"Saman" is a graduate student in Sri Lanka who was doing research on 'safer sex' for his thesis. He told me that while he was working in the southern city of Galle, the local police detained and tortured him assuming he was gay.
While in detention he witnessed how the Sri Lankan police discriminated against other allegedly gay men who were locked up in jail. Fearing retribution, Saman did not want to show his face or use his real name in recording this experience.
Under the Sri Lankan penal code Section 365 A, homosexual acts are prohibited and "violators" face a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. While few cases have ever been prosecuted, the threat of public shame and blackmail looms large for Sri Lanka's gay community and this "dead letter" has become a greater threat in light of pervasive police corruption.
This is only one example of the codified homophobia in Sri Lanka and its oppressive side-effects. Similar incidents are still happening to LGBT individuals in Sri Lanka on a regular basis.
These incidents include, but are not limited to blackmail, violent threats, employment discrimination, and rejection by friends, family, the police, and society at large. Cases of physical assault, harassment, and detention are not uncommon.
Regardless, these incidents are more or less ignored by the Sri Lankan media; even when they are reported, their connection to homophobia is rarely articulated. Of course, many LGBT individuals are happy to keep these incidents quiet, fearing that they would be subject to further attacks if they were outed. Both gay and straight Sri Lankans hold a negative view of homosexuality.
Ranjith Kulatilake, an immigrant from Sri Lanka, has been a volunteer at the Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services for the past five years. He is a founding member of "Among Friends", a three-year initiative to improve access to public services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) refugees and immigrants in Toronto.
Ranjith's story describes his journey as a new immigrant to Canada after fleeing his home country due to sexual persecution. It is a story about building new friendships amongst others facing similar challenges and dealing with the stigma of homosexuality within his community.
I am recording this video because I was arrested and put in jail two times in Sri Lanka for being a gay person. I am not mentioning my name here or either showing my face because I have to go back and forth to Sri Lanka to visit my parents. My parents do not allow my sexuality and I am not out to them about it.
I am safe and living my gay life happily because now I live in outside of my country. I know lot of my fellow gay brothers and sisters are suffering in Sri Lanka because they were persecuted by Sri Lankan police and not getting any help from the Sri Lankan government either. Not only that, they were not accepted by the traditionally thinking society in Sri Lanka.
Homosexuality is a criminal offense according to the penal code 365A in Sri Lanka. That you could be arrested and put in jail for up to 12 years.
This is only two of many persecution incidents happened to me in Sri Lanka for being a gay person. Also, there are so many other gay brothers and sisters who have had or still having similar kind of persecutions or even worse incidents in Sri Lanka because of their sexuality.
Most of these incidents are undocumented as everybody is scared to come out and tell about it.
We are pleased to announce another success in our Asylum cases. Gamini’s (not his real name) excited Skype message reached us on 4th October 2011 and read:
“I am very happy to inform you, that I was granted my gay asylum in Belgium. As I know I am the first [Sri Lankan] person who was granted an asylum based on my sexual orientation in Belgaum. As GaySriLankan and you personally helped me a lot on this matter. I am thanking you very much, because you helped me in every way not only giving supportive documents, but also personally taking your own time and advising me on skype about my problems which happen to me because of my gay life in Sri Lanka…”
We are happy for Gamini and wish him all the luck for his new life in the Belgium.
He personally contacted us and asked for help for his gay asylum in Belgium. When we go through his life story we came to know that he was going through lot of trauma and depression.
We did counsel with him a lot to come out of his current situation because he was a closeted gay person when he was living in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan community around him had discriminated, harassed and threatened him because of his sexual orientation. One police officer had done death threats to him too.
When he was 10 years old he was raped by a man and the entire villagers pointed finger at him that he was responsible for being raped because of his feminine appearances. When he was going to a reputed College in Kandy, he was discriminated and exterminated from the leadership of his College debate team because of his girly voice. At that time he was the leader and their debate team was about to participate in all island level finals which was scheduled to be telecasted on national television.
He was kick out of his two jobs because of his feminine appearances and discriminated when some of his co-workers found out that he was a gay person. When he was in a relationship, his partner’s friend; a police officer found out about them.
Police officer had threatened him to death and told about his sexual orientation to his family and made them kick him out of his own home. When he was working overseas, these people made telephone threats at his work place and made his job discontinued.
Most of the gay people living in Sri Lanka, when found out that they are gay, are going through situations like this because of the discrimination and persecution from their own community. They are helpless and most of them have to fight for their lives or have to live in fear.
We sincerely hope that there will come a time when wonderful people such as Gamini don’t have to flee Sri Lanka because of the way they are treated there for being (gay) who they actually are. We hope in time, the laws will change in Sri Lanka and people are more accepting.
In the meanwhile, we will do our utmost to assist those who need our help.
As I write this, friends and people I have worked with, are living in fear.
In truth, since 10 September when Rivira published their exposé on condoms and lubricating gels being distributed to men who have sex with men, and the community based organization involved in the process, tensions have been high for the gay community. In the 10 September article, the organization was identified by name, their detailed address was also offered up with the sensational declaration that both offices of this organization (project and head office) were in close proximity to a primary and secondary school respectively. Of course parents were warned to protect their sons, based on the infantile notion that if a man is gay, he must necessarily be a pedophile too.
In addition to targeting the community organization, Rivira also raised questions about the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) who have provided funds to the community organization to implement their HIV prevention programming. The not very veiled assumption was that ‘foreign’ funds were somehow forcing us to violate the norms and mores of our culturally conservative nation was predictably poor journalism. As were the uninformed accusations directed at the National STD/AIDS Control Programme (NSACP), part of the Ministry of Health; and Sarvodaya, who together with NSACP are the primary recipients of this US$ 12 Million grant to prevent the spread of HIV in Sri Lanka by working with populations that are most at risk from the virus.
Responsible journalism that searches for the facts as opposed to sensationalist fiction that sells newspapers would identify that neither the NSACP, nor Sarvodaya, nor the ‘dreaded foreign hand’ of the Global Fund have any insidious agenda of promoting homosexuality on our island. Let’s be clear, the community based organization has no agenda of promoting homosexuality either, despite the scathing report of the investigative journalist that masqueraded as a gay man seeking services.
According to his allegations, some workers within the organization were trying to set him up with another gay man. Perhaps he looked lonely, and sad, and miserable and they were trying to cheer him up with the knowledge that there are other gay men out there in Sri Lanka who also suffer in silence due to the general negative perceptions of homosexuality that exist in our country. This said, his investigative adventure has made it clear that community based organizations such as these need to have clear protocols in place on how to manage new members professionally and sensitively.
In recent weeks the government has detained at least 70 Iraqi asylum seekers, in preparation for a mass deportation to Baghdad. It appears that a date has been set for 20 June.
Officials from the Iraqi government are currently visiting detainees to confirm their identities so that they can be deported, as part of an agreement between the two governments. 37 Asylum seekers in Campsfield detention centre have responded with a hunger strike. Today will be its fourth day. Supporters have gathered outside Campsfield to protest against the forced removals.
Many of these asylum seekers have been in the UK for several years, making close friends and starting families. Take Adam Aziz Ali, who is due to be removed on a flight to Baghdad 20 June. Adam is a Kurdish Iraqi. He has been here for five years, living with his partner, Joanne, in County Durham for almost four years. In that time he has become part of her family. They see him as a son, a brother, and an uncle. They cannot understand why a close member of their family should be removed. The Home Office has judged, rather robotically, that Adam has not developed relationships “beyond normal emotional ties”. His human right to a family life is not being affected “disproportionately”.
Iraq is a rocked by civil unrest, sectarian violence, suicide bombings and, more recently, a bloody backlash against civil rights protests.
“many of those who have been deported to Iraq in the past are now living in hiding, in fear of the persecution they originally left Iraq to flee. Some have been assassinated. Others have committed suicide only days after being deported or have been kidnapped and killed, while others have had mental breakdowns. Many more have had to leave the country and become refugees again.”
The International Day Against Homophobia and transphobia (IDAHO) has published dozens of pictures from events which took place around the world on its Facebook page. Among the events documented are ones taking place in China, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh, Israel, Belarus, Fiji, Kenya, Trinidad & Tobago, USA, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uganda. Many other country IDAHO pages also have lots of photos.
Some of the photographs:
Beijing
Bangladesh
Fiji
Kenya
Paraguay
UK embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka flies rainbow flag
I was born to an artist father and a mother who ran a batik factory in our home. I have two elder sisters and a younger brother and a sister. I studied in a mixed school and mixed more with female friends than male friends.
The boys were just friends to me and I did not think of them in a romantic manner. I hated the gender divisions my mother made between me and my younger brother. My struggle to achieve gender equality began when I was very young. I became conscious of my desire towards other women when I was about 12 years of age. I realised that I felt passionately towards other women and would rather have a love relationship with a woman than with a man. When I was 15, my family found out that I was attracted to women and not men.
I am talented in sports. In school, I was an athlete. Later, I played for a women’s cricket club. I became very competent in my game and had the opportunity of playing National Cricket. But when my coach found out that I was a lesbian, that was the end of my cricketing career and I had to leave the National Team. There are a number of people with queer identities in sports. As queer women, we are very strong and do not allow ourselves to be persuaded into misbehaving with anyone.
My first serious relationship with a woman began when I was 20. ‘A’ was a young woman engaged to a man employed overseas. ‘A’ lived with his family in his house in Sri Lanka. he had to do the household chores and hardly received any freedom or affection, even from her fiancé. He did not even let her see her father who was the only living family member she had. I was a friend of ‘A’s fiance’s family. When I visited them, I saw the pitiful state ‘A’ was in and I was moved by her situation. ‘A’ and I developed a close relationship.
A letter that ‘A’ gave me fell into the hands of my family and they were very upset. One day, after one of my visits to ‘A’s fiance’s house, I found ‘A’ waiting for me on the roadside, with a few of her clothes hastily flung into a bag. She said, “I am not going back into that house. I am coming with you.” When I told her that she could not do it, she retorted that if I did not take her with me, she will run away somewhere, without really knowing where she is going. I understood the reasons why she wanted to come with me and I took a decision then and there to take her with me. I arranged for ‘A’ to stay at a friend’s house and I assumed the burden of her expenses. Then, I was working as a fabric designer. My family came to know about what I did and my mother forbade me to come home. She told me, "I have other daughters to give in marriage. When you have unnatural desires like this, I can’t find husbands for them. This is a disgrace to my family.” But my father and brother were sympathetic to me.
By Sass Rogando Sasot, ILGA Communication Team Asia
Homosexuality is often sidelined by the mainstream social discourse in Sri Lanka. This does not suggest that our society does not tolerate homosexuality; rather it seems resolved to overlook it by rejecting it completely from the popular consciousness. This defensive approach to homosexuality signifies a need to conserve the sexually homogenous character superimposed on our society. Thus homosexuality is not an “issue.” However this does not mean that the Sri Lankan LGBT community does not have issues. These issues could only be addressed through foregrounding homosexuality per se. In as far as our society does not acknowledge the LGBT community as a part of its fabric, their grievances will remain unrecognized.
Homosexuality, at least on paper, remains a crime in Sri Lanka. Nishada, an insider of the LGBT rights discourse claims that this is the greatest challenge that the gay community is facing today. He claims that every time he goes out with his boyfriend, they feel that they become the focus of the condemning “gaze” of society. (I pointed out to him that straight couples are also not exempted from society’s gaze. We are the victims of a sexually frigid society). Nishada tells me that gays are hardly ever harassed physically, although he claims that the Nacchi community, or men who think of themselves as women, are often subjected to harassment. Nacchi people he says is the “face” of Sri Lankan LGBT community. “They are great dancers; they get paid for dancing at weddings. Sometimes when they return from wedding ceremonies, the police would stop them and take their money,” Nishada says. The dress and behaviour of the Nacchi people, or the “queens,” make them easily recognizable targets. As a socially marginalized group they are vulnerable and often sexually exploited, I gathered from Nishada.
Sri Lanka's gay community gathered in the capital November 27 to raise awareness about minority issues and seek acceptance in the country's conservative society.
'Diversity Games' an event organised by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender organisations held their annual outing at Colombo's Narahenpita area at a public park amid enthusiastic participation.
"The annual event helps create awareness and build solidarity among their minority group and conservative Sri Lankan society " event organiser, Sherman de Rose said De Rose, a former Roman Catholic brother-turned-gay activist is leading a 15-year campaign demanding the authorities to decriminalise homosexuality in conservative Sri Lanka.
Homosexuality is a century old punishable offence in Sri Lanka introduced by British colonial administration.
When the law was introduced in 1883 it did not acknowledge that women could have sex with each other and therefore lesbians could not be prosecuted.
However, with the government substituting the word "males" with the gender-neutral "persons" in the 1995 amendment to the penal code, women too face anti-homosexual regulations.
However, there have been no recent reports of anyone being prosecuted for homosexuality, but hundreds of heterosexual couples have been rounded up and taken to police stations for causing a public nuisance for displaying their affection for each other at public places such as parks and beaches.
By Sean Rehaag, Sharryn Aiken, Francois Crepeau, Catherine Dauvergne, Donald Galloway, Gerald Heckman, Nicole LaViolette and Audrey Macklin, Freelance
This week, Parliament is debating bill C-49, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act.
The proposed legislation represents the government’s attempt to deter human smuggling in response to a few hundred Sri Lankan asylum seekers who arrived on two ships in the past year. A better title, however, might be the Punishing Refugees and Evading our International and Constitutional Obligations Act, because the bill scarcely alters the sanctions for smugglers while clearly targeting refugees.
The government appears to believe that Canada currently lacks enforcement tools to prevent human smuggling. In fact, Canada already does everything in its power to prevent asylum seekers from getting here. It imposes visas on nationals of all major source countries, denies entry to anyone it thinks might make a refugee claim and works with transportation companies to prevent embarkation of anyone with suspect documents.
Adding to this arsenal more enforcement measures -such as the mandatory minimum sentences in the proposed legislation -will not stop human smuggling. Indeed, if the possibility of tough penalties could stop human smuggling, surely the life imprisonment currently faced by smugglers -the most serious punishment under Canadian law -would have done the trick.
On September 15, Leela Krishna, a Tamil refugee in Villawood Detention Centre, was removed to Melbourne's Maribyrnong Detention Centre. Supporters of Leela protested and leafleted Sydney Airport's domestic terminal on the day.
Despite being recognised as a refugee by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in April, Leela is still being imprisoned while ASIO conducts “security checks”. A gay man, he has experienced sexual harassment, bullying and physical assault in detention and has attempted suicide several of times.
Socialist Alliance member and refugee rights activist Niko Leka visited Villawood on September 14. “We met Leela Krishna, who had prepared a wonderful Tamil lunch for us”, he told Green Left Weekly. “He was under threat of forced relocation to Melbourne, ‘some time next week’. As we were about to board the train home, five hours later, we heard the removal was to take place the next morning. It is reasonable to conclude that he was deceived regarding the timing.”
Leela was physically assaulted August 3, in the maximum security 'Stage 1' section of Villawood. On the same day, his lawyer told him he would be released into the community if housing was found. His supporters made several offers of accommodation. Instead, he was visited by an immigration department official and told he would be moved to Melbourne’s Maribynong Detention Centre. He told the department he did not want to move.
Andrew John Brent comments that this assault at the Villawood detention centre complex in Western Sydney happened after Leela was moved into a higher security setting (an area which criminals waiting for deportation are kept), following previous homophobic attacks. As a result of this latest incident Leela has been moved to housing within the complex and is very happy about this. He says "There is a strong possibility that if I can find him appropriate community housing he can wait out the remaining ASIO [security] checks externally, so fingers crossed."
Police are investigating an alleged attack on a young asylum-seeker.
The alleged assault happened after he was placed in an isolation unit with a former professional kickboxer who has a 17-year criminal record of violence.
Tamil Leela claims the fellow Villawood centre detainee yelled at him, grabbed him and punched him in the face at 3.15am yesterday for telephoning his mother in Sri Lanka while the fellow detainee was watching television nearby.
Leela, 28, arrived at Christmas Island by boat last year and has been found to be a refugee. He said he had been a journalist in Colombo but fled after being beaten by Sri Lankan police. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship told him in April, shortly after he was transferred to the mainland, that he would receive a visa pending the result of a security check by ASIO, which is not yet complete.
Living in a country that not only disagrees with homosexuality, but deems it so wrong that it is illegal is hard enough, but the levels of negativity and misunderstanding about the community taken to a whole new level with Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror acting to suggest that the homosexual community is actively recruiting heterosexuals to the dark side.
Featured as an editorial, the writer suggests the country’s capital, Colombo is seeing increased number of diplomats and leading civil society members acting to convert others to homosexuality by constructing heterosexuality as “an outdated, obsolete disposition“.
And don’t think that these groups are being subtle about it either. Apparently if you talk to members of these social groups they won’t be telling you that you should come out as gay because it’s an important step in accepting who you truly are. Instead they will tell you that:
“…all politicians in the country should turn gay so that they can avoid the burden of a family – wife and children and better concentrate on work”
Saying that the behaviour of this groups acts to make Sri Lanka more like Las Vegas, especially with their “extensive use of drugs and aggressive promotion of their ideology“, you’d think that the author of this article might have felt they’d surpassed themselves on talking complete rubbish, but there’s plenty more to come as the editorial looks to now also blame women for these dastardly gays popping up everywhere.
Leela KTH is a queer Tamil refugee from Sri Lanka. He left Sri Lanka because he faced such high levels of hostility to his sexuality. In Sri Lanka, Leela had been arrested and beaten by police in a series of incidents that seem to have been set-ups or harassment concerning registration papers for vehicles.
All Leela's experiences with the police culminated in him being detained, stripped and beaten. At one stage the police allegedly threatened to put a video of him, naked and beaten, on the internet as a way to "shame" him.
The Sri Lankan penal code is homophobic - it has outlawed sodomy and homosexuality for men and women since 1995, when the law was amended to be "gender neutral". Also, the traditional response to homosexuality by some religious groups in Sri Lanka is death.
So Leela fled on a small boat with 43 other people to sail across the Indian Ocean from Sri Lanka, to the west coast of Australia. He left Sri Lanka on September 11 and was taken to Christmas Island after being intercepted by naval border security on October 2.
Leela has experienced the same fear, shame and abuse suffered by many young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transpeople people around the world, and feels that he was treated as an "untouchable"; a term that Leela uses to explain the restriction of people from most of the culture, including the already limited job market.
Over the last two weeks we have seen a large number of reports and articles critical of the asylum system. The Independent Inspector of the UK Border Agency highlighted the growing backlog of unprocessed asylum claims in a report published at the end of February.
His report was followed by Nuala O’Loan’s investigation into allegations of the abuse of asylum-seekers held in detention or in the process of removal from the UK. Yesterday the media reported that the costs of supporting asylum-seekers – who are not permitted to work – had risen by 1,700 per cent over the last five years.
All these reports point to an asylum system vulnerable to misadministration and crisis. There have been some improvements in the processing of asylum claims over the last ten years – the time it takes for an initial decision on an asylum case has fallen from 22 months in 1997 to seven months in 2009. An inspectorate for the UK Border Agency and greater commitment to the integration of those allowed to remain in the UK are other changes for the better.
Nevertheless, the asylum system remains flawed and prone to backlogs. It is high time progressives took an honest look at asylum in the UK. Yet a tabloid media hostile to asylum-seekers, coupled with a powerful refugee lobby have prevented a root and branch examination of the treatment of refugees.
The latest media articles, drawn from Home Office statistics, point to a reduction in the numbers of ‘failed’ asylum-seekers who are removed from the UK and a huge increase in the cost of supporting them. In 2009, some 26,832 removal notices were issued to failed asylum-seekers, yet only 7,850 persons from this group were removed from the UK.
Many of those who are not removed from the UK receive food vouchers and basic accommodation from the UK Border Agency, a type of sustenance known as Section Four support. Ministers are very concerned by the rising costs of Section Four support.
However, an in-depth analysis of Home Office asylum statistics shows why such small proportions of failed asylum-seekers end up being removed from the UK and why the costs of Section Four support have rocketed. In 2009, some 17,805 asylum-seekers – about 73 per cent of all applicants – received an initial negative decision in the UK. Of those refusals 4,150 were from Zimbabwe and 1,080 were from Sri Lanka. Yet government has suspended removals to these countries because it acknowledges that Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka are too unstable for the return of asylum-seekers.
Some 1,070 Iraqis and 585 Somalis were refused asylum in 2009. While the UK will return them, organising flights and onward transport in these countries is logistically challenging and expensive. Failed asylum-seekers from countries such as Zimbabwe and Somalia are kept in limbo: their applications have been refused, yet we cannot send them back. It is an inhumane and costly trap. A progressive asylum policy would allow those who we cannot remove from the UK to remain here, work and contribute to their new communities.
Our government does remove those who have overstayed their permission to remain in the UK, a group that includes failed asylum-seekers. At present there are weekly charter flights to countries such as Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Frontex, the EU external borders agency, will soon be taking responsibility for chartering and coordinating removal flights. Yet progressives have given very little consideration to removals policy. Honest debate about this issue is often heavily suppressed by the open borders movement, groups and individuals who often have links with the left.
We need to get to grips with removals policy. We need to acknowledge that there are some people whose removal is practically impossible – they should be allowed to stay in the UK. We also need to confront other questions. How do we deal with those who physically resist removal? How can the activities of Frontex be made transparent and accountable? Should we have independent human rights monitors on charter flights, as some EU countries do? How do we monitor the safety of those returned to their home countries?
Above all, we need safeguards at our external borders, as many would be asylum-seekers do not make to European territory and are turned back at our external borders.
Jill Rutter works for an organisation supporting refugees and migrants and is an associate fellow of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr); she writes here in a personal capacity.
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.
Equal Ground, a non profit organization seeking human and political rights for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community of Sri Lanka, says that a Sri Lankan that sought asylum in US based on gender discrimination in his home country has been granted asylum there.
The person nicknamed as Sam has emailed to Equal Grounds “I am very happy to inform you, that I was granted my gay asylum in USA. As I know I am the 3rd person whom granted gay asylum in USA. Equal Ground and you personally helped me on this matter a lot. I am thanking Equal Ground and personally for you Rosanna, because you helped me in every way not only giving a declaration, personally advising me on my problems which happen to me because of my gay activities… “
Equal Ground says that the organization ' sincerely hopes that there will come a time when wonderful people such as Sam don’t have to flee this country because of the way they are treated here for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. We hope in time, the laws will change and people are more accepting.'
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