Debate contribution: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Miss Deirdre Hargey on .
- MLA
- Miss Deirdre Hargey
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 15 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5706791
Read the official Assembly record
Text
People have a right to use or reference whomever they want, as the Principal Deputy Speaker said, but it is important to provide balance. When you look at legal or medical experts, it is also important to point to international best practice. International best practice across all the experts points to a ban on those regressive practices. UNESCO and UNICEF brought forward pillars that the Department of Education has pushed back on. That creates a toxic and fearful environment around those issues. You touched on Genspect. Its core assertions on the issues have been rejected by two medical associations — the British Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association. They have criticised Genspect and its assertions and have said that the harmful practices need to be banned, as have the UN human rights office, the European Parliament and our own human rights organisations here. It is important to identify best practice locally, from a legal and medical perspective as well as from a human rights perspective, and internationally.
168 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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