Widely discredited around the world, conversion therapy – which aims to change someone’s sexual orientation – is still legal in India but the practise of it by doctors is banned.
Above a second-hand car shop on a bustling Delhi street, sits the office of the Indian capital’s self-proclaimed “best sexologist”.
Dr Shriyans Jain is smartly dressed in a crisp white shirt and black waistcoat with a jet black moustache adorning his upper lip. His thick, dark hair is swept across his forehead. I’m going undercover to investigate claims he offers gay and lesbian people a cure for their sexuality.
He is trained in modern medicine (MBBS qualified) but also practises ayurvedic medicine (a traditional type of Indian medical system). He’s also registered with the Delhi Medical Council. His website proudly trumpets his credentials, and lists several of the conditions he treats with herbal medicine. They include premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction and even infertility. But the service he offers gay and lesbian patients doesn’t appear to be advertised.
Widely discredited around the world, conversion therapy – which aims to change someone’s sexual orientation – is still legal in India – just as it is in the UK. It can involve the use of medication, treatments like electric shock therapy and even violence.
Practising it is considered “medical misconduct” in India after a ruling by the Indian Medical Commission in 2022, the industry’s regulatory body. It wrote to all the State Medical Councils empowering them to take disciplinary action against any medical practitioners who undertake it. In some cases, they could lose their licences.
Posing as a gay woman enquiring about whether I could change my sexuality, I arrive at Dr Jain’s office. The waiting room walls are lined with framed pictures of him with various dignitaries and awards. Inside, the blinds are drawn and a security camera nestles in the corner. Above his desk, hangs an imposing metal sculpture of seven horses pulling the sun.
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I sit down and, to my surprise, it’s mere minutes before Dr Jain tells me about his “lifelong cure” that will make me straight by altering my hormonal balance and “mental activity”. The treatment will take a maximum of three months and is totally safe, he assures me.
How can he be so sure it will work?
“You have to trust your doctor,” he says, smiling benevolently. He says he’s treated countless numbers of gay and lesbian patients. While he can’t recall the exact figure he seems confident of success. Some patients feel the effects in 15 days, he adds. “You get a change in your body. Your curiosity will develop.”
A low immune system and poor dietary habits such as eating meat are possibly the cause of my sexuality, says Dr Jain. He moves his head from side to side as if he’s pondering a host of potential causes.
“So meat can make you gay?” I ask, incredulously.
“You have to take precautions for it,” he replies.
A medical exam is carried out. Then, I am directed to stand on a vibration machine in the waiting room for about 10 minutes – it looks like the ones used for muscle strengthening and weight loss. A big plate pulses beneath my feet. I struggle to keep my balance as my body jiggles around.
Finally, a member of Dr Jain’s team hands me three tubes of pills and instructs me to take them daily. The medication costs around £150 in total. I’m told they’re herbal but beyond that I don’t know what is in them.
Keep in touch via video call, Dr Jain, says if I have any more questions or want to order more medication online. He seems proud the pills are manufactured in-house.
Dr Jain is not alone in offering a ‘cure’ for sexual orientation. Elsewhere in Delhi, my colleague, posing as a gay man, meets Dr SP Singh, a homoeopathic doctor at the Dr Dilbag Clinic. The atmosphere is more relaxed here, and the doctor is casually dressed in a white and yellow striped polo shirt.
During the consultation, he claims to have cured more than 500 lesbian and gay people. Being gay is a “psychological” disease, he says, but his treatment will make you “normal” within four months.
“The problem is the way you think,” says Dr Singh. “And with the medicines the problem will be solved.” Like Dr Jain, Dr Singh claims there would be no side effects.
When Sky News contacted both doctors for comment, they denied any wrongdoing. There are likely many other doctors offering a similar service, who don’t see any issue with it, despite the guidance by the NMC. They both seem convinced of their own theories and remedies.
The NMC covers modern medicine and those breaching the rules are potentially crossing a wide range of legal and ethical issues while trying to cure homosexuality. While other systems may subscribe to their regulations, the vast array of alternative medicine in India is often monitored and regulated differently.
There is a range of different conversion therapy techniques. Certain people may argue particular therapies are more harmful than others and distinguish between those they deem “consensual”.
Currently, 25 countries have some form of ban on conversion therapy- some explicit legislative bans, some indirect.
The fact is this isn’t an Indian problem. Far from it. But our time in the country has shown us there is a clear demand for the service that persists, illustrating the societal pressures inherent in this largely rural, and deeply traditional, nation.
According to activists, there are a huge number of desperate individuals and families privately seeking sexuality cures from doctors.
Many patients, and perhaps health professionals, still don’t know about the regulation that was brought in to try to stop conversion therapy. But in many ways, India has gone further than other countries in trying to stop the practice. LGBTQIA+ campaigners in the UK say Britain has been too slow to bring in a ban.
There is also that chance that India, where homosexuality was only legalised five years ago, could be about to become only the second country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. At a rally in Pune in western India, hundreds of LGBTQIA+ activists make their voices heard, ahead of the Supreme Court’s vote on the issue.
The reality is many still don’t feel accepted, especially those living in rural communities. “We feel less human, less included and less part of society,” a protestor wearing large sunglasses and bright red lipstick tells me.
“I’m gay, that’s ok. I’m lesbian, that’s ok,” the crowd chants as it processes through the streets. People of all ages hold aloft handmade signs, Pride flags and rainbow umbrellas.
Police stride slowly alongside keeping a watch on this peaceful gathering. Their message is simple – they want acceptance and to enjoy basic rights such as being able to buy a house with their partner and adopt a child.
“My family tried to cure me of my sexuality,” says Sonia Singhal, 38, an activist who says that when she came out as a lesbian to her late father, he took her to see a priest who told her she’d been invaded by a male spirit.
Now, two decades later, she is overcome with emotion when contemplating the difference that legalising same-sex marriage might have in her homeland. “I can’t express it,” she says, tearfully. “There is a generation coming behind us. At least we can do something for them.”
India is a place of paradox. The opposition of the religious bodies and the government to gay marriage makes legalisation in this instance unlikely. And when it comes to conversion therapy, activists claim the regulatory body is too weak to take meaningful action against those who persist in profiting from it.
Human rights activist Anjali Goplan, complained to the Delhi Medical Council about alleged conversion cases more than five years ago. Two doctors were temporarily suspended. “It seems like the medical profession is out of the reach of the law,” she says. “Everyone is doing whatever they want.”
In her view, the doctors who practise this “should be barred for the rest of their lives from playing with somebody’s life like that”.
But there are a lot of practitioners to monitor in this vast country, lots of different types of medicine and lot of secrecy in communities to counteract. Without it being criminalised, it’s hard to see how it will ever truly end.
Dozens of Palestinians have gathered near the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes to perform Eid al Adha prayers.
They were surrounded by the debris and rubble of collapsed houses at the former site of the al Rahma mosque in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to mark the start of the major holiday.
Commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al Adha is the second of the two main Islamic holidays – alongside Eid al Fitr – when better-off Muslims commemorate Ibrahim’s test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing some of the meat to the poor.
“Today, after the ninth month, more than 37,000 martyrs, more than 87,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed,” said Abdulhalim Abu Samra, a displaced Palestinian, after prayers in Khan Younis. “Our people live in difficult circumstances.”
In the nearby town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Muslims held their prayers in a school-turned-shelter, while some, including women and children, went to cemeteries to visit the graves of loved ones.
Palestinians also gathered at the al Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, the site of the Dome of the Rock shrine.
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It comes against a the backdrop of the devastating Israel-Hamas war which has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional conflict.
The Israeli military has announced a “tactical pause” in its offensive in southern Gaza to allow the deliveries of more humanitarian aid.
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The suspension, which begins as Muslims started marking the major holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies, the military said.
Most countries marked Eid al Adha on Sunday, while others, like Indonesia, will celebrate it on Monday.
Cities including Beirut, in Lebanon, Mosul in Iraq and Istanbul, in Turkey crowded with worshippers.
In Egypt, balloons were released after prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo.
Muslims in Russia offered prayers at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque and gathered in Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg.
The summit was aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow was not invited, and its main ally China declined to attend.
Vladimir Putin is not ruling out talks with Ukraine, according to his spokesperson, who said guarantees would be needed to ensure the credibility of any negotiations.
It comes as Kremlin forces in Ukraine claim to have taken control of a village in Zaporizhzhia.
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‘We must bring each and every one of them home’
A joint communique from 80 countries said the UN Charter and “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty… can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
“The ongoing war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine continues to cause large-scale human suffering and destruction, and to create risks and crises with global repercussions,” the declaration said.
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Participants India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates were among those that did not sign up to the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners.
Brazil, which has “observer” status, also did not sign. With China, Brazil has jointly sought to plot alternative routes toward peace.
Ursula von der Leyen, chief of the European Commission, said this weekend has brought peace closer to Ukraine, but that peace will not be achieved in one step.
“It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war, he’s insisting on capitulation, he’s insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory – even territory that today is not occupied,” she said.
Analysts say the two-day conference is likely to have little concrete impact towards ending the war because the country leading and continuing it, Russia, was not invited.
Montenegro Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told the gathering on Sunday: “As a father of three, I’m deeply concerned by thousands of Ukrainian kids forcibly transferred to Russia or Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.”
“We all at this table need to do more so that children of Ukraine are back in Ukraine,” he added.
Sweden has released a convicted Iranian war criminal as part of a prisoner swap deal.
Tehran and Stockholm carried out the switch, which saw a European Union diplomat and another man released in exchange for Hamid Nouri, who was found guilty of being complicit in the 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic.
Nouri was arrested in 2019 as he travelled in Swedenas a tourist.
This likely prompted the detention of the two Swedes, part of a long-running strategy by Iran to use those with ties abroad as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.
While Iranian state television claimed that Nouri had been “illegally detained”, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said diplomat Johan Floderus and a second Swedish citizen, Saeed Azizi, had been facing a “hell on earth”.
“Iran has made these Swedes pawns in a cynical negotiation game with the aim of getting the Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri released from Sweden,” Mr Kristersson said on Saturday.
“It has been clear all along that this operation would require difficult decisions – now the government has made those decisions.”
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State TV showed film of Nouri limping off a plane at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran and embracing his family.
“I am Hamid Nouri. I am in Iran,” he said. “God makes me free.”
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Oman mediated the release, its state-run news agency reported.
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison.
It identified him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
The 1988 mass executions came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq.
After Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, backed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions”.
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Mr Khomeini’s orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.
Late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month, was also involved in the mass executions.
Mr Floderus was arrested in April 2022 at Tehran airport while returning from a holiday with friends. He had been held for months before his family and others went public about his detention.
Mr Azizi’s case was not as prominent but in February the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the dual Iranian-Swedish national had been sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security”.