to solicit sex work on the streets, so it makes sense that we’re thinking about joining forces with organisations who would handle the legal aspects.
We could take some kind of action against the State, first for the way they have left these high-priority populations totally helpless and provided none of the assistance specified in national and international guidelines. If, during the 60 days that the government reserves the right to limit rights of mobility etc., we believe we could bring a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights because it’s an obvious violation of our right to work, to food and to movement. The State, specifically the Government of Ecuador, cannot continue to ignore these historically mistreated communities and we will continue to resist. There are legal instruments that support us.
Erazo is continuing to fight with other organisations to ensure that the State fulfills its obligation to help the LGBTQI+ community. “We aren’t inherently vulnerable; it’s the State that makes these populations vulnerable,” she concludes.
Originally published at https://globalvoices.org on July 21, 2020.
