Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions 2.2. HUMAN RIGHTS FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE Transgender people in Asia Pacific face violence, discrimination, criminalisation of so-called ‘crossdressing’, limited access to gender affirming health services, and barriers to amending gender markers on official documents. When such legal gender recognition is dependent on medical requirements, this can amount to forced or coerced sterilisation. Since late 2015, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub has been conducting a legal gender recognition project in seven countries in Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and Thailand. In addition, UNDP partnered with the Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN), who conducted equivalent assessments in Malaysia and Indonesia. Summaries of the nine country reports and a regional report are due to be published in mid-2017. Later in 2017, APTN will conduct a Pacific pilot of this legal mapping project in Fiji. This research will give NHRIs detailed understanding of how laws, court decisions, policies and regulations impact on transgender people’s rights to recognition before the law. It provides a timely opportunity to consider legal and policy reforms needed to recognise the human rights of transgender people more broadly. Several NHRIs were closely involved in these projects. Some, including the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh (JAMAKON) have proposed projects to address identified legal and policy gaps. 2.3. HUMAN RIGHTS FOR LESBIAN, GAY AND BISEXUAL PEOPLE Criminal laws, violence and discrimination target lesbian, gay and bisexual people because of their sexual orientation. These issues are frequently raised in recommendations by other countries during the Universal Periodic Review process. Often, they are compounded by intersectional discrimination and disadvantage. For example, violence against lesbian and bisexual women often occurs within the family, and could be incorporated into an NHRI’s work on gender-based violence.12 In some parts of the Asia Pacific region, consensual same-sex activity has never been criminalised, while in others there has been a gradual process of decriminalisation. For example, the Crimes Act 2013 in Samoa repealed the offence of indecency between males. However, it retained sodomy13 and “keeping a place of resort for homosexual acts”14 as a criminal offence. Fiji has moved the furthest in the Pacific, specifically prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in its Constitution. Overall, more than half of the States in Asia Pacific criminalise consensual samesex activity. Where criminalisation continues, the laws are not always enforced but they still have a negative impact on LGB people and violate their human rights. In all countries, there are opportunities to build support for human rights protections for LGB people. One of an NHRI’s roles is to promote the universality of human rights protections, including through public education, training law enforcement agencies, and dialogues with legislators and policy makers. 8