Contents:
According to the most recent statistics available, the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations received complaints of anti-Semitism in , compared with in , with more than 88 percent occurring online. The most commonly reported anti-Semitic incidents were slurs posted on various websites, graffiti, verbal slurs, and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. He also requested improved judicial and investigatory cooperation from Iran. On March 6, a federal court ruled that former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and 11 other officials in her administration, including former foreign minister Hector Timmerman, should face trial for complicity and false testimony to cover up the AMIA bombing.
On June 1, a federal court ruled that the death of Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor in charge of the AMIA bombing investigation, was a homicide and a direct consequence of his work. The federal judge named former Nisman employee Diego Lagomarsino as a suspect in the murder. The constitution and laws prohibit discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities.
The law also mandates access to buildings by persons with disabilities. According to media reports, the ombudsman of the city of Buenos Aires reported that only 33 percent of the metropolitan subway stations had elevators or escalators and that only 29 percent of the stations were equipped with bathrooms for persons with disabilities. While the federal government has protective laws, many provinces had not adopted such laws and had no mechanisms to ensure enforcement.
An employment quota law reserves 4 percent of federal government jobs for persons with disabilities, but NGOs and advocacy groups claimed the level of disability employment achieved during the year was less than 1 percent.
Congress proposed and passed a budget cut to the National Disability Agency, which provides a range of services and subsidies for disabled persons. The constitution recognizes the ethnic and cultural identities of indigenous peoples and states that congress shall protect their right to bilingual education, recognize their communities and the communal ownership of their ancestral lands, and allow for their participation in the management of their natural resources. The lack of trained teachers hampered government efforts to offer bilingual education opportunities to indigenous peoples.
Indigenous people were not fully consulted in the management of their lands or natural resources, particularly lithium mining, in part because responsibility for implementing the law is delegated to the 23 provinces, the constitutions of only 11 of which recognize indigenous rights. Projects carried out by the agricultural and extractive industries displaced individuals, limited their access to traditional means of livelihood, reduced the area of lands on which they depended, and caused pollution that in some cases endangered the health and welfare of indigenous communities.
Conflict occurred when authorities evicted indigenous peoples from ancestral lands then in private ownership. On July 16 and 17, indigenous Mapuche activists occupied an inactive hotel, staged a sit-in at a government office, and blocked a major roadway in the city of Bariloche. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex LGBTI persons generally enjoyed the same legal rights and protections as heterosexual persons.
No laws criminalize consensual same-sex conduct between adults. LGBTI persons could serve openly in the military. The law gives transgender persons the right legally to update their name and gender marker on identity documents to reflect their gender identity without prior approval from a doctor or judge. On May 18, the National Observatory of Hate Crimes registered official complaints of discriminatory or violent acts against LGBTI individuals in , the most recent year for which data was available, compared with only 31 complaints in These complaints included 13 hate-crime-related homicides.
The transgender population made up 58 percent of reported cases and 90 percent of reported homicides of LGBTI persons. The ruling was the first to apply aggravated penalties for a hate crime based on gender identity. Rape and Domestic Violence : The law criminalizes rape, including spousal rape, and the government enforced the law effectively. The laws of individual states and territories provide the penalties for rape.
The law prohibits violence against women, including domestic abuse, and the government enforced the law. Violence against women remained a problem, particularly in indigenous communities. Females were more likely than males to be victims of domestic violence, including homicide, across all states and territories. Police received training in responding to domestic violence. Sexual Harassment : The law prohibits sexual harassment. Complaints of sexual harassment can lead to criminal proceedings or disciplinary action against the defendant and compensation claims by the plaintiff.
The HRC receives complaints of sexual harassment as well as sex discrimination.
The Domestic Violence Law also protects children. The media characterized the incident as a homophobic attack. Deutsche Welle. Its direct line of sight with Addis Ababa allowed for the shortest railway link between the Addis and Lamu. Deirdre of the Sorrows. Research by Dr.
The penalties vary across states and territories. An independent review of the Victoria Police Department released in found workplace sexual harassment to be an endemic problem despite more than 30 years of legislation prohibiting sex-based harassment and discrimination. The review found evidence of chronic underreporting with victims afraid of negative professional and personal consequences resulting from making a complaint. Discrimination : The law provides for the same legal status and rights for women as for men, including under laws related to family, religion, personal status, labor, property, nationality, and inheritance, as well as employment, credit, pay, owning or managing businesses, education, and housing.
The government enforced the law effectively. Children born in the country to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents acquire citizenship on their 10th birthday, if they lived the majority of their life within the country. Failure to register does not result in denial of public services. In general, births were registered promptly. Child Abuse : State and territorial child protection agencies investigate and initiate prosecutions of persons for child neglect or abuse.
All states and territories have laws or guidelines that require members of certain designated professions to report suspected child abuse or neglect. In December the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its final recommendations on what institutions and governments should do to address child sexual abuse and ensure justice for victims. The rate of indigenous children on care and protection orders was nearly seven times greater than the nonindigenous rate.
In July a court sentenced Archbishop Philip Wilson to one year in detention for failing to report to police the repeated abuse of two altar boys by pedophile priests. Early and Forced Marriage : The legal minimum age of marriage is 18 for both boys and girls. A person from ages 16 and 18 may apply to a judge or magistrate for an order authorizing marriage to a person who has attained 18 years; the marriage of the minor also requires parental or guardian consent.
Two persons younger than age 18 may not marry each other; reports of marriages involving a person younger than age 18 were rare. The government reported an increase in the number of forced marriage investigations, but the practice remained rare. There were documented cases of children younger than age 18 exploited in sex trafficking. The government continued its awareness campaign to deter child sex tourism through distribution of pamphlets to citizens and residents traveling overseas. The legal age for consensual sex ranges from ages 16 to 18 by state.
Penalties for statutory rape vary across jurisdictions. Defenses include reasonable grounds for believing the alleged victim was older than the legal age of consent and situations in which the two persons are close in age. All states and territories criminalize the possession, production, and distribution of child pornography.
Under federal law, suspected pedophiles can be tried in the country regardless of where the crime was committed. The government largely continued federal emergency intervention measures to combat child sexual abuse in aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. These measures included emergency bans on sales of alcohol and pornography, restrictions on the payment of welfare benefits in cash, linkage of support payments to school attendance, and medical examinations for all indigenous children younger than age 16 in the Northern Territory. While public reaction to the interventions remained generally positive, some aboriginal activists asserted there was inadequate consultation and that the measures were racially discriminatory, since nonindigenous persons in the Northern Territory were not initially subject to such restrictions.

During the month period ending on September 30, , the nongovernmental Executive Council of Australian Jewry reported anti-Semitic incidents. These incidents included vandalism, threats, harassment, and physical and verbal assaults. In June media reported widespread anti-Semitic actions and statements at St. Stickers belonging to an Australian neo-Nazi organization were put up around Canberra in April.
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government effectively enforced the law. The disability discrimination commissioner of the HRC promotes compliance with federal and state laws that prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities.
The law also provides for HRC mediation of discrimination complaints, authorizes fines against violators, and awards damages to victims of discrimination. Schools are required to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, and children with disabilities generally attended school. The government provided funding for early intervention and treatment services and cooperated with state and territorial governments that ran programs to assist students with disabilities.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, only 53 percent of Australians with a disability are employed, compared with 83 percent of all working-age people. Despite federal and state government initiatives, indigenous people and communities continued to have high incarceration rates, high unemployment rates, relatively low levels of education, and high incidences of domestic and family violence, substance abuse, and limited access to health services in comparison with other groups.
The Ministry for Indigenous Affairs has responsibility for policy and programs related to indigenous peoples and communities. The prime minister reports annually to parliament regarding government progress on eliminating indigenous inequalities. Indigenous groups hold special collective native title rights in limited areas of the country and federal and state laws enable indigenous groups to claim unused government land.
Indigenous ownership of land was predominantly in nonurban areas. The National Native Title Tribunal resolves conflicts over native land title applications through mediation and acts as an arbitrator in cases where the parties cannot reach agreement about proposed mining or other development of land. Native title rights do not extend to mineral or petroleum resources and, in cases where leaseholder rights and native title rights are in conflict, leaseholder rights prevail but do not extinguish native title rights.
As part of the intervention to address child sexual abuse in Northern Territory indigenous communities see section 6, Children , the Indigenous Advancement Strategy allowed the government to administer directly indigenous communities. The strategy and a number of other programs provide funding for indigenous communities. According to the Australia Bureau of Statistics ABS , while indigenous people make up less than 3 percent of the total population, they constituted 27 percent of the full-time adult prison population. Nearly half of the imprisoned indigenous persons were serving sentences for violent offenses.
According to a December Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report, although the government adopted numerous policies to address the socioeconomic disadvantages of indigenous peoples, it still failed to respect their rights to self-determination and full and effective participation in society. There are no laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults. Discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited by law in a wide range of areas, including employment, housing, family law, taxes, child support, immigration, pensions, care of elderly persons, and social security.
The law provides protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. During , the HRC received 40 complaints of discrimination based on sexual orientation, 39 based on gender identity, and seven based on sex characteristics.
The government generally enforced the law. Law enforcement response to rape and domestic violence was effective. Police referred victims of domestic violence to special shelters and imposed orders barring abusive family members from contact with the victims.