The ASEAN SOGIE Caucus and The International Committee of Jurists held an event entitled “Positioning the Rainbow within ASEAN” A Public Lecture on ASEAN, Activism and LGBTIQ Rights, on August 12, 2015 at La Breza Hotel in Quezon City, Philippines. The speakers for the lecture were Ms. Emerlynne Gil, the Senior International Legal Adviser of the ICJ in Southeast Asia and Professor Douglas Sanders, a retired law professor from the University of British Columbia and one of the founders of the first LGBT organizations in Canada.

The panel aimed to address the following objectives: To describe the human rights situation of LGBTIQs within ASEAN; To critically reflect on the dynamic political, social and economic contexts that influence and affect the status of LGBTIQ activism in the region; and To identify opportunities and spaces for regional-level activism.

Emerlynne Gil provided a landscape of democracy within ASEAN and the state of civil society in the region. Emerlynne has put the ASEAN countries into three categories. The first category includes countries with widespread democracy and political pluralism; the second category are countries with semi-authoritarian governments but with some democracy and political pluralism; and the third category are countries that are clearly authoritarian and no political pluralism at all.

Prof. Douglas Sanders presented discussed the situation of LGBTIQ persons in ASEAN. He raised that several countries continue to criminalize LGBTIQ persons; many of these countries have inherited colonial anti-sodomy laws. Meanwhile, he also shared the growing activism of LGBTIQ groups that have engaged governments at the national and regional levels.

The event was attended by 40 participants from different civil society organizations and academic institutions.