Global momentum is growing to ban so-called gay "conversion therapy”, with bills drawn up in nine countries, a rights group said on Wednesday.

The United States, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Germany are among countries seeking to outlaw the treatment, which includes practices from electric shocks to "praying away the gay" and is based on the belief that being gay or transgender is a mental illness that can be "cured", Ilga, an LGBT+ advocacy group, said.

Worldwide, only Brazil, Ecuador and Malta have national bans on conversion therapy, condemned as ineffective and harmful to mental health by more than 60 associations of doctors, psychologists or counsellors globally, the Ilga study said.

“The main driving force [for reform] is survivors with their testimonies coming forwards,” Lucas Ramon Mendos, author of the Ilga report, which said 2020 could be a turning point in the fight against "therapies" that have ruined many lives.

“A lot of awareness is being created through their testimony,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

LGBT+ rights around the globe Show all 9 1 /9 LGBT+ rights around the globe LGBT+ rights around the globe Russia Russia’s antipathy towards homosexuality has been well established following the efforts of human rights campaigners. However, while it is legal to be homosexual, LGBT couples are offered no protections from discrimination. They are also actively discriminated against by a 2013 law criminalising LGBT “propaganda” allowing the arrest of numerous Russian LGBT activists. AFP/Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Brunei Brunei recently introduced a law to make sodomy punishable by stoning to death. It was already illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison AFP/Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Mauritania Men who are found having sex with other men face stoning, while lesbians can be imprisoned, under Sharia law. However, the state has reportedly not executed anyone for this ‘crime’ since 1987 Alamy LGBT+ rights around the globe Sudan Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal under Sudanese law. Men can be executed on their third offence, women on their fourth Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Saudi Arabia Homosexuality and gender realignment is illegal and punishable by death, imprisonment, whipping and chemical castration Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Yemen The official position within the country is that there are no gays. LGBT inviduals, if discovered by the government, are likely to face intense pressure. Punishments range from flogging to the death penalty Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Nigeria Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal and in some northern states punishable with death by stoning. This is not a policy enacted across the entire country, although there is a prevalent anti-LGBT agenda pushed by the government. In 2007 a Pew survey established that 97% of the population felt that homosexuality should not be accepted. It is punishable by 14 years in prison Reuters LGBT+ rights around the globe Somalia Homosexuality was established as a crime in 1888 and under new Somali Penal Code established in 1973 homosexual sex can be punishable by three years in prison. A person can be put to death for being a homosexual Reuters LGBT+ rights around the globe Iraq Although same-sex relationships have been decriminalised, much of the population still suffer from intense discrimination. Additionally, in some of the country over-run by the extremist organisation Isis, LGBT individuals can face death by stoning Getty

LGBT+ people, including some children, have undergone abuses like lobotomies, castration and masturbatory reconditioning in the past, under the “legitimising cloak of medicine” in a bid to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, Ilga said.

Global moves against attempts to "cure" LGBT+ people are gathering pace, with the state of Queensland considering Australia's first conversion therapy ban, with jail sentences of up to 18 months for doctors and social workers.

Data on the global extent of conversion therapy is scarce, but people in 80 countries told advocacy group OutRight Action International in 2019 that it took place in their country.

In the United States, some 700,000 people have been forced to undergo conversion therapy, according to the University of California's Williams Institute.

US suicide-prevention group The Trevor Project said 42 per cent of LGBT+ 13 to 24-year-olds who underwent conversion therapy reported a suicide attempt in the last year - more than twice the rate of those who did not have the treatment.

Existing bans in 19 US states are limited - for example to outlawing doctors carrying out conversion therapy on children - because of stringent federal constitutional protections on freedom of expression and religion, said Mr Ramon Mendos.

Britain and Ireland have drawn up bills to outlaw conversion therapy but they have stalled, he said, while Taiwan's government responded to a proposed ban by saying that practitioners could be punished under existing laws.

Other proposals will struggle to win political support, such as a US bill which was introduced the House of Representatives in 2019 and if passed would face a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.