‘LGBTI Survey’ shows ignorance of the law

Rainbow of Macau has released its second “Macau LGBTI Survey” results yesterday, revealing that 88 percent of its respondents are unaware of the anti-discrimination legislation in force in Macau.
The survey, conducted between March 27 and April 10, has attracted over 800 respondents, offering 715 valid survey responses. Only responses from people who reside in the city and indicated themselves to be “gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and questioning about their gender identity” were accepted as valid.
“The lack of knowledge of the anti-discrimination legislation in Macau almost undermines the effectiveness of the principle of equality in the city’s labor law,” says Jason Chao, the spokesperson for Rainbow of Macau.
The study, which was conducted online, found that 6.6 percent of the respondents had experienced violence from an intimate partner. By the standards of the United Nations and the European Union, the occurrence of violence between intimate partners, not necessarily cohabitating is classified as domestic violence, the association argued.

Eighty-one percent of the respondents held the opinion that the government is responsible for the social inclusion of the LGBTI community. The association believes that the government and education institutions should promote public understanding of the diversity of sexual orientation and gender identities.
“Although the government had emphasized for quite some time that they do not discriminate against sexual minorities, results from this survey show that the communities don’t think likewise, [indicated by] the fact that the government hasn’t done enough work in this respect,” said Chao.
Meanwhile in 2013, the first “Macau LGBTI Survey” had 170 respondents, and 20 percent of them admitted they had considered [committing] suicide due to feeling “unaccepted by the community,” while the latest study shows that 10 percent have also considered resorting to suicide.
“The government should raise public awareness about Article 5 of the Labor Relations Law to ensure that lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Macau effectively enjoy protection,” the association claims.
The advocacy group admitted that they have been urging the government to review its petition along with the United Nations’ domestic violence law. The Legislative Assembly is set to release its final reading of the bill on May 20.
Recently, the group expressed its concerns over the government’s alleged decision to exclude same-sex couples from the domestic violence law. Staff reporter