News Digest

Malaysia among worst countries in world for transgenders

Malaysia is among the worst countries in the world to be a transgender person, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday. The report, based on interviews with more than 40 transgender people, blamed “increasingly vitriolic” discourse by government officials, politicians and religious leaders in the Muslim-majority country for the deterioration in rights. It said Malaysia, where Islamic authorities banned sex change surgery in 1982, was among only a handful of countries including Nigeria and Kuwait that criminalize transgender people.

Malaysia is actually one of the worst countries to be a transgender because of the laws, the state-organized arrests and the hate speech by politicians.

Boris Dittric, advocacy director of HRW’s LGBT rights program

The 73-page report included witness testimony from one transgender women who said she had been stripped and sexually assaulted by state religious department officials in 2011. Others said they had been arrested and forced to attend “counseling” sessions where Islamic officials lecture them on “being a man”. Some women said they had been jailed for up to three years, with several placed in male wards where they faced sexual assault from prisoners. Widespread discrimination by employers means a disproportionate number of transgender people end up working in the sex trade, where they face heightened risks.