Thailand: New roadmap to progress LGBTI rights in Asia Pacific

A major regional workshop involving representatives from national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and civil society groups has concluded with a call for greater efforts to advance the rights of LGBTI people in the Asia Pacific.

The Programme of Action and Support on the role of NHRIs in promoting and protecting human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, including health rights, in Asia and the Pacific sets out a wide range of practical steps for NHRIs to bolster their work.

“In recent years, NHRIs in the Asia Pacific region have emerged as key advocates for the human rights of LGBTI people and their equality,” said Chris Sidoti. Representatives from the NHRIs of Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor Leste were among more than 40 participants involved in the two-day gathering. Read More

Chile: President signs civil unions bill

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on Monday signed a bill into law that will allow gays and lesbians in the South American country to enter into civil unions.

“Today is a historic day for sexual diversity,” said Rolando Jiménez, director of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, in a press release. “The state for the first time recognizes that there is not just one way to make a family. From today the state protects family diversity and takes responsibility for historic injustices based upon prejudices and taboos that never should have existed.”  Read More 

Ireland: Senators Approve Same-Sex Adoption Bill

After nearly a week discussing the Children and Family Relationship Bill – which was subject to over 120 amendments, the Seanad in the Republic of Ireland approved the bill.  The bill – which passed the lower house earlier last month – follows up on a promise to extend adoption rights to same-sex partners and co-habiting couples, ahead of the country’s referendum on same-sex marriage on May 22.

The bill received a standing ovation when it passed – and given the controversy surrounding the country’s same-sex marriage referendum, cleared the Seanad remarkably without incident.  Read More

Bahamas: ‘We Must Co-Exist With Global Views On Homosexuality’

Prime Minister Perry Christie said leaders of conservative countries must consider how their nations could “co-exist in a world” where global attitudes towards social issues like homosexuality are shifting.

Mr Christie said that while governments must not seek to change the conservative ideas of its people, they must consider how to react to changing global social realities.

"How do we coexist in a world where the vice-president of the United States has said culture of countries do not trump human rights? Human rights are then elevated to the highest levels. And therefore you see the traditional norms of the world being changed and the levels of what was phobia are being rejected and are now becoming norms. Countries like the Bahamas have to look very carefully at it, not to change it, but how do you go about accepting it?”   Read More

Bob Witeck, Walmart's LGBT consultant, gets corporations on the workers' side

When Walmart sided with gay rights by saying that Arkansas’s religious freedom reformation act sends the “wrong message”, it surprised many. The nation’s largest employer is more commonly associated with low wages and red-state religious values than with LGBT rights.

But in working with Bob Witeck, the DC-based head of the gay and lesbian-focused communications group Witeck Communications, Walmart addressed charges by critics that it ought to put its money where its mouth is, and lobby to avert dangerous anti-gay legislation in its own backyard.

Like most consultants, Witeck doesn’t like to say too much about what he and his clients talk about. But in an interview with the Guardian, he offered some insight into how corporations have evolved in this regard. Read More

New Zealand sets new standard for LGBTI inclusion in the workplace

Standards New Zealand, the operating arm of the country’s Standards Council, has published a new guide on diversity. The latest guides –  produced in consultation with agencies including Rainbow Wellington, Affinity Services, gQ Network, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, and others – is Rainbow-inclusive workplaces: A standard for gender and sexual diversity in employment.

In a statement SNZ said, ‘International research shows that people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, takatāpui, queer, and intersex (LGBTTQI) communities still face discrimination and exclusion in the workforce; in recruitment, retention, training, and advancement opportunities.' -- Takatāpui is the Māori (indigenous New Zealand people's) word meaning a devoted partner of the same sex.

‘There is also research that indicates that workplaces that support and encourage staff to be authentic and bring the whole of themselves to work perform better than those where people feel they must hide a central aspect of themselves.’  Read More

Peru: Rodrigo González declares his homosexuality with picture

Television star Rodrigo González came out via Facebook with a picture of his boyfriend in support of the LGBTI equality march.

Apologizing for not being able to attend the rally in person, González stated his support for the movement and revealed his sexuality, saying that he hoped his coming out would help the cause. Read More

Peru: LGBT supporters march for civil union debate

An estimated 3,000 Peruvians in support of LGBT rights marched Saturday in the capital city Lima after the country's Commission of Justice repeatedly failed to address a bill that would recognise civil unions for same-sex couples. The bill had its hearing postponed until after the Easter holiday. If passed, the civil union legislation would expand inheritance laws for same-sex couples in Peru. 

The march's main objectives were to encourage citizens to demand equal rights for people LGTBI; support the legal and equal recognition of same-sex couples (gay marriage); and support passing laws that explicitly protect sexual orientation and gender identity with the inclusion of these categories in the criminal offenses against discrimination and hate crimes.  Read More

Asia's LGBT people migrate to escape violence at home

Long before Joe Wong surgically removed his breasts and uterus, he was Joleen, who once used an entire roll of brown duct tape to flatten her chest in an effort to look less feminine at her new secondary school in Singapore. 

To escape the violence and find acceptance, many LGBT people migrate abroad - including Wong, who moved to Bangkok, where he currently works for a LGBT rights group. Read More 

UK: Nigerian Lesbian Loses Asylum Battle, Faces Deportation

Prominent United Kingdom-based Nigerian lesbian and gay rights activist, Aderonke Apata, had her lengthy legal tussle to claim asylum in the country thrown out of the highest court of the land, the Royal Courts of Justice – after a judge ruled that she was pretending to be lesbian.

A Home Office barrister argued last month that Ms Apata cannot be a lesbian as she has children. He claimed that while she “indulged in same-sex activity” she was not “part of the social group known as lesbians”.

Ms Apata, 47, came to Britain in 2004 and has won awards for her gay-rights campaigning. She is engaged to her long-term partner Happiness Agboro, also from Nigeria, who has already been granted asylum based on her sexuality.  Read More

South Africa: Bisexual woman gang raped because of her “lifestyle”

In another horrific LGBTI hate crime, a 30-something bisexual mother of three in Limpopo has reportedly been raped by a group of men who said they wanted to show her that her “lifestyle is wrong.”

Activist Cindy Molefe, from the group Limpopo LGBTI Proudly Out, told Mambaonline that the woman, Abby*, who has often worked with the organisation canvassing for LGBTI rights, was brutally attacked on Saturday night.  Read More