SECTION ONE: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on LGBTI people in the Asia Pacific region regulations during travel restrictions if their families were not legally recognised. State-sponsored counselling services may also be unprepared to support LGBTI people in need.46 When LGBTI people are asylum seekers, refugees, or migrants with temporary or no valid visas, their vulnerability has increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.47 In countries where governments provided wage subsidies to people during lockdowns, those provisions may have applied only to those in the formal employment sector or relied on employers applying for such benefits on their employee’s behalf. This excluded those in precarious work, people without documented status as employees and those vulnerable to exploitation because their immigration status is tied to one employer.48 Regional examples: • In Sri Lanka, where same-sex relations are criminalised, many LGBTI people have chosen not to apply for government food aid, as they would have had to share their place of residence with the police and risk being exposed to violence.49 In Indonesia50 and India51 many trans and gender diverse people do not have ID cards and have not been able to access aid. • Several reports emerged in the Philippines of lesbian couples who were denied stated food supplies issued during the COVID-19 pandemic because the local government failed to recognise them as a family.52 As positive practice, three local governments provided cash aid to such families and included them in social improvement programmes.53 4. Stigmatisation, discrimination, scapegoating, hate speech, and violence Hate speech against LGBTI people has increased during the pandemic, including by political and religious leaders, and the media.54 UN human rights mechanisms have highlighted that in a number of countries LGBTI people have been blamed for spreading COVID-19,55 “abused, incarcerated and 46 Outright Action International, Vulnerability Amplified: The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on LGBTIQ People, p. 44. 47 Email correspondence with email correspondence with Rainbow Path, a peer advocacy and support organisation for LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees living in Aotearoa New Zealand. 48 See for instance, Wahab Andika, The outbreak of Covid-19 in Malaysia: Pushing migrant workers at the margin, 2020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291120300620. 49 Ibid. 50 Edge Effect, BRIEFING NOTE: Impacts of COVID-19 on LGBTIQ+ people, p. 4. 51 Rawat Sonal, COVID-19 and the transgender community in India, Tim Zubizarreta, June 5, 2020, https://www.jurist. org/commentary/2020/06/sonal-rawat-trans-rights-covid19/; Human Rights Watch, India: identification project threatens rights, January 13, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/13/india-identification-project-threatens-rights#:~:text=(New%20York)%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Indian,Human%20Rights%20Watch%20said%20today., quoted. in A/75/258, para. 22. 52 Ritholtz Sam, LGBTQ+ people left out by exclusionary COVID-19 aid practices, June 24, 2020, The New Humanitarian, https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/06/24/LGBTQ-gender-coronavirus-discrimination-aid. 53 A/75/258, para. 63. 54 UN News, ‘Stand up against hate’ towards LGBTI people, UN human rights chief urges, May 14, 2021, https://news. un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091992. 55 OHCHR, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, May 15, 2020, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2020/05/un-high-commissioner-human-rights-michelle-bachelet-international-day-against?LangID=E&NewsID=25891; OHCHR, COVID-19: The suffering and resilience of LGBT persons must be visible and inform the actions of States and A/75/258, para. 19. 10