QUB Questioned Over Conversion Therapy Practice

An organisation supporting the health and wellbeing of the LGBT community has said Queen's University Belfast's "regret" over the use of gay conversion therapies is "not enough".

The university's involvement in the practice came to light in a report by BBC NI, which included revelations of electric shock 'treatments' being used during the 1960s.

A spokesperson for the university later expressed "regret" over the use of these therapies, however The Rainbow Project, a Belfast organisation that supports the LGBT community, said the statement is "nowhere close to sufficient".

Expressing their anger and disgust at the recent revelations, The Rainbow Project posed a list of questions to the university about how and why conversion therapy was practiced, including:

• Who practiced so-called conversion therapies at QUB?

• Under what ethical framework did they practice these conversion therapies?

• How many people underwent conversion therapies at QUB?

• How were they referred to the Department of Mental Health?

• When did QUB stop providing conversion therapies?

• Why did QUB stop providing conversion therapies?

• What steps has QUB taken to contact the people on whom they practiced conversion therapies?

• What damages has QUB paid out to victims of conversion therapies?

John O'Doherty, Director of The Rainbow Project, said: "All forms of conversion therapies are wrong, unethical and prey on some of the most vulnerable members of our community. That these barbaric and torturous practices were inflicted on students at QUB is reprehensible and for the university to simply express regret for what it has done is nowhere close to sufficient for making amends for what the university did to people for whom they had a duty of care."



(JG/CM)