32 Towards the Effective Protection of LGBTI Persons Deprived of Liberty issued a joint statement in 2015 urging States to protect LGBTI people from violence, including by ending “unethical and harmful so-called ‘therapies’ to change sexual orientation.26” In March 2016, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) stated that “so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful. The provision of any intervention purporting to “treat” something that is not a disorder is wholly unethical.27” The UNHCR considers that “efforts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity by force or coercion, may constitute torture or degrading treatment, and implicate other serious human rights violations, including the rights to liberty and security of the person.28” The UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture and on the Right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity29, have also strongly condemned the practice of forced “conversion therapies”. Despite the global consensus that such therapies are ineffective, unethical, and harmful, some countries continue to permit or tolerate them. “Conversion therapies” often entail coercion and lack of informed consent, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, verbal harassment, intimidation, forced medication and electroshock, which can amount to torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The use of “corrective rapes” aimed at changing the person’s sexual orientation has also been reported. “Conversion therapies” can be practiced in public hospitals, private clinics, drug-rehabilitation centers, traditional healing centers, reli- United Nations Joint Statement, United Nations entities call on States to act urgently to end violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) adults, adolescents and children, September 2015. The Pan American Health Organisation also issued a statement identifying purported therapies aimed at changing sexual orientation as ethically unacceptable and lacking medical justification. See “Cures” for an illness that does not exist, 2012. 27 World Psychiatric Association, WPA Position Statement on Gender Identity and Same-Sex Orientation, Attraction, and Behaviours, March 2016. 28 UNHCR, “Guidelines on International Protection No. 9”, para. 21. 29 See in particular Special Rapporteur on Torture, A/HRC/22/53 (2013), para. 76 and 88 and A/ HRC/31/57, para 48 and 72 (i), Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, A/HRC/14/20/2010, para. 23 and A/HRC/35/21 (2017), para. 48-49, and Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, A/HRC/38/43, para. 47, p. 11. 26