Enhancing Domestic Violence Protections for LGBT in Philippines and Sri Lanka

Outright International partnered with EnGendeRights (EGR) in the Philippines and Women and Media Collective (WMC) in Sri Lanka to address barriers to domestic violence protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) persons. Family violence is the primary source of violence for lesbians, bisexual women and trans (LBT) people in Asia because of family norms, religious beliefs and cultural myths and stereotypes about homosexuality, lesbianism and gender nonconformity.

A five-country report on violence against LBT people in Asia published by Outright in 2014 says that the centrality of family violence in Asia is linked to its role as the “enforcer of social norms, standards of respectability, morality, and religious teachings.” This report also showed that LBT people experience high levels of intimate partner violence, where perpetrators tend to be same-sex partners, dating partners, and heterosexual male partners of bisexual women or lesbians coerced into heterosexual marriage. To avoid exposing their family, their relationship and themselves to unwanted negative attention and homophobic or transphobic reactions, LBT victim-survivors of household and partner violence tend to avoid seeking help from social services, counselors, police or legal services. This is the case in the Philippines, where being lesbian or gay is not a crime, and in Sri Lanka, where homosexuality and lesbianism are criminalized, adding barriers to accessing assistance and protections against violence.

Our final evaluation explores project outcomes, reviews their relevance, effectiveness and impacts, and assesses the project’s sustainability, including their ability to be replicated.