An NHRI Guide on responding to COVID-19 impacts on LGBTI people Introduction Background In March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic and all regions of the world have since been struggling with the serious health, social, psychological, and economic impact of the crisis. COVID-19 has taken a serious toll on the Asia Pacific region as well. Over 760.000 deaths have been recorded in South-East Asia, 190.000 in the Western Pacific, and 337.000 in the Eastern Mediterranean.1 As of March 2022, India alone has accounted for 515.000 deaths of the estimated 6 million lives that have been lost globally.2 The COVID-19 pandemic has not only taken the lives of millions but has also exacerbated and made visible structural inequalities against historically marginalised communities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex (LGBTI)3 people. In July 2020, the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) dedicated a thematic report to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the human rights of LGBT persons4. In the report, the Independent Expert emphasised that “persons, communities and populations that are victims of violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are among those that face this challenge bearing a legacy that condemns a significant proportion of them to exclusion and poverty, and are therefore not facing [the pandemic] on a level playing field”.5 UN human rights mechanisms have also highlighted that the pandemic has had a particularly serious impact on LGBTI people who face multiple, compounded, or intersectional -discrimination6 on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC). This marginalisation is compounded when LGBTI people also face multiple and intersectional discrimination based on their “disability, age, ethnicity/race, sex, indigenous or minority status, socioeconomic status and/or caste, language, religion or belief, political opinion, national origin, migration or situation of displacement, marital and/or maternal status, urban/rural location, health status, and property ownership”.7 4 1 See the breakdown as per WHO regions: “WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard”, WHO (COVID-19) Homepage, https://covid19.who.int/., accessed 11 March 2022. See a county-by-country breakdown for the Asia Pacific region: “Number of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths in the Asia-Pacific region as of January 19, 2022, by country”, Statista Research Department, January 19, 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104268/apac-covid-19-deaths-bycountry/., accessed 11 March 2022. 2 See “WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard”, WHO (COVID-19) Homepage. Research has suggested that the number of ‘excess deaths’, which marks the total number of deaths caused directly and indirectly by COVID-19, may be triple of this figure, amounting to 18 million. See COVID-19 Excess Mortality Collaborators. Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020–21​, The Lancet, March 10, 2022, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02796-3/fulltext. 3 This resource generally uses the term ‘LGBTI’, except where regional examples refer to different populations, such as LGBT, LGBTIQ, LGB women, etc. APF retained those acronyms in their original form. 4 The mandate of the UN Independent Expert only covers sexual orientation and gender identity, but the mandate has included some references to the specific human rights issues that intersex people face. 5 UN General Assembly, Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity: Note by the Secretary-General, July 28, 2020, A/75/258, para. 3, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2F75%2F258&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False. 6 Outright Action International, Vulnerability Amplified: The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on LGBTIQ People, May 6, 2020, p. 10, https://outrightinternational.org/sites/default/files/COVIDsReportDesign_FINAL_LR_0.pdf. 7 OHCHR, COVID-19: The suffering and resilience of LGBT persons must be visible and inform the actions of States, May 14, 2020, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25884&LangID=E and A/75/258, para. 9.