New Ecuadorean health minister promises to shut down remaining cure clinics

January 26, 2012

Rafael Correa

Ecuador’s new health minister has promised to shut down the county’s remaining “lesbian cure” clinics.

Rafael Correa appointed American-born activist Carina Vance Mafla, who is openly gay, to his cabinet.

Mafla said she promises to work with lesbian rights group Fundacion Causana and other human rights groups to shut down the country’s remaining cure clinics.

In the past, Mafla has called for the closure of such clinics as well as the regulation of HIV treatment distribution and an end to discrimination against LGBT in the health system.

So far, the government has closed 30 cure clinics, but a petition by Change.org has called for the closure of all such clinics and has garnered 113, 761 signatures to date.
 

The petition states that ex-patients of the clinics were tortured and physically and psychologically abused.

On the success of the online petition campaign, Fundacion Causana released a statement saying: “After ten years of outcry, the nation of Ecuador- through the Ministry of Public Health- has entered into a commitment with civic organizations and society in general to deconstruct the belief that homosexuality is an illness and root out the use of torture in these clinics.”
 

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