Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions Thoughts and stories of being Being LGBTI by Being LGBTI in Asia. Violence is one of the main factors forcing transgender people out of school or home at a young age, leaving them to look for ways to survive. In some parts of South Asia, there are traditional entertainment or ritualistic roles for hijras and other third sex communities. However these do not necessarily provide a livelihood. Even transgender people who complete their schooling frequently struggle to get a job, either because they are do not fit gender norms for men and women or their school qualifications, job references or identity documents disclose their gender identity. There are very high rates of unemployment, underemployment and occupational segregation among transgender people. They face barriers at all stages of the employment cycle, from initial education and training, pre-employment discrimination, limited career opportunities and advancement, and inferior employment conditions. For example, research in Thailand has found discrimination based on gender identity and expression is common for transgender people and also for masculine lesbians (toms).172 These groups are often excluded from mainstream employment, especially in the civil service. Transgender women are ghettoised in a limited number of stereotypical jobs, such as cabaret performers, makeup artists, cosmetics sales assistants and public relations. This occupational segregation is reinforced when transgender people leave the formal labour market to find jobs where they can be themselves, working in NGOs or running their own small business. Across the Asia Pacific region, many transgender women describe sex work as one of the very few employment options available to them. There is less research on the employment experiences of transgender men. However, many will have been raised as females, which may mean less access to formal education and greater unpaid caring responsibilities within the family. This may include being forced to marry at a young age to lighten the demands on limited family resources. All these factors are likely to limit their ability to access decent work. 3.3.2. Indirect discrimination Indirect discrimination against transgender people occurs when an apparently neutral policy or practice has the effect of disadvantaging transgender people. It is a common experience for transgender people. Changing name details Many organisations have a blanket policy that documents, such as academic qualifications or citizenship certificates, will be not be reissued if someone changes their name. Often the rationale is that a requirement to do so would be prohibitively expensive because of the number of women who change 172 50 International Labour Organization, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation: Promoting Rights, Diversity and Equality in the World of Work (PRIDE) Project, 2014.