Part of our Everyday Work NHRI Guidelines for Mainstreaming SOGISC Work 4. NHRIs’ external promotion and protection work This section of the guide discusses how NHRIs’ core functions can be utilised to promote and protect the rights of LGBTI people and gives examples from actual NHRI experience in the Asia Pacific region. Many of these possible actions are drawn from an APF-UNDP Programme of Action and Support developed by NHRIs in this region at a workshop in Bangkok in 2015.21 Further details and more examples can be found in Chapter 8 of the APF/UNDP SOGISC manual. Where examples are drawn from other sources, these are cited. 4.1. ADVICE Advising government and parliament is the first, longest, and most detailed NHRI responsibility listed in the Paris Principles. This covers all areas of an NHRI’s work and provides opportunities to identify barriers that LGBTI people face in relation to specific human rights. A 2017 LGBTI handbook for Parliamentarians includes a useful checklist for making an initial, rapid assessment of laws, policies and bills to understand where your country currently stands on SO, GI and SC issues and the human rights of LGB, T and I people.22 “In our right to adequate housing report with partner CSOs, we have cited exclusion of LGBT headed households in the provision of socialised housing... In our program on Business and Human Rights, we have co organised, with UNDP’s Being LGBT in Asia Program, dialogues with the private sector on how together we can promote and protect diversity in the workplace.” Commissioner Karen Gomez Dumpit Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines23 EXAMPLES In 2015, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka facilitated dialogue on legal gender recognition in response to a March 2015 complaint from a transgender person. The Commission proposed the introduction of a gender recognition certificate enabling transgender people to amend their sex and name details on identification documents, such as the National Identity Card. In response to the Commission’s advice, in 2016 the Ministry of Health sent a circular to health services and education institutions setting out the process for issuing such gender recognition certificates. The RegistrarGeneral instructed all registrars to change sex and name details on birth certificates, based on these certificates. 13