The annual Rainbow Map ranking has named Malta as the best nation for LGBTQ+ rights in Europe for the eighth year in a row, while the UK’s score continues to fall.
ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map and Index has ranked European countries on the basis of their “legal and policy situation” for LGBTQ+ people each year since 2009.
The index ranks countries from zero to 100 per cent, with zero representing gross violations of human rights, and 100 representing full equality.
Countries are marked in seven categories: equality and non-discrimination, family, hate crime and hate speech, legal gender recognition, intersex bodily integrity, civil society space, and asylum.
The 2023 list published on Thursday (11 May) placed Malta top, with a score of 89 per cent.
Rising in the ranks to fourth place was Spain (74 per cent), which ILGA-Europe said was due to the country’s ground-breaking introduction of a self-ID law for trans people.
Until 2015, the UK consistently achieved the number-one spot in the rankings, but since then has slipped down the list. It was down in 10th in 2021 before falling to 14th in 2021. This year, the country dropped further still and now sits in 17th place.
The worst countries for LGBTQ+ people in Europe are Azerbaijan (two per cent), Turkey (four per cent), and Armenia (eight per cent). Those three countries have retained the bottom three places for the past three years. However, ILGA-Europe said Armenia rose slightly after revoking its ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men.
Source: The Pink News