Alejandra Sarda leaves IGLHRC

Long-time Latin American LGBT and women's rights advocate Alejandra Sarda has announced that, effective immediately, she will no longer be the Latin American and Caribbean Program Coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), where she had been for more than a decade.

In a terse Spanish-language statement sent out yesterday to some human rights e-mail lists, Sarda states:

"The reasons that motivated this decision are my disagreement with the political vision implemented by the current Executive Director and my need to prioritize my work in a South-South [Southern hemisphere] context."

Under Executive Director Paula Ettlebrick, who was named Executive Director of IGLHRC in 2003, the agency has experienced a series of strategic and structural changes, some which have had a deep impact on its staff, including a decision to move its office from San Francisco to New York City.

I briefly joined the IGLHRC Board of Directors upon learning of Paula's intention to strengthen the work done by the agency in Latin America and, under Alejandra, Mauro Cabral and Marcelo Ferreyra, the agency has certainly done great work there. So it is unfortunate to find out that the split between Alejandra and IGLHRC does not seem to be amicable.

We wish good luck to Alejandra in her future endeavours and hope that this does not foretell a weakening of IGLHRC's focus on Latin America.