💢Human Rights Violations Experienced by LGBTQIA+ People in Malaysia
In Malaysia, institutionalised discrimination significantly affects LGBTQIA+ people primarily through laws that criminalise LGBTQ+ identities.
Click here for a summary of Federal and State Syariah laws that criminalise people based on SOGIESC:
Criminalization, among others, fosters discrimination by both state and non-state actors, resulting in restricted access to healthcare and employment. It also discourages LGBTQ people from reporting rights violations. The fear of being outed further limits their access to vital services, opportunities, and information.
Discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people can intersect with other forms of discrimination, notably discrimination based on health status, statelessness status, and ethnicity. This can compound discrimination and further deter LGBTQIA+ people's self-identification, association with LGBTIQ groups, and ability to seek redress.
This section outlines some of the common human rights violations experienced by LGBTQIA+ people in Malaysia, most of which can be linked to criminalization.
🚫 Common Human Rights Violations Experienced by LGBTQIA+ People in Malaysia
This section of the toolkit explores some common forms of human rights violations experienced by LGBTQIA+ people in Malaysia. The violations they experience can be understood as violence: interpersonal violence and institutional violence.
Interpersonal violence refers to violence within personal relationships or members of the general public. Meanwhile, institutional violence refers to inequalities, exclusion, and neglect resulting from negative attitudes, beliefs, practices, and policies against specific populations or groups by the state and other institutions, such as corporations, media, and religious institutions.
These forms of violence are often interlinked and perpetrated by diverse actors.
For example, the increased vulnerability to arbitrary arrest and detention because of the criminalisation of LGBTQ people could also increase restrictions on LGBTQIA+ people’s self-expression by family members, sometimes in a misguided and harmful attempt to ‘protect their children or family members against discrimination by state and society’.
A survey found that 20% of 220 LGBTQIA+ respondents noted increased anti-LGBT conversations at home, in family chat groups, or among family members against the backdrop of increasing anti-LGBT sentiment in the media and public sphere.
Having multiple intersecting marginalised identities can compound a person’s vulnerability to human rights violations. For example, a gay refugee man's vulnerability to physical violence by non-state actors could be attributed to both their refugee status and sexual orientation.
Learn more about the interpersonal and institutional violence faced by LGBTQIA+ people in Malaysia here
Interpersonal violence
institutional violence
Last updated
Was this helpful?