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NORTHEAST ASIA
Stepping up trans health care
Despite Taiwan’s advanced health care system and being the first Asian country to recognize same-sex marriage, transgender people continue to suffer through unwelcoming medical environments and lack of adequate support systems.
To commemorate World Health Day, the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) called on the government to improve health care access and treatment for transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals.
According to TAPCPR’s own focus group discussions with transgender people, many of them require various medical services like mental health support, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries. However, many of these treatments are not covered by the National Health Insurance, forcing many of them to seek out cheaper yet potentially risky treatments.
TAPCPR has thus called on health care professionals to adopt the Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People 8 (SOC8), which focuses on respecting and affirming their gender identity rather than diagnosing gender dysphoria. Specifically, the document offers a detailed roadmap for gender-affirming hormone therapy, specifying dosages, alongside recommendations for preventive care and screenings.
TAPCPR also appealed for more affordable treatments and launched a new helpline with transgender-friendly professionals to answer questions.
Transgender people continue to be among the most marginalized in the country. A 2023 survey by Macromill Embrain found that people aged 40 and above were least comfortable with transgender people as their neighbors.
A recent study by a Taiwanese LGBTQ+ rights group found that many transgender people face problems in daily life, at work, and especially at doctor’s offices. The study showed that over half (56%) of transgender people were called the wrong gender by medical staff, and 14% felt stared at and gossiped about.
To avoid these issues, a significant number (21%) said they even dress according to their assigned sex at the doctor’s office.
This is not an isolated case. Across Asia and the Pacific during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, transgender people had to contend with disrespect, privacy breaches, and medical treatment refusal, according to a 2022 study by Amnesty International. The lack of trained professionals also forced many to seek risky alternatives to hormones, worsening their mental health.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
De-escalating tensions in West Papua
As tensions intensify in the restive West Papua region, rights groups have called on the Indonesian forces to exercise restraint and to investigate all rights violations, and for the United Nations to step in and facilitate peace talks as soon as possible.
A series of fatal clashes in the province since last week has led to the death of a 12-year-old boy and his sister from Central Papua’s Intan Jaya Regency – in which both state forces and the separatist West Papua National Liberation Army deny involvement.
“This should be a lesson to the world: Indonesia will not stop until they are forced to by international pressure,” said Benny Wenda, president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, the umbrella organization for pro-independence movements in the region.
The siblings’ deaths were the latest cases of violence against civilians in the restive region, which has been waging a separatist movement since 1969 when it was integrated into mainland Indonesia without having a say in it. While Papuans were granted special autonomy in 2001, violence flared in 2018 when fighters attacked a road-building project, leaving 17 dead and 35,000 people displaced from the ensuing military crackdown.
At the time, President Joko Widodo promised to deliver autonomy to the region – but his term also oversaw a brutal crackdown on protesters and dissidents there.
Part of the problem, said Theo Hesegem of the Advocacy Network for Law Enforcement and Human Rights in Papua, is the relentless militarization in the area in the guise of suppressing terrorism there. Currently, there are over 10,000 army and 1,400 police in the region since 2023, and are accused of perpetuating rights abuses there.
This includes a recently viral video of servicemen brutally beating and torturing an indigenous Papuan civilian who was placed inside a water-filled drum. This prompted local rights groups like PAHAM Papua to call on the National Commission on Human Rights and the Indonesia military to conduct a “comprehensive investigation” into the video.
However, President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s administration appears bent on doubling down on the region instead. Last April 14, People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Deputy Speaker Syarief Hasan called for “firmer, braver, and tougher actions in dealing with the dynamics in Papua.”
SOUTH ASIA
Protests silenced, justice denied
Between 2022 and 2023, a crippling economic crisis – fueled by skyrocketing inflation and surging costs of everyday goods – ignited a wave of protests across Sri Lanka. And while their mobilizations successfully led to the ouster of then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, their protests were met with police violence bent on silencing dissent.
These findings are highlighted in Amnesty International’s latest report, “Ready to suppress any protest in Sri Lanka.
The UK-based human rights group called on the Sri Lankan government to investigate allegations of unlawful use of force by law enforcement officials against protesters as well as offer reparations for the victims.
“Only then will they be able to fulfill their obligations to protect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly for all people in Sri Lanka,” the report said.
The report also revealed that in at least 17 of 30 protests in the country between March 2022 and June 2023, police “targeted, chased and beat largely peaceful protesters,” said Amnesty International South Asia director Smriti Singh. This includes the use of water cannons, tear gas grenades, and batons to disperse protesters.
But despite these documented abuses, not a single law enforcement agent was prosecuted or convicted – highlighting the broader culture of impunity endemic to Sri Lanka’s police and military, which have rarely been held accountable for human rights violations.
Such violations include abuses committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983-2009) between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers. Around 100,000 people died during the war including at least 40,000 Tamil civilians, who were killed by Sri Lankan forces.
At least 20,000 Tamils were also forcibly disappeared during this time – likely by police and military – putting Sri Lanka among the countries with the highest number of disappeared persons in the world.
Much of this impunity stems from the enforcement of its Prevention of Terrorism Act (1979), which allows arbitrary arrests of citizens and targets protesters, minority groups, and political opponents.
A draft anti-terrorism law that is being mulled to replace the aforementioned draconian law contains an overly broad definition of terrorism, alongside other potentially repressive provisions, raising fears among U.N. experts that it would be just as repressive as the latter.
GLOBAL / REGIONAL
Calling out an ‘inhumane’ deportation policy
The arrest of documented Afghan refugees in Pakistan has sparked alarm among rights activists, who have called on the United Nations to pursue immediate negotiations between the Pakistani and Afghan governments to address the issue.
Abdul Jabbar Takhari, the Afghan consul in Pakistan capital Karachi, confirmed reports that Pakistani police have detained at least 15 Afghan migrants who possess valid Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC).
The arrests were seen to be part of “Phase 2” of Pakistan’s mass repatriation plan against Afghan refugees who have sought sanctuary in its borders since the Taliban took over in 2021.
Pakistan is currently home to 1.35 million registered Afghan refugees, many of whom escaped during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
“We wrote a letter stating that Afghans who have an Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) should not be harassed or bothered,” said Takhari. “If the Pakistani government has made a decisive decision, it should be through bilateral consultation.”
ACCs cards were issued by the Pakistani government to unregistered Afghan refugees and which initially protected them from the first wave of deportations of nearly 500,000 undocumented Afghan refugees last November.
However, Pakistan has recently decided to also deport registered Afghan refugees within two weeks after April 15. Phase 3, meanwhile, would see the deportation of refugees with UNHCR-issued registration cards, according to Amnesty International.
The remaining refugees in Pakistan fear they will suffer the fate of the 500,000 people who have returned to Kabul between Sept. 15 and Dec. 9, 2023, who are essentially foreigners in Afghanistan,” reported The Diplomat. Many of them do not have homes of their own and thus endure gross scarcity in an aid-deprived country.
At least 80 percent of these refugees were Afghan women, who left Kabul to escape the Taliban’s anti-women edicts that have shut them out of public life, education and work, and are thus disproportionately hit by these repatriation orders.
Afghan activists Atiqullah and Mohammad Khan Talibi argued that the Pakistani government’s latest move, which would impact at least 700,000 refugees, was against international conventions and urged both the government and the U.N. Refugee Agency to kickstart negotiations.
Their sentiments echo those of over 300 human rights activists, university professors, and lawyers, who last week signed a joint statement condemning the decision as “inhumane and unlawful,” and argued that the courts should be the final arbiter of the repatriation plan.