July 1-7, 2024

NORTHEAST ASIA

Broadening support for South Korea’s LGBTQI+ couples

An international LGBTQI+ rights organization has petitioned the South Korean Supreme Court to grant same-sex couples the same state benefits as heterosexual couples. The high court is currently hearing a landmark case on whether a same-sex partner is entitled to public health insurance coverage as his partner’s dependent.

On July 1, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Association (ILGA) World and ILGA Asia filed a joint amicus curiae¹ brief calling on South Korea to allow LGBTQI+ individuals to enjoy equal access to health care and social security benefits. 

They argued that denying critical services, like health insurance coverage, to same-sex couples solely on the basis of sexual orientation “will exacerbate the existing human rights concerns that affect LGBTI individuals in South Korea and create an environment of impunity for unjustified discrimination by relaying the message that same-sex partnerships are not valid in the eyes of the state.” 

ILGA, which represents more than 1,700 LGBTQI+ organizations in over 160 countries, is the latest international organization alongside Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to submit amicus curiae briefs in support of petitioner So Seong-wook’s case. 

In 2021, So had sued the country’s National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) after they revoked his dependent status under his same-sex partner’s health insurance. An administrative court in 2021 ruled in favor of the NHIS, which was later reversed by a Seoul High Court in 2023. The NHIS appealed the ruling before the Supreme Court.

Currently, only 37 countries have legalized same-sex marriage—but South Korea is not among them, nor does it provide the opportunity for civil unions for same-sex couples. Under this framework, LGBTQI+ partners in South Korea are not entitled to the same benefits as heterosexual couples nor enjoy protections against discrimination in schooling, employment, and housing. 

Efforts, however, have been made to upend the status quo for the LGBTQ+ community in South Korea. In 2007, then President President Roh Moo-hyun’s administration drafted what would have been South Korea’s first comprehensive nondiscrimination bill, but was torpedoed by conservative Christian groups that lobbied against the bill’s passage. Eight more succeeding bills would later be doomed in South Korea’s assembly. 

This is in stark contrast to other Asian countries like Japan, which has maintained its ban on same-sex marriage but has since acknowledged that the lack of legal protection for same-sex families violated their rights. So far, only Thailand, Taiwan, and Nepal have legalized full and equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

¹ An amicus curiae (literally, friend of the court) is a brief filed by nonparties to a case but who might have information or technical insight to offer the court to assist in making its decision, especially about the broader legal effects of a court decision.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Preventing yet another case of transnational repression

Amid grave concerns over the plight of yet another exiled human rights activist being targeted in Thailand, U.N. experts and rights advocates have called on the Southeast Asian nation to release him and to drop all, if any, efforts to deport him back to his homeland.

On July 4, 13 U.N. special rapporteurs as well as the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and the International Federation for Human Rights urged Thai authorities to “immediately and unconditionally release” Y Quynh Bdap, a Vietnamese human rights activist currently awaiting extradition proceedings.

Bdap, a co-founder of Montagnards Stand for Justice (MSFJ), had sought refuge in Thailand in 2018 and was convicted in absentia in January 2024 over alleged terrorism charges, which he adamantly denies. 

Though a registered refugee under the U.N. Refugee Agency, Bdap now risks deportation, which would blatantly violate Thailand’s domestic and international obligations against forced disappearances and to protect refugees from torture and persecution in their home countries.

“The arbitrary detention of Y Quynh Bdap…[appears] to be solely aimed at punishing him for his legitimate human rights activities,” the groups said. “[We] call on the authorities in Thailand to put an end to any extradition proceedings against Y Quynh Bdap and to put an end to all forms of harassment, including at the judicial and administrative levels, against him and all other human rights defenders in the country.”

Y Quhn Bdap’s case highlights the continued persecution faced by the Montagnard community – which is mostly Christian – in the socialist nation, which has branded them as “evil” and targeted their leaders with arrest, torture and harrassment. Many of them, the U.N. experts said, have sought refuge in Thailand, which was previously a preferred destination of exiled rights activists but now appears to be the most notorious in how it deals with refugee dissidents.

This includes Cambodian activists Kung Raiya, Loem Sokha, and Phan Phana, who were arrested and detained by Thai authorities ahead of a visit by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet last February. 

Others have it worse: in 2019, Lao pro-democracy activist Od Sayavong, who also had U.N. refugee status, was disappeared and remains missing to this day, prompting Human Rights Watch to “urgently investigate” his disappearance. 

SOUTH ASIA

Sounding the alarm to reverse a troubling trend

A legal aid rights group in Bangladesh is sounding the alarm over the state of human rights in the South Asian country, as it revealed a troubling rise in political killings, custodial deaths, violence against women and children, and attacks on religious minorities in the first half of 2024 alone. 

In a new report published July 4, Ain o Salish Kendra reported that political killings have tripled during that time compared to the same period last year. These killings, the group said, centered around the national elections that saw Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sail toward a fifth term virtually unopposed after her party, the Awami League, cracked down against the opposition.

Cases of political violence in Bangladesh, 2021-2024

Source: Ain o Salish Kendra

These findings prompted the largest broadsheet in the country, The Daily Star, to challenge the Hasina administration to address these issues and not fall into its habit of downplaying its abuses “even when presented with compelling statistics.” 

It also noted that the government had not only failed to acknowledge its failure to prevent electoral violence despite virtually running unopposed, it also deleted all data relating to over 1,500 complaints of electoral violence and breach of electoral code of conduct between December 2023 to January 2024. 

Despite this, cases of political violence in the runup to Bangladesh’s February 2024 elections were well-documented. During the October 2023 nationwide political protests calling for peaceful, free and fair elections alone, 11 people were killed and hundreds more were injured, with several key members of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party arrested. 

This was part of a systematic crackdown on the opposition, who alleged being tortured in detention and being made to face virtually hundreds of cases to bog them down and bar them from participating in the elections. 

Following the elections, U.N. experts called on the Hasina government to carry out major human rights reforms to reverse repressive trends in the country and restore political dialogue and participation. But in March, Bangladesh rejected U.N. recommendations to, among others, establish an independent monitoring and investigation mechanism to address allegations of human rights violations committed by police and military personnel and to accept visits by U.N. special procedures. 

These concerns have prompted watchdogs like CIVICUS to rate its civil society as “Closed,” its worst rating to date. 

GLOBAL / REGIONAL

Making a more positive change for the world’s workers

More than 90 percent of the world’s most powerful companies are failing to meet basic expectations on human rights, worker treatment, and ethical conduct, according to a new report now challenging these companies to “act ethically, provide and promote decent work, and respect human rights.”

The World Benchmarking Alliance’s report, published last July 2, revealed how the world’s top 2,000 companies, which employ 95 million people and control a massive share of the world’s economy have fallen short of promoting worker safety and health; providing them a living wage; and expectations about lobbying and political engagements. 

“If they all met these expectations regarding socially responsible business conduct, we would make massive strides towards a more sustainable and equitable world. However, results reveal that there are significant gaps and areas that companies urgently need to progress on,” the report said. 

Among others, the report found that only 4 percent of these companies paid their workers a living wage, and an even more dismal 3 percent complied with international standards on working hours. Moreover, only 20 percent conduct some form of human rights diligence to address these gaps. 

Unsurprisingly, the companies with the best performance are based in countries with strong human rights legislations, showing that these are “crucial platforms for governments to engage with companies and civil society on human rights issues.” 

Overall, Asia scored below the global average of 23 percent, though Thailand and Malaysia are currently hosting companies that performed higher than the average. 

How the world’s most influential companies scored on human rights, 2024

The United Nations has underscored how businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, even adopting the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 as the global standard of practice expected of its member-states when it comes to human rights. This is because companies have an enormous impact on people’s lives – be it in terms of creating new jobs and technologies, or when abusive practices exploit people and communities. 

In 2021, the Asian Centre published a report on how Southeast Asian countries were faring in terms of crafting national action plans to guide state policy and behavior of businesses and human rights.

So far, Thailand is the only one with a complete NAP, while Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam’s own plans are already underway. At the time, Brunei, Cambodia, Singapore, and Timor-Leste have not yet expressed interest in such a plan.