Cross-Parliamentary Rainbow Network An agreement with the co-chairs of the Cross-Parliamentary Rainbow Network was established as a result of an event held by the Commission on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia. The Commission will facilitate meetings between the Network and sex, gender, and sexuality minorities every six months, alternating between Wellington and Auckland. These meetings will enable affected groups to feed into the Network’s work programme for the first time. Making it easier to change gender markers on birth certificates The Commission’s submissions on the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill, and the related Parliamentary petition that preceded it, had an influential role towards the introduction of amendments that will enable transgender, intersex or gender non-binary New Zealanders to change their gender markers on their birth certificate through a simple administrative process, rather than Family Court proceedings as is the case at present. SOGISC stakeholder consultations A series of five extremely successful consultations with sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics (SOGISC) communities was held between February and April. The Commission spoke to 91 people to encourage submissions to the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Additionally, it was determined from the consultations that the top three priority issues for sex, gender, and sexuality minorities are healthcare, education, and data collection. A high-level resource is being developed on these issues. Pasifika engagement A series of five Pasifika community ‘Uipa’anga/fonotaga were held across New Zealand with Pasifika people regarding the human rights issues they were experiencing. The four main issues identified were: • Racism and discrimination • Employment, poverty and income issues • Pasifika language preservation • Lack of knowledge of human rights issues and how to access complaint mechanisms. An issues paper will be released at the end of 2018. 20 Human Rights Commission