International monitoring group Human Rights Watch today released a report which categorises Malaysia as one of the worst places in the world for transgenders.
The report details transgenders in the country being subject to systematic abuse by state religious authorities and police officcials, including instances of sexual assault and extortion.
The HRW report, based on information gleaned from interviews with more than 40 transgender individuals, pointed to “increasingly vitriolic” messaging from government officials, politicians and religious leaders in the country as a large reason for a deterioration of transgender rights in Malaysia.
Reuters quotes Boris Dittric, advocacy director of HRW’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) right program, as saying, “Malaysia is actually one of the worst countries to be a transgender because of the laws, the state-organised arrests and the hate speech by politicians.”
HRW’s report included a testimony from one transgender woman who claimed she was stripped and sexually assaulted by state religious officials in 2011. Other interviewees say they were arrested and forced to attend “counselling” sessions where they were lectured by state Islamic authority officials on “being a man”.
Some women interviewed for the report said they were jailed for up to three years, with some of them being placed in male prison wards where they were subject to sexual assault from other prisoners.
Discrimination in the Malaysian workplace also led a disproportionate number of transgenders in the country to face financial woes and into the sex trade, where they face more risks.
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