ASEAN SOGIE Caucus is urging the  human rights advocates in Asia to join the call for action to support the UN Human Rights Council Resolution to establish a UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). We believe that the task of the expert will bring greater attention on the violation of human rights based on SOGI.

The resolution is the follow up from the 2011 United Nations Resolution on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity presented by South Africa and the 2014 resolution presented by the Latin American core group. This year, the Latin America leading states in SOGI – Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia and Brazil – have announced their intention to bring a resolution to create a UN Independent Expert on SOGI during the upcoming June session of the Human Rights Council.

What is an Independent Expert?

It is one of the mechanisms, under the umbrella of “UN Special Procedures”, created by the United Nations Human Rights Council to raise attention to human rights on various grounds. It has several mandates including monitoring and documentation human rights violations, preparing reports on a broad variety of issues, develop the international human rights framework, ensure a space for interactive dialogue with UN mechanisms, as well as supporting the work of human rights defender. Currently there are Special Procedures that have been created to combat issues such as racism, violence against women, discrimination against women, person with disabilities, freedom of religion, persons with albinism, people of African descent, rights of the child, indigenous persons, and the rights of elderly. 

Further information: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/IEInternationalorderIndex.aspx

Why is it Important to have specific Independent Expert for SOGI?

Human rights violation based on sexual orientation and gender identity still persists. About 73 countries still criminalize same-sex sexual relations. Furthermore, about 2115 reported killings of trans and gender diverse people in 65 countries worldwide between January 2008 and April 2016. Having specific UN Independent Expert on SOGI will give significant contribution by:

• address protection on these issues within the UN system, by allowing more detailed exploration of the situation of specific populations, specific patterns of violations and intersectionalities between human rights violation based on SOGI and on other ground

• encourage more effective responses by Governments, the UN and other stakeholders about SOGI issues

• engage in constructive dialogue with States and other stakeholders, and bring greater clarity to the application of international human rights norms and standards in relation to SOGI.

Further information can be accessed through http://panafricailga.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/QA_creating-a-UN-mechanism-to-address-human-rights-violations-based-on-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity.pdf

What can the ASEAN community do?

We would like to encourage you to give your full support of this resolution and urge you to join the call for action. Things that we can do:

• Write a joint appeal letter to the Asian members of the human rights council including   Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Mongolia and South Korea. Send those letters to their embassies in your respective countries.

• Conduct social media campaign through various platforms such as facebook, twitter by using hash tag #SOGIexpertNow

• Don’t forget to sign the international petition to agree on this call: http://arc-international.net/joint-civil-society-statement-on-establishing-a-un-independent-expert/ 

Let us join this global action to support this historic initiative!