Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions If an estimate from the lower end of the range is taken and it is assumed that lesbian, gay and bisexual people constitute about five per cent of any population, then the Asia Pacific region, with 4.4 billion people, would have about 220 million lesbian, gay and bisexual people. … variation in sexual orientation is ubiquitous, with the great majority identifying as heterosexual and a significant minority reporting other identities. … patterns of reported sexual identity and behaviour vary with sociodemographic characteristics, such as sex, age and race or ethnicity. For example, men are more likely to identify as gay rather than bisexual, whereas the reverse is the case for women. … sexual orientation identity is not fixed for everyone and changes that occur throughout life do not always follow a linear pathway in or out of heterosexuality or homosexuality.75 The lack of good data about the numbers and experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people is an issue with human rights implications in itself. Official estimates of populations defined by sexual orientation … and relevant data on discrimination and social wellbeing are needed to monitor human rights status and to evaluate the economic, social, cultural and other impacts of policy and legislation on sexual and gender minorities. For example, the limited statistical information available about the lesbian population limits the health sector’s ability to monitor the health risks that lesbians face. Reliable data is also often required when agencies are seeking funding to provide services to target specific needs within the community. Lack of data may therefore lead to a lack of funding for community services. No official data is collected about sexual orientation.76 The chapter looks at some of the particular experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the Asia Pacific region. Three initial comments are required. First, the region is enormous, stretching from the Pacific Island States to the Arab States of West Asia. It is diverse, containing many different political and economic systems and greatly different cultural and religious traditions. Its peoples are at very different stages of economic development, ranging from some of the richest States in the world to some of the poorest. They are also at very different stages of political development. The diversity of the region is reflected in the diversity of experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Second, the experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people differ. Nonetheless, in spite of the great diversity within the region, many aspects of those experiences are common to gay men, lesbians and bisexual people. They experience human rights violations on the basis of their same-sex attraction and activity. A Pacific conference reported: There was commonality across the region about the complete invisibility of lesbians, and how they experience silencing: “everyone knowing but no one talking about it”. Likewise [men who have sex with men] are forced by their families to get married and have children. This experience was common across Melanesian countries. Situations might arise where a man was forced to get married, and so would get married but continue to have sex with other men secretly.77 28 75 S.D. Cochran, J. Drescher, E. Kismödi, A. Giami, C. García-Moreno, E. Atalla, A. Marais, E. Meloni Vieira and G.M. Reed, ‘Proposed declassification of disease categories related to sexual orientation in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11)’ in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2014, 92:672-679; at www.who. int/bulletin/volumes/92/9/14-135541/en/. 76 New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Human Rights in New Zealand 2010, pp. 313-314; at www.hrc.co.nz/ files/1914/2388/0525/HRNZ_10_rights_of_sexual_and_gender_minorities.pdf. 77 Pacific Sexual Diversity Network, Diverse Voices for Action and Equality and ARC International, “Our Voices, our Communities, our Rights: Advancing Human Rights related to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression in the Pacific”, Report of the Pacific LGBTQI Human Rights Conference, Nuku’alofa, Tonga, 11-14 May 2015, p. 15; at http://arc-international.net/wp-content/ uploads/2015/09/SOGIHR-Report-final.pdf.