This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content. You can search the text using Ctrl-F, and you can also play the audio by clicking on a desired timestamp.
It's my great pleasure now to introduce Grace poor from Malaysia. And I would like, uh, to acknowledge that, uh, Grace's presentation is made possible with funding from Rainbow Wellington. Thank you for that. Uh, and in fact, uh, Felicia acknowledged also, uh, the funding from the kingdom of the Netherlands that, uh, that contributed to her presentation. And these forms of sponsorship, um, must [00:00:30] be acknowledged appropriately. Thank you to Rainbow Wellington for Grace's presentation. Grace is a Malaysian activist. Uh, she is the regional programme coordinator for the Asia and the Pacific Islands at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, based in New York. She has been working to end domestic violence and child sexual abuse for over 20 years and has been recognised [00:01:00] for her anti violence work by the Sunshine Lady Peace Foundation. Grace has written, directed and produced documentaries that have been screened in 18 countries. And, uh, in 2000 won the Rosebud Award and in 2001, creating a voice award. Grace, it's a pleasure to have you here. Welcome. [00:01:30] Thank you. Um, I want to thank Joy who I think is not here. Um, for, uh, making it possible for me to be here. And also, uh, rainbow Wellington. Um, this opportunity, actually, uh, is not only about meeting new people, [00:02:00] um, connecting with people I've already met. But, uh, very particularly to see, uh, what kinds of relationships? Eagle, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission can form with, uh groups in the Pacific Islands. And we often talk about the capacity of local groups and we need to pay attention to whether international organisations have the capacity [00:02:30] to do certain kinds of work and that rather than tokens and doing work, Uh, because it belongs to a title to actually look at what that means. So although the title of you know, my title says that I'm the programme coordinator for Asia and the Pacific Islands, I had made a commitment, uh, in my second year to begin working and seriously doing work in the Pacific Islands, and that has not happened. And one of the reasons that I'm hoping [00:03:00] that I will be meeting with several people is to see what is it that we can do? Can we do it? Can we do it well and what shouldn't we be doing? So I am very grateful for this opportunity to be here to actually do that. Thank you. Um, I was invited to focus my presentation, um, on my experiences in movement building for social change in Asia and also at the international level, [00:03:30] and to share what this experience has taught me about what is required for successful movement, building and what some of the challenges are. I'm not really going to do that. I'm actually going to be sharing the insights of activists in Asia who have been working for many years to improve conditions for the lives of LGBT people and then to make some observations of my own about the trends that are emerging in the region. [00:04:00] Uh, yesterday, uh, Misra highlighted the successful movement building in India around section 3 77 and the development of lesbian organising in response to the Hindu right wing reaction to the movie fire. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two different parts of Asia, North East Asia and Southeast Asia, paying attention to three [00:04:30] different approaches to advocating for LGBT human rights. One in Hong Kong, one in Vietnam and one in Cambodia where different political contexts have shaped and continued to shape how LGBT activists define the term movement and how they strategically navigate their activism. In 2005, a group of LGBT activists in Hong Kong who made up the Women's [00:05:00] Coalition of Hong Kong decided that they wanted to do something for International Day against homophobia. There were 10 of them. All they had was about US $100 and right away they knew that they could not afford to outreach through advertising and printing posters. The valuable resource they did have was an already established network of credible friendships and working relationships [00:05:30] with activists and other social movements such as feminists, women's groups, human rights groups, youth groups, economic rights groups and religious groups. Using Facebook email alerts and E groups, they reached out to these other movements. They also leaflet at gay and lesbian bars to introduce their group and publicise the call together for International Day Against homophobia, an unprecedented 300 people, which is [00:06:00] a big number for Hong Kong. 300 people showed up in one of the busiest intersections of the city, and since that year there have been Idaho and pride gatherings on the streets of Hong Kong every year. The same outreach and coalition strategy was used when the Women's Coalition of Hong Kong fought to get domestic violence protections for same sex couples. Now again, there was success. Despite strong [00:06:30] resistance from Christian church groups, many of them funded by groups in the UK and the United States, Hong Kong now covers same sex couples under its domestic violence law, which, however, was not called the domestic violence law to appease the church but instead was renamed and Connie I Hope I Get This Right. Domestic and cohabiting relationships. Violence ordinance, cool [00:07:00] building and investing in broad coalitions has worked for Hong Kong LGBTI activists, particularly because of the public visible and vocal support from non LGBT supporters. Sometimes coalition support is behind the scenes. It's private, it's quiet. The trouble with that is it actually, um, invisibles that support. And it is critical for LGBT movements [00:07:30] in Asia and the Pacific Islands to receive public support from allies, particularly in a context where there is so much public and private homophobia and transphobia. When I asked Connie, uh, who is the founder of the Women's Coalition of Hong Kong who's here at this conference. Is that Connie there? I think so. Um, So when I asked Connie what helped move that movable middle, you know, in those many, many movements, what helped [00:08:00] make that difference in getting the broad coalition support? He said that after over 10 years of organising for LGBT rights, Hong Kong society had changed. People are more accepting of LGBT rights. The LGBT movement has become bigger. Activists in the LGBT movement have alliances that they didn't have before, and they have gained a lot of experience on how to strategize effectively working together [00:08:30] on that domestic violence. Law reform was a catalyst, actually in reinforcing those alliances. Now the challenge now for the LGBT movement in Hong Kong is the Christian right movement, which, according to Connie, has grown stronger over the last few years. While only 10% of Hong Kong people are Christian, over 50% of schools in Hong Kong are funded by Christian groups. This gives them incredible access and [00:09:00] control over the kind of education and the social services that you receive. In addition, several highly placed officials in the Hong Kong government are Christian, which has added greater support for the family values policy that the Christian groups are pushing for in Hong Kong now. A quick glimpse at Vietnam When I asked activists there how they would describe the movement for LGBT [00:09:30] rights in Vietnam, the first response was What movement? We have no movement. The word movement in Vietnam is associated with confrontation. And as one of the directors of an organisation that is documenting, um, discrimination against lesbians and gay men explained, Our approach is not confrontation. We promote education. He said that by carrying out research and documenting the experiences [00:10:00] of gays and lesbians in Vietnam, they only focus on gays and lesbians. Um, that by documenting the experiences of gays and lesbians in Vietnam and presenting this information in a scientific way, he believed that Vietnamese society would be more open to challenging their ideas about gay people, even if their personal beliefs and customs are rooted in a tradition of non acceptance. As he explains, enlightenment through education is promoted by the government, [00:10:30] so this then becomes the entry point for LGBT advocacy without using the word movement without using the word activists. This strategy is premised on the expectation that when people have information that they never had before. They have an opportunity to challenge their flawed thinking, which is based on misinformation and all ideas. In other words, they believe that people are educable. [00:11:00] Now Cambodia is a third country that I want to focus on. Cambodia also uses the education approach, but their focus of their education strategy is the LGBT community and not so much the general public. In 2009, Rainbow Coalition Kua Rock organised a three day long weekend workshop during Pride. 300 to 400 women who love women came from the capital city of Phnom Penh. But more [00:11:30] significantly they came from distant cities and provinces, travelling sometimes for a night and a half on a bus. Now, according to rock, this was the first time that lesbians had been invited to do anything for pride, which has been celebrated in Cambodia since 2004. Now, when I say pride activities, I don't mean rallies and marches on the streets. These activities are low profile activities that take place [00:12:00] indoors because when we think pride, you know, people usually assume outdoors. So, for instance, a Pride Party, uh, would be held in a hotel and like 500 gay men would be at the party. This workshop series of workshops that took place all took place on the premises of HIV AIDS NGOs, where the gay gay directors very quietly allowed them to use the space. And I say quietly because they were really not supposed [00:12:30] to do that. Now what's interesting about Cambodia is that the people who mobilised the Cambodian lesbians were foreigners. They were from the UK. They were basically white people from the UK and Ireland who came under the VSO Voluntary Services Organisation. Now they saw that the lesbians were marginalised and invisible in Cambodia. They raised $6000 from supportive American, European and overseas Cambodians and organised the workshop. [00:13:00] As one of the VSO staff said, Um, it's hard for lesbians to come out in Cambodia because we are foreigners and white. We could risk being out and we had access to resources that the local lesbian community did not. Now, since 2009, that workshop that was held lesbians in Cambodia have met again to address the key issues in their lives, one of which is violence, and they [00:13:30] have formed a national email network through which they keep in touch regularly. Now this kind of arrangement where foreigners drive a local movement, can be a problem. And I think that sometimes under very careful circumstances, it may be necessary to have this kind of arrangements, particularly where it is not possible for local activists in a particular point of time [00:14:00] to initiate a movement. But again, I think that it has to be very carefully monitored. It has to be done in partnership. There have to be a lot of caveats. It has to be short term and priority has to be given to developing local capacity and developing local leadership as soon as possible. I think that three of the four VSO people have now left Cambodia because their terms are now over. But two or three of [00:14:30] the Cambodian lesbians that convened in 2009 have now emerged as leadership to continue the work. Also, the National Human Rights Commission of Cambodia has begun a documentation project on violence against women and when they heard that there's this lesbian network that is forming in Cambodia and that violence is one of the issues, they have now invited that lesbian network to be included in the documentation project, which would [00:15:00] not have happened if this hadn't come forward happened before. So from the three examples, I hope that it is clear that movement is not a monolithic concept. It depends on context and possibilities that that people have. In that context, there can be a movement with few people because only they can be visible and vocal. You can have a movement from outside a country because it's not possible with activists inside the country. A movement may start because local [00:15:30] people who have been educated abroad come back to connect, collaborate and inspire. But the integrity of movement building is linked to who suffers the consequences of being part of a movement and who bears the brunt of what that movement does. Sometimes people outside the country may drive a movement from outside, but they don't face any of the risks within the country that they're advocating. For similarly, people inside a country may [00:16:00] internationalise an issue without first consulting with other people in that country. So the question becomes who represents who. Now, since I have a few more minutes, Yes, um, I would like to talk about new media technology and how new media technology is actually changing landscape of movement building in some parts of Asia. When I say new media technology, I mean Facebook and Twitter and half of the stuff I don't even have, um, Internet. You know all of this stuff. [00:16:30] So but it's it's mass numbers of people can now join movements that spring into action thousands of miles away. Now, some of the complaints about the strategy is that you know, you can press a button. Uh, you can send a letter of protest. You can sign on to petition, um, and you may be thousands of miles away from a country that's initiating it. And then you feel satisfied [00:17:00] because you somehow are now part of this movement, and you feel great that you've done something. But you know nothing about that country. You know nothing about the issues and, you know, trying to fit a critical message into 100 and 60 characters. Uh, the tweet thing. Uh, it's, you know, it's it's a challenge to come up with it, but it's a challenge of how do you communicate and convey details to people about issues of that campaign. Having said that though there [00:17:30] are people in Asia who rely and find that this new media technology is very useful. In 2007, Singapore gay activist Johnson on put on he sent out an online petition. He collected 8000 signatures worldwide for the repeal of the Singapore Sodomy Law. Also in 2007, a South Korean LGBT coalition of activists, they initiated an international cyber demonstration against [00:18:00] Lee Myung bak, who is currently the president of South Korea. At the time, he was the presidential candidate and he made some public comments that LGBT people are abnormal. In 2009, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission mobilised an online letter writing campaign to the pro to protest the Philippines Election Commission that their decision to deny A, which is an LGBTI party, the right to participate [00:18:30] in national elections and the Election Commission said that LGBT people offend religious beliefs and they are an immoral influence on the country's youth and therefore they should not be allowed to run for the national elections. Hundreds of letters were sent to the Philippines Commission from all over from Latin America, America, North America, Asia, Europe to the Philippines Commission and the feedback that [00:19:00] we got is the local activists felt really bolstered by getting these kinds of letters, um and that it it it made a difference. It did make a difference to them, and he sent also a message to the violators, meaning the Philippines Commission that the world is watching on the downside of new technology. Um, people who promote hate and violence against LGBT. People also use new technology. They monitor our websites, they [00:19:30] use the same things that we use and they can use it to distort. They can use it to mobilise uh, they can seriously endanger people's lives. One recent example is a virulent hate speech and death threats made by a blogger who saw a video post by a gay man in Malaysia who was making a positive statement about his identity. Now, while he received many, many supportive responses, the cyber attacks against him [00:20:00] were frightening, and these raise important questions for us. What is the role of law enforcement in these kinds of situations When these kinds of death threats are done? How do they protect vulnerable citizens from such terror? And I think that human rights commissions need to sort of get on the ball and also catch up with technology and see how, what kinds of things they can do. And how does this come under the work that they do? Um, I mean, I've talked [00:20:30] about some of the good things that have happened in the three countries and give a sense that things are moving. Sunil talked about looking forward and not holding on to the grievances of the past. But, uh, I do feel like I need to end on this note. 10 countries in Asia, nine countries in the Pacific islands criminalise consensual same sex relations. And [00:21:00] even in countries where there are no sodomy laws, there is little or no political will in many of the countries in Asia on the part of the government to remove a whole bunch of other laws that target LGBT people everything from public nuisance laws, pornography laws, adultery laws, morality laws, obscenity laws, respect of religion laws and this lack of political will is influenced by the presence of dominant religious ideology and cultural conservatives [00:21:30] and these religious leadership. They function as gatekeepers, and in many instances they encourage policy makers to reject efforts to decriminalise sexual orientation and gender identity and to shut down efforts to introduce non discrimination provisions in the con. This has happened in South Korea, which has a small population of Christians. This has happened in Singapore, which is a very small population, like two per cent of Christians. This is happening in Hong Kong. This is now starting to happen in China. [00:22:00] This is starting to happen in many other countries as well. The the rise of ultra conservative religious groups and their influence and policy makers is also evident in Indonesia, Malaysia, using homegrown expressions of imported religious homophobia, Christian groups and hardline Islamist groups are actually uh, a trend that I think that we need to pay attention [00:22:30] to. They don't only affect LGBT rights. They affect women's rights. There's a lot of overlap that takes place. They incite public vigilantism. They promote homophobic backlash in the media and they are often they are endorsed by silent collusion of the governments in the countries that they operate in. So I think that these are things that we should pay attention to.
This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content.
Tags