International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) Statement


Republic of the Union of Myanmar
National Unity Government
Ministry of Human Rights

17th May, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) Statement
17 May 2022

Today marks the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) with the theme of “Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights”. This year’s theme is a reminder that every individual as a human being has a right to live free and in dignity.  Acts of discrimination, intimidation, or harassment in any sphere, whether public or private, based on a person’s manifestation or expression of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression must be condemned.

While the world is celebrating the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia globally, LGBTIO people in Myanmar are facing sexual assault, targeted arrests, torture, and gender-based violence perpetrated by the illegal military junta.

Following the military Coup of the 1st February 2021, the LGBTQ community marched in the streets alongside other communities to protest against the military takeover and call for the return of democracy. Consequently, we suffered the loss of many LGBTQ at the hands of the military. Many queer people have been unlawfully detained or were issued warrants for their arrests by the military. Many had to flee, have been displaced or are in hiding due to being aggressively pursued. Records show that many LGBTQ individuals, who worked in the government sectors participate in the civil disobedience movement, the vital part of the revolution.

If arrested, members of the LGBTQ community are held in prisons that reflect their gender at birth – leaving them especially vulnerable to sexual abuse and verbal and physical humiliation and discrimination by officers. Torture during interrogation is rife for all prisoners, such as whipping, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes, guards who whip their genitalia against the victim’s faces, and rape them with guns and bottles. Transgender women in male jails are also subjected to rape, sexual assault, and abuse by other prisoners due to their gender identity.

The Ministry of Human Rights hereby commemorates the fallen LGBTIQ heroes, who risked their lives fighting for democracy. We hereby honour the LGBTIQ heroes who are actively contributing to the Spring Revolution across the country.

The Ministry of Human Rights also empathizes with LGBTIQ citizens whose human rights were violated by the military, and we memorialize their bravery for speaking out on this International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. We salute the LGBTIQ community members who stood up for freedom, safety, justice, and equality throughout the history of military regime, and those who still resist the military regime to this day.

The Ministry of Human Rights pledges to fight alongside the LGBTIQ community for the respect of their basic human rights and support all those who aspire to build a federal democratic Myanmar that values equality and celebrates diversity.

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 The Ministry of Human Rights
National Unity Government

အတင်းအဓမ္မ စစ်မှုထမ်းစေခိုင်းခြင်းဆိုင်ရာသတင်းပေးပို့ တိုင်ကြားရန်

ယခုပေးပို့သည့်အချက်အလက်များကို လုံခြုံစွာထိန်းသိမ်းထားရှိမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ခွင့်ပြုချက်ရရှိမှသာ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ခြင်းနှင့်တရားမျှတမှုဖော်ဆောင်သည့်လုပ်ငန်းများတွင်အသုံးပြုခြင်းများကို လုပ်ဆောင်မည်ဟု ကတိပြုပါသည်။