By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Labour Organization passed its budget on Tuesday, the body confirmed, after more than a week of vexed negotiations that exposed a deep rift between countries on LGBTQ protections.
Diplomats told Reuters that the nearly $1 billion budget of the U.N. agency had been held hostage to an acrimonious debate over a reference to sexual orientation and gender identity, pitting a group of mostly Western states against African and Arab countries, backed by Russia.
During electronic voting at the ILO’s annual meeting in Geneva on Tuesday, Canada’s Minister of Labour Seamus O’Regan, who is gay and married, urged delegates to find “common cause”.
“Once rights are achieved, once they are named, we will not stand by and have them brushed over, put back in the closet, or taken away,” he said, prompting lengthy applause. He later told Reuters: “I wasn’t going to have language watered down in some sort of compromise.”
Pakistan, one of the main opponents of the budget, had previously voiced concern the LGBTQ reference would have a “misleading normative impact”. Around 50 countries supported this position in talks that went late into the night in recent days, according to diplomats involved.
A deal between countries was reached earlier this week that maintained the budget’s original language but added a note recognising “the different positions expressed on some issues”, an ILO spokesperson said. The vote formally passed with 477 in favour; 11 against and 7 abstentions, she said.
The ILO brings together governments, employers and workers to set labour standards. The situation presented a difficult dilemma for ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo from Togo, the body’s first African chief, who took office in October 2022 and is seeking to promote social justice.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
