00:00The EU has stopped short of heeding a petition by over one million Europeans about banning
00:05unscientific conversion therapy, designed of course to change people's identity and sexual
00:10orientation. The UN is calling for a worldwide ban. Our EU correspondent Angela Scugin spoke
00:16exclusively to the EU Commissioner for Equality, Hadjil Abib. Yeah, it's a torture and it's a
00:23physical and psychological harassment that could lead to a deep depression or suicide and
00:31that's why we need really to react and to combat these practices and these young citizens who
00:39gather one million signatures succeed to create awareness. We've launched a study and we are
00:46going to organize to put into place a forum for discussion between member states, between the
00:52Commission. Already eight member states took the decision in their legislative national legislation
01:00to ban these practices but we need to see all of them and we are going to encourage them and
01:07to show
01:07the path and by taking this recommendation we take a very strong stance. We need to see these practices
01:15banned in our union. But you just highlighted that eight member states have banned this. How are you
01:21going to convince the other dozens that haven't done this so far? What pressure are you going to put
01:26on them? By exchanging best practices. So we will show first of all that it is possible to ban no
01:33matter
01:33what is your political architecture. I mean Germany has taken this ball step, Belgium, Spain, many countries
01:43and three countries at least are monitoring, are willing to take this kind of decision and I think we need
01:57to
01:57create more awareness because frankly speaking I met many ministers and a lot of them are not aware of what
02:05are these practices about. What happens if a member state does not accept this recommendation? What follows from the
02:13side of the Commission? It's non-binding. This is the path that we choose because we didn't want to take
02:22you know decades of discussions like we are doing with the Equal Treatment Directive. So we prefer to build on
02:32the goodwill, on awareness and on the fact that if we need, if we still believe that our union is
02:39a union of freedom, of expression, of equality, we need it.
02:43We need to ban these practices.
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