Celebrating 10 years of the Yogyakarta Principles: What have we learnt and where to now? Workstation 3: Faith, culture and family Facilitator Ryan Silverio, ASEAN SOGIE Caucus Rapporteur Nurul Hasanah, NHRI Malaysia Question 1: Gaps in legal protection Intersectionality • It is important for Yogyakarta Principles to recognise the intersectionality of rights and approaches which may have positive implication to reinforce its substantive contents. In applying an intersectional perspective, the Principles need to address cross-cutting issues such as those surrounding gender-based violence; children’s rights; women’s rights etc. They should also reflect the nuances of each human rights instrument. The primacy of the heteronormative family as the ideal may be challenged by counter-narratives of persons from diverse contexts such as those in migration, in armed conflict scenarios, in natural disasters who may be living in different family arrangements. Future evolution of the Principles • The Principles form a living document and just like any other international human rights instruments, should be allowed to evolve. The Principles should not be frequently amended to reflect all development/evolution. Unless amendment is necessary to reflect critical issues, guidance documents or explanatory notes are sufficient to capture the evolution. Something akin to the general comment/recommendations of treaty bodies can be more effective. Religion, culture and violence • Principle 21 is open and comprehensively embraces the rights of LGBTI to hold freedom of thought, conscience and religion. However, it does not cover imposition of religious values on LGBTI individuals • Principle 21 lacks clarity on how religions and the practices should treat LGBTI people. There is no critical view on how religion and religious practices perpetuate the gender-binary, patriarchy and heteronormativity • While Principles 21, 24 and 26 reiterate that LGBTI people have the right to faith, to form family and to participate in cultural rights, the Principles are silent on the right of LGBTI people to protection against violence based on religious belief and/or culture and/or patriarchal family setting. It is therefore necessary to review the existing Principles to ensure they explicitly provide for protection of LGBTI people from religiously motivated violence and/or patriarchal cultures and family settings. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), for example, obligates the state to take necessary measures to eradicate cultural and traditional practices that perpetuate discrimination against women • Any conduct of dialogue or negotiation with a view to transform culture, faith and other social norms must be viewed as a political act. As such there should be a critical view on the powerdynamics that may exist between bearers of culture and religion and the LGBTI community. How the LGBTI community and allies strengthen its ranks within this process is crucial. The Principles on right to participation in community life is crucial but this should be explained in a transformative way, i.e. reinforce the idea that LGBTI community and movement have the right to influence social change processes 28