
For five days in November, 26 LGBTIQ activists from 8 provinces in Indonesia joined OutRight and its partner, Arus Pelangi, for a training session in the country.
The leaders involved in coordinating the training included Yasmin Purba, programs director at the National Network of Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI); Alexander Mering and Widya Anggraini from Kemitraan, and Agnews Gurning, a documentation and evidence based advocacy expert. Leaders led the participants through concepts on collective and LGBTIQ rights as citizens’ rights:
- how state policies are decided,
- how political decisions are made,
- how LGBT communities can engage with local government leaders and decision-makers.
“To understand our collective rights is to know what is our common suffering. Only then we can fight for what we are entitled to together” said Purba of YLBHI.
During the training, the 26 activists developed tools to engage with government officials in their provinces to advocate for better police treatment of LGBT people and better LGBT access to public services.
“To end LGBTI rights discrimination we need to enact appropriate advocacy. This training is to help individuals become activists and advocates who will be the driving force for advocacy to end the discrimination” said Lini Zurlia, project coordinator for Arus Pelangi.
The goals of the training were to help activists improve their advocacy tactics and to more effectively identify and combat discrimination. Leaders sought to:
- increase access to justice for LGBTIQ communities through enhanced community awareness
- increase bargaining power for LGBTIQ non-governmental organizations through training and collaboration to document human rights violations and use evidence-based advocacy at local, national, regional and international levels.
- increase responsiveness to LGBTIQ rights violations by provincial and national government representatives.
According to Grace Poore, OutRight’s regional program coordinator for Asia:
“The causes for these violations can be linked to failure of governments to recognize that LGBTIQ people are part of society, have human rights and must be defended against human rights abuses, as well as the misuse of religion to criminalize and incite prejudice against people with non-conforming sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. LGBTIQ rights advocacy cannot be compartmentalized from all other human rights and the way forward is through collective action among different sectors of society that LGBTIQ communities already belong to.”
Published on November 23, 2015 | OutRight Action International an LGBT human rights organization