Hello friends,
Komik Yogyakarta Principles was created especially for you guys (lesbian, gay,
bisexsual and transgenders)—young LGBT in Indonesia. What is Yogyakarta
Principles? These are the principles on the enforcement of human rights related
to the choice of sexual orientation and gender identity.
What is human rights anyway? Human rights are the rights given to human being
since their birth that do not distinguish them by status, group, race, religion,
position or even their sexual orientation and gender identity. So as part of LGBT
group we do have our human rights like any other human being. But in reality
there are a lot of human rights violation against this group, such as rape, torture,
different treatment in workplace, forced arrest and detainment and any forms of
violence against the LGBT groups. It ain’t fair, is it???!!!
So YP was developed to respond any forms of violence reported from all over
the world. Of course these principles were created as an effort to enforce human
rights of LGBT all over the world. The YP principles were composed in a meeting
attended by some experts in law and human rights who came from all over the
world on November 6-9, 2006 at Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta.
Institut Pelangi Perempuan that has been working on the empowerment of
young lesbian in the Jabodetabek area has the initiative to introduce Yogyakarta
Principles in a form of comic, which will be easier to understand in terms of
content because as we know YP has a lot of legal terms that are difficult to be
understood by our fellow LBTIQs. The concept itself was created as attractive as
possible so that you’ll be interested in reading it.
This comic was not coming out of nowhere and printed automatically but it has
gone through a series of process of interview with some young LBTIQ in the
Jabodetabek area on their daily experiences. We then collected those interviews
into a fiction in this comic. The concept of this comic was a collaborative result
with academics from Gender and Sexuality Studies of Universitas Indonesia and
human rights activists that contributed a lot in the creation of this YP comic.
So that was the background of this comic, we hope this comic will give certain
color in our life. The government of Indonesia has not yet adopted YP but by
understanding the content of YP, it is expected that we will be able to build the
awareness of young LGBTIQ to make the application of Yogyakarta Principles
in our life.
Salam Pelangi!
Special Thanks
After all the troubles and hurdles that we have gone through we are able to
finish the Yogyakarta Principles comic. This long and cautious process was
over and marked by the publication of this comic.
Institut Pelangi Perempuan would like to address our gratitude to our friends
and community of young lesbian at the Jabodetabek area who have shared
their experiences with us and turned it into story in this comic. We would
like also to thank HIVOS who has supported us in making our dream comes
true that is to make the Yogyakarta Principles comic. Kamilia Manaf as the
Executive Directore of Institute Pelangi Perempuan who has given her
tiredless support and encouraged us that Institute Pelangi Perempuan should
be able to spread the information on Yogyakarta Principle by publishing this
comic and she also participated in composing this comic.
We would like to thank Ino who has spent her times weaving story by story
of our fellow LGBTIQ in the Jabodetabek area either through direct interview
or online. As well as to Yasmin Purba, a human rights activist from IKOHI
and Mas Irwan MH, a researcher at the Gender and Sexuality Studies of
Universitas Indonesia who were willing to be our partners in discussing about
this comic. We could never forget the comic artist Mas Agung who has turned
the stories into comic that is not only beautiful but also readable. We would
like also to acknowledge the hard work of our IPP Staff who contributed a lot
in this process: Panca, mely and Nana who would be inseparable parts of IPP.
We would like also to thank Yatna as the volunteer who has helped us during
the process of this comic’s publication.
Salam Pelangi!
 Prologue
Human Rights (HR) has been one of the most important and Rape, torture, violation of
controversial issue amongst the international community during the past privacy, arbitrary arrest and
decade. This is more so when rapid globalization often caused Human detention, execution without
proper judiciary process, abuse
Rights violations may it be within a state or between states. On the other
of medical means, violation
hand, it is globalization that enables more people to be aware about how of freedom of expression,
Everyone was born
important HR is. There are also many different understanding about what free and equally in discrimination at the work place,
are HR in different parts of the world, causing different practices in their terms of dignity health, education, housing and
enforcement. Many states, such as Indonesia, still consider sex orientation and rights, and this access to immigration justice.
should also applied
as not a HR issue. In many parts of the world, including in Indonesia, there Sexual orientation and to LGBT
gender identity
are often cases when someone/a group of people are subjected to violence,
excommunicated from their family, banned from organizing or establishing
association, dismissed from employment, arrested, or excluded from
health services- just to mention a few – due to their unconventional sexual
orientation and/or gender identity- such as transgender, gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transsexual, or sex worker.
Human rights are for
everyone regardless
Due to this context a number of HR activists and experts from 25 of their sexual
countries decided to compose a set of principles for the implementation orientation and
of HR law in relation with sexual orientation and gender identity. These gender identity
principles were launched in Jogjakarta on March 27, 2007- and they are
referred to as The Yogyakarta Principles. The objective of these principles
is to promote the UN members’ governments- including Indonesia’s- to
respect, protect and fulfill the HR of their citizens- especially with relation
to sexual orientation and gender identity. HR are the state’s obligation
to realize. Each citizen has the right to demand the state to perform its
obligation to enforce HR.
The comic book in the reader’s hands is a form effort initiated by
Institut Pelangi Perempuan to disseminate information on The Yogyakarta
Principles amongst young lesbian community in Indonesia. This book is
an effort to “translate” the principles into a more youth friendly language.
The story in this comic book is inspired by the real life story of a number
of young lesbians in Indonesia. Comic book was chosen as the media to
explain The Yogyakarta Principles with the hope that it would be easier to
comprehend as compared to brochures or pocket books..
It should be noted that the Yogyakarta Principles is not a binding
legal document for UN member states. However, it expounds upon the
obligations of all states to implement effectively their obligation pertaining
HR. Therefore there needs to be advocacy efforts by various parties-
such as what Institut Pelangi Perempuan is engaged in- to ensure the
government of Indonesia exercise its obligations on HR enforcement.