Last summer when Bhumika Shrestha travelled to New York City to represent Nepal at the United Nations, she encountered some special questions during her layover in Doha. Shrestha, who is transgender -- or, in Nepal, third-gender -- presents as an elegant young woman. Her passport and citizenship ID card, however, both list her as a man named Kailash.
In Qatar, airline officials pulled her aside and questioned her about her passport and her appearance but eventually let her go.
The experience was unpleasant for Shrestha but not unsafe. In the worst-case scenario, the documentation discrepancy would have sent her home on the next flight to Kathmandu.
"They asked me questions, and I was scared to fail on my first trip to the U.S.," she recalls, "but then they believed my story that I was transgender and let me get on the plane."
Like so many transgender people, Shrestha faces daily administrative struggles. As Paisley Currah, professor of Political Science at City University of New York, explains in a paper titled "Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Transgender Bodies at the Airport," "When an individual's cultural legibility is not affirmed by their identity papers, even everyday quotidian transactions become moments of vulnerability."
However, while common transactions might be difficult, in situations where security is heightened -- such as at the airport -- discrepancies between gender presentation and documentation can make transgender people the targets of increased scrutiny, neglect, or abuse.
Such vulnerability can be aggravated by emergency conditions. Similar to situations at the airport, during emergencies that require intensified security, people who don't conform to gendered expectations become anomalies, and anomalies get special -- and sometimes unjust -- attention. Several countries have seen this happen. International relief agencies admit there is a dearth of attention paid to this issue.
Nepal, with its protected legal status for third-gender citizens, and currently in a disaster preparedness phase awaiting an earthquake, provides a compelling case study for how gender-appropriate ID can protect citizens in emergency situations. The stories from other disasters support government issuance of third-gender ID documents, a move the central government in Nepal has yet to make.
Last week marked the coming out party for one of the world’s newest heads of state. Baburam Bhattarai, the newly-elected Prime Minister of Nepal, visited New York and Washington, D.C. to meet and greet world leaders, and introduce himself to the United Nations.
Bhattarai has had a lot on his plate since taking office, so leaving the country was a questionable move in the first place. The deadline for Nepal’s new constitution, just two months away, looms on the horizon, and the Constituent Assembly — the 600-some strong body charged with delivering the draft of a new constitution for the Himalayan nation — has been mired in deadlock for nearly a year. In addition, Bhattarai made this trip on the heels of his first bold proclamation that has human rights groups reeling: he wants blanket amnesty for all crimes committed during the ten-year internal armed conflict that wracked Nepal until 2006. (Bhattarai’s party, the Maoist Party, emerged out of the Maoist rebel group that started the “People’s Revolution,” in which over 10,000 people died.)
But while concerns over transitional justice issues will no doubt be on the agendas of many world leaders as they meet Bhattarai in the U.S., another troubling human rights issue lurks, waiting now four years for proper implementation. To put it simply: Nepal should have some of the most gay– and trans-friendly laws in the world, but it doesn’t. Bhattarai holds the keys to making this happen.
In 2007, Nepal’s leading LGBTI rights activist, Sunil Babu Pant, won a Supreme Court Case demanding full, fundamental equality for all sexual and gender minority citizens. It was a landmark, comprehensive decision.
The world watched as Nepal, a traditional and conservative society by many measures, emerged onto the global LGBT rights stage as an example of effective activism and advocacy for sexual and gender minorities.
Bhattarai’s power to implement these laws is crucial. Government bureaucracy in Nepal is thick and chaotic; ministries change personnel so frequently that lobbying them can seem pointless. Since the 2007 Supreme Court decision, for example, four people have served as Home Minister. The Home Ministry is responsible for, among other things, issuing citizenship identification cards, without which many basic services are out of reach for Nepali people.
The Court decision mandated that the government issue ID cards that allow citizens to identify as third gender (the term used in Nepal for transgender or binary gender non-conforming people.) To date, only a handful of people have successfully done this, and all succeeded by putting up a hearty fight.
Never before has a country launched such a large HIV program aimed at these vulnerable groups. It could mean a huge turnaround in reducing the number of HIV infections in the 16 countries.
The program will start in September 2011 and be implemented by seven Netherlands based organizations including GNP+. As well as the grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the program has been made possible by € 11.7 million from other sources.
The 4.5-year program has been judged the best by the ministry.
Earlier this year there was a call for proposals for development cooperation projects aimed at vulnerable groups. The Dutch government’s decision to reserve funds for this project is highly important. It means a continuation of the ‘Dutch approach’ within international AIDS relief where access to prevention and care in combination with the decriminalization of drug use, homosexuality and sex work is central. This is the only way gay men, people who use drugs and prostitutes can get the care they need.
A good example of this care is the integrated needle exchange program for injecting drug users. Many HIV infections are prevented as a result. The great success of the Dutch approach is recognized internationally.
Vulnerable groups are 10 to 20 times more likely to become infected with HIV than the general population. Only 8% has access to prevention, care, HIV treatment and support.
Many countries have legislation that makes access to care difficult or impossible. Examples include laws that make homosexuality a criminal offence or ones that are used to prosecute sex workers.
Offering HIV/AIDS care developed for and by these vulnerable groups must therefore go hand in hand with political pressure to change such legislation. This is precisely the aim of this program. It is also aimed at partners of gay men, drug users and sex workers. Because of the taboo related to homosexuality, in many countries men also have a relationship with a woman or are married.
The program will be run in 16 countries: Georgia, Kirghizstan, Tadzhikistan, Ukraine, Botswana, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Costa Rica and Ecuador.
The program builds on work carried out in recent years. This work can now be continued and expanded. This new program will involve a lot more collaboration in order to be as effective and efficient as possible.
Gaps in existing projects will also be tackled. For example, most prevention programs along ‘truck routes’ in Africa are aimed at drivers. Until now, they have not benefited sex workers. This has meant that a great many infections still take place along these routes.
The Dutch program will be carried out by seven organizations: Aids Fonds/STI AIDS Netherlands, Aids Foundation East-West, COC, Global Network of People living with HIV, Health Connections International, Mainline and Schorer.
Together with 102 partner organizations in the 16 countries listed, they will ensure that in the coming years 400,000 gay and bisexual men, transsexuals, people who use drugs and sex workers get access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and other support.
New Report Shows Major AIDS Funders Fail to Track Investments for Gay Men and Transgender People
The documentary is on 'Third Gender' and their human rights. The Supreme Court of Nepal has passed the verdict that the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) will be issued a citizenship card on the basis of 'third gender' and not necessarily as 'male' or 'female'. By this landmark decision of the Supreme Court, Nepal becomes a pioneer in the South Asia region to recognize the third gender rights. The documentary educates on the third gender rights and advocates for their social acceptance while emphasizing on the strong implementation of the Supreme Court decision.........
After organising beauty pageants for gays and transgenders, followed by extravagant same sex weddings, Nepal will now move to more sombre issues, becoming the first country in South Asia to offer shelter to battered gays.
While several Nepali NGOs have been running shelters for women, who are the victims of domestic violence, and survivors of trafficking, Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's pioneering gay rights organisation, is set to become the only NGO in South Asia to offer a shelter to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBTs) who face violence in their own countries due to their different sexual orientations.
The LGBT Centre for South Asia, the first of its kind, is coming up in Kathmandu's Dhumbarahi area. The five-storey building will have conferencing facilities, a theatre, a clinic and a shelter for members of the community who face violence and death threats in their own countries.
"In countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan non-conformity is taboo and members of the community face violence and even the possibility of death," says Sunil Babu Pant, the founder of Blue Diamond Society and Nepal's only openly gay MP.
"We had a pair of teenaged girls from Kolkata run away from home and come to us for help. One was from the Hindu community and one Muslim and there was additional parental anger. The shelter is meant for persecuted people like them."
In a gesture that has endeared it to Nepal's gay community, the republic's first Maoist government in 2008, headed by Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, made budgetary allocations for them and the land for the centre was bought with the money - NRS 25-30 lakh a year. Further assistance came from the Danish and Norwegian governments. Norway donated $150,000 for the construction of two buildings after Blue Diamond Society, then working from rented offices in Kathmandu, faced regular trouble with landlords, who threw them out under pressure from neighbours.
The last eviction caused deep distress especially as Blue Diamond Society was then also running a hospice for gays with HIV/AIDS. Pant described how the sick patients had to be moved on stretcher. Currently, there are 20-30 people at any given time in the hospice, with some of them being at the terminal stage and disowned by their families.
Pant says the centre should be up and running in the next 15 months - provided they manage to raise the rest of the money needed. Currently, Blue Diamond Society is seeking to raise $150-170,000 to complete the project.
Almost three years after Nepal became the first country in South Asia where the apex court recognised same sex marriages, the nascent republic's strong gay rights movement now faces severe threat from a new law in the pipeline.
Gay rights activists are alarmed by a new bill that could become law soon if approved by parliament as part of the government's bid to modernise the legal code - Muluki Ain, or law of the land - formulated in 1854 first.
The law and justice ministry, in consultation with judges, has completed the drafts of a new criminal code and a civil code of law, which were submitted in parliament recently after being approved by the council of ministers.
If the 601-seat parliament endorses them, Nepal will get new legal codes, a move which however has brought no joy to its burgeoning gay community.
The community has lodged its first strong protest with Manisha Dhakal, a transgender and senior member of the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's pioneering gay rights organisation, raising her voice at a UN rights forum.
Lesbians, bisexual women and transgender (LBT) people in Asia experience forced institutionalization in mental rehabilitation clinics, electro shock treatment as aversion therapy, sexual harassment in school and at work, threats of rape to make you straight, school expulsions, eviction by landlords, police kidnapping, family violence, and media stigmatization.
Lesbians face discrimination in the workplace because of their gender and their sexual orientation. Employment and job promotions are denied if women look too masculine. Male coworkers stalk and sexually harass lesbians who cannot report for fear of backlash and retaliation.
Transgender/gender variant people are marginalized in their jobs, and are targeted for blackmail, harassment, and sexual violence from the community or people in positions of authority like the police. Activists who defend the rights of LBT people experience threats to their safety, in some cases, harassment, attacks, even torture and abuse, with police participating in or doing nothing to stop these violations.
Frequently, LBT people in Asia face violence in the “private” sphere—by members of immediate and extended family, community and religious groups. This violence includes beatings, home confinement, ostracism, mental and psychological abuse, verbal abuse, forced marriage, corrective rape and in some cases killings to restore family honor.
The fear of family and community violence is often exacerbated by police complicity, when police officers join forces with family members to break up lesbian couples by arresting, detaining and intimidating them. In some cases, charges of kidnapping, trafficking or child abuse are brought against one of the partners. Police officers also charge lesbians under sodomy laws even if the law does not explicitly include lesbianism.
Compounding the situation is the state’s lack of due diligence in applying existing laws that penalize domestic violence and sexual violence to LBT people who are victimized, thus denying them access to complaint mechanisms and opportunities for redress.
Victims themslves don’t turn to these laws for protection because they lead double lives, and exposing the violence invites disapproval, rejection, discrimination and further violence. Such a vicious cycle allows violence to go unreported, unrecognized, and unchecked.
In some instances, media does report on suicide pacts or foiled same sex marriages but the coverage does not name what happened as abuse or suppression of rights. Instead, the media publicity reinforces the stigma against LBT people and makes them the object of ridicule and shame.
Many humanitarian organizations and women’s rights NGOs fail to understand the severity of violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Government reports to treaty monitoring bodies as well as shadow/alternative reports by women’s right NGOs make no reference to violence against LBT groups and individuals for the most part because sexual rights for women, beyond reproductive rights, are rarely a priority for the women's human rights movement, and the demand for women’s sexual autonomy is treated as incidental or an inferior right compared to the other rights.
At the same time, when LBT activists lobby their governments or treaty bodies like CEDAW or their national human rights institutions, they often lack the data and documentation to support their claims of violence and discrimination, which contributes to the under-recognition of the problem.
In 2007 and 2008, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) met with grassroots and national LGBT groups in Asia to identify their key priorities and needs. From women’s groups, IGLHRC heard that homophobic and transphobic violence against women was their number one issue—even if some of the groups lacked the capacity and resources to make this issue their priority.
To bring visibility to the issue, some groups conducted local studies in their service vicinity, but these were limited in scope. Regional level data gathering on violence against lesbians, bisexual women and transgender (LBT) people in Asia has not yet been carried out.
In response to what we heard, IGLHRC convened a Strategy Workshop in Quezon City, Philippines, May 27-30, 2009 to start a cross-country dialogue among activists from countries in Asia. Their reports confirm that homophobic and transphobic violence against non-heteronormative women in the region is under-reported, under-documented, and consequently eclipsed by other concerns in the region.
This lack of data contributes significantly to lack of funding for services and lack of legislator attention. Few government efforts to end violence against women involve LBT groups.
LBT people are often denied protections from and remedies for violence that other people, including heterosexual women receive from anti-discrimination laws, domestic violence legislation and rape laws. In countries with minimal or poor state responses to violence against women, LBT people are even more marginalized because of the double or triple jeopardy that renders their suffering less visible.
Benefits won by women’s rights movements often does not extend to LBT individuals, although many are part of these movements in their countries. Despite these inconsistencies, LBT activists are working to raise awareness about violence at state and non-state levels in many parts of Asia.
The following country summaries are based on the cross-country exchange convened by IGLHRC in May 2009. They are a prelude to the two-year in-depth qualitative and collaborative research and documentation project that will be undertaken in June 2010 by IGLHRC and LBT partners in Asia, and which will culminate in local advocacy initiatives to stem violence against women on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
Some of these activities will be linked to existing national, regional and/or international public awareness and violence prevention campaigns such 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women, the UN Secretary General’s Campaign to End Violence Against Women, International Day Against Homophobia, International Women’s Day, Campaign to Just Say No to Violence and Impunity, etc.
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