FIRST PRIDE MARCH. Members of LGBT community march against discrimination during the first Pride March in Davao City on June 1, 2016. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Filipino students who identified themselves as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community said they were bullied and discriminated in schools because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
“LGBT students in the Philippines are often the targets of ridicule and even violence,” said Ryan Thoreson, a fellow in the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch. “And in many instances, teachers and administrators are participating in this mistreatment instead of speaking out against discrimination and creating classrooms where everybody can learn.”
In its 68-page report, “‘Just Let Us Be’: Discrimination Against LGBT Students in the Philippines,” the New York-based HRW, documented the range of abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students in secondary school.
The HRW report also detailed the widespread “bullying and harassment, discriminatory policies and practices, and an absence of supportive resources that undermine the right to education under international law and put LGBT youth at risk.”
HRW said that it conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with 98 students and 46 parents, teachers, counselors, administrators, service providers, and experts on education in 10 cities in Luzon and the Visayas.
With this, the human rights group has urged lawmakers and school administrators to take steps in order to ensure that local laws aimed at providing protection against discrimination and exclusion in school should be fully implemented.
But LGBT students, according to HRW, claimed that existing protections are “irregularly or incompletely implemented, and that secondary school policies and practices often facilitate discrimination and fail to provide LGBT students with information and support.”
Apart from this, HRW’s research also revealed that LGBT students still encountered “physical bullying, verbal harassment, sexual assault, and cyberbullying in schools. Many students were not aware of anti-bullying policies or did not know where to seek help if they were persistently bullied.”
Such as in the case of 19-year-old gay student named Carlos from Olangapo City who said he experienced physical abuse.
“When I was in high school, they’d push me, punch me,” said Carlos. “When I’d get out of school, they’d follow me [and] push me, call me ‘gay,’ ‘faggot,’ things like that.”
The hostility students face in school is often exacerbated by discriminatory policies and practices, HRW said.
The human rights group added that schools in the Philippines “impose gendered uniform and hair-length requirements without exceptions for students who do not identify as their sex assigned at birth.”
“Prohibiting bullying against LGBT youth was an important first step,” Thoreson said. “Now lawmakers and school administrators should take concrete steps to make those protections meaningful and promote respect for LGBT youth throughout the Philippines’ school system.”
Meggan Evangelista of LAGABLAB Network, in a statement, said that “the failure to pass an anti-discrimination bill puts LGBT kids at risk of discrimination and violence.”
“If lawmakers are serious about making schools safe for all students, they should stop delaying and pass anti-discrimination protections as soon as possible,” Evangelista said. (davaotoday.com)
