‘The safest place in the world to go online’. This is the ambition for the UK, set out by the Government in the 2019 Online Harms White Paper, and echoed over the next two years as the proposals evolved into the now Online Safety Bill: ‘a milestone in the Government’s fight to make the internet safe‘. While there has been scattered applause, many asked: what does it mean to be safe online?

At the beginning of the 2010s, the queer movement in Serbia started its race for marriage equality. The deadline set by the state for this was the last quarter of 2017. However, not only was the Draft of the Law on Same-Sex Partnerships not compiled until this year, but not a single activity has been initiated by the competent authorities which would have resulted in awareness-raising among the general public on the necessity of regulating this issue.

Three female artists use different visual art forms to express the challenges women face as they navigate in an urban environment dominated by patriarchal norms and structures.

How do cultural institutions deal with internal cases of violence, abuse of power and  discrimination? In his contribution to the new publication "Theatre and Power", Nishant Shah analyzes how art and cultural institutions refuse to dismantle their power structures and merely perform care work instead of practicing it.

On the occasion of International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), the scholar-activist Dédé Oetomo from Indonesia explores the contrast between contemporary homophobia and transphobia and the more tolerant or accepting past and how this can give support to the LGBTIQ+ community.

More than a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the virus continues to ravage the Asia-Pacific with catastrophic human, social, economic, and developmental costs. Many LGBTIQ+ persons experienced increased vulnerability on top of systemic human rights violations and social inequity many currently shoulder as the pandemic places more stress on health systems and social safety nets. 

The internet we have today has become as real as any social spaces we occupy in-person. So much of our lives are integrated digitally now and opting out of the digital space is no longer a choice for us. Today, to be online is to exist and to be seen.