Violence Against LBT People in Asia

Source: International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission - 26 Feb

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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Binational stories of American lesbian + gay couples

Source: Lez Get Real

• Lesbian spouse 102 days in ICE detention
• A Binational Xmas wish in a letter to President Obama
• ANOTHER American exiled! – UAFA Now or 1,666 years of stories

Lesbian Spouse 102 days in ICE Detention

By Melanie Nathan

Here is a letter which was sent to President Obama, with the emotive reflections of a foreign born spouse.  Although each story has a unique fingerprint, this is different from the very many stories we hear, as this letter reflects the abhorent and unconscienable detention of the writer by the American authorities.

Dear President Obama,                       (January 3, 2010)

Preaching in the 60s, when the US was racked with racism and the horrors of the Vietnam War, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired the American people to pursue justice, the truth and simply to do the right thing, because “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”.

So, where do the American people stand at this point in time of challenge and controversy, although almost 50 years later? Does America, the “land of the free and home of the brave” hold up to George Washington’s expectation of “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair”? As I look through my wife’s passport, I find comfort in words of wisdom by the 34th President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”

It was in 1963 when Dr. King delivered his speech “I Have a Dream” in Washington. Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream, a dream to end racial segregation and racial discrimination; in 2009 as a result this country elected its first African-American President Barack Hussein Obama. In 1967 the Supreme Court declared interracial marriage fully legal in all U.S. States. Since then many more subjects on human rights issues have been addressed and corrected by congress. Just a few months ago President Obama signed hate crimes bill into law as a step toward change to “help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray”, (CNN Politics article, Oct. 28, 2009). So, could one finally say that all men are not only created equal but surely treated equal as well? Can America stand up to the world and with integrity proclaim that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” – an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence written on pages 10-11 of the American passport.

I look at my wife’s American passport with its beautiful design, I read those profound words, wise words by wise men and I wonder why those words don’t reflect our reality!

Is it because our life is out of the ordinary range of the usual set of circumstances?  Is it simply because our life differs from the typical portrayal of a married couple? We are committed to each other, we know each other for more than 11 years, we love each other, we live together, we built a life together, we are married and we actually would have a happy life if it wasn’t for the remaining failure of the U.S. Government to ensure the pursuit of happiness for all U.S. citizens; this nation still neglects the basic human rights of their homosexual fellow citizens treating them as “second-class”, just a minority… 

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” – Thomas Jefferson 

This nation must make significant changes to ensure equal rights for gays and lesbians. Although President Obama has urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the States of New York and New Jersey recently refused the recognition of same-sex marriages. The subject matter becomes even more profound when dealing with immigration issues, as my wife and I do. I am a 47-year-old highly educated woman from Europe. For over 11 years I stayed in the US “out of status”, constantly living on the edge of being terrified of discovery and deportation. One could say fear was my constant companion. It was no fairy tale life or even in any way close to living the American dream, but as Albert Einstein simply puts it, “In the middle of difficulty lays opportunity”.

Most bi-national heterosexual couples living in the U.S. have no problem staying together; the American citizen can sponsor their foreign spouse in obtaining a green card including work authorization. The foreign-born spouse can easily pursue and further her/his professional career. Bi-national homosexual couples are denied those rights. I depended on my wife/life partner for support since I had no work authorization. Often I felt deprived of the right to contribute to society as well as my own household, simply put: a waste of time, a waste of talent, and a waste of life! In all those 11 years, my wife and I were “prisoners” of a political system that seems antiquated, out-dated and rather forces people into committing fraud. Many commit marriage fraud as a means to an end in exchange for a green card, but I never considered this to be an option, because for me marriage is too sacred to be dishonest about.

On March 18, 2009 our life took a tragic turn. As feared for so many years, I was finally picked-up at a Greyhound bus station as a result of a raid by border patrol and taken into custody by ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement). I was detained for 102 days in a facility for ‘illegal aliens.’  I don’t think that any one of us, meaning my American spouse, our American friends and family members knew detention centers for immigrants existed. I was treated as a criminal, although with no criminal record at all. I was even told by officers in this facility that we all were criminals and deserve to be treated as such.

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SAfrica: Rights of women, gays raised at international union congress

DURBAN, South Africa (AFP) - The rights of women and homosexuals were highlighted Wednesday, the third day of a week-long congress in South Africa of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions [now the the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) ].

ICFTU, which represents 125 million workers from 145 countries, spoke out for the first time against the discrimination of homosexuals, to the discomfort of several delegates, notably those from Africa and Asia.

In a report presented to the 1,200 delegates meeting in this east coast city, ICFTU condemned discrimination against gay men and women and said it would work to identify and expose homophobia in the workplace.

An ICFTU study obtained by AFP showed that homosexuality is illegal in 86 countries and carries the death penalty in Sudan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan.

Homosexuals suffer harassment at work, with about one-fourth saying they had been fired because of their sexual orientation, according to the study.

Some unions from Africa and Asia rejected the criticisms.

"We don't have this problem because nobody is homosexual in our country," said secretary general of Mali's UNTM, Siaka Diakite.

Roger Tapsoba from Burkina Faso's CSB said "we should start to talk about" this issue, but added that in his country "homosexuality is considered an abomination."

A delegate from Gabon insisted that Christianity, his country's religion, did not allow homosexuality.

Another from Taiwan said his union was against homosexuals but was fighting sexual harassment.

Other countries, including South Africa and Zimbabwe, said their unions were working with gay rights groups to lobby pharmaceutical companies for cheap drugs to treat HIV/AIDS-related diseases.

The rights of women were also raised at the congress Wednesday. About 2,000 people, mostly women, marched to the venue of the meeting to protest poverty and violence against women.

"Trade unions fight poverty and violence against women!" read placards displayed at the march in English, French, Spanish and Zulu.

The march was part of the World March of Women, which will see similar marches across the globe until October.

"Women make up 70 percent of the world's 855 million illiterate adults, more than half of those infected with the HIV/AIDS virus in the age bracket 15-24," organisers said in a statement.

A memorandum was handed to ICFTU leaders calling for protection against all forms of violence, equal rights for women in the workplace and an end to cutbacks in social budgets and public services.

It also demanded the cancellation of the debt of all Third World countries and treatment and protection for people with HIV/AIDS.

Women make up 39 percent of the members of the ICFTU, which includes 215 unions.

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