MalayMail-Aug 10
Malaysian authorities should stop “conversion” programs involving the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community including mukhayyam camps, said Human Rights Watch. In a report on the discrimination against the LGBT in Malaysia, the rights advocacy group said public funds were being used on the camps that even attempt to convert schoolchildren perceived as queer or gender nonconforming, via methods that were psychologically damaging. Such camps were conducted by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department and state religious authorities. “The state’s insistence that being LGBT is unacceptable, its funding of conversion practices, and its failure to respond to harmful conversion practices by non-state actors, all harm LGBT people. “The Malaysian government should immediately stop sponsoring, funding and otherwise supporting conversion practices and should, in consultation with LGBT community groups, educate public officials, including police, judges, and government staff, on gender, diversity, and human rights,” they said in a report titled “I Don’t Want to Change Myself”. According to the report, Jakim in 2018 noted that 1,450 LGBT people had “recovered” from the “disease” through mukhayyam since the program was initiated in 2012.. Read more at: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2022/08/10/in-report-on-lgbt-human-rights-watch-urges-malaysia-to-end-state-funded-conversion-camps/21759
