Indonesia Conference Directory

ASEAN is one established regional organisation in Southeast Asia. Founded in 1967, ASEAN has been sucessfull in managing socio-political, economic and security issues in the region. This is an outstanding achievement knowing that Southeast Asia is a region with very diverse ethnic groups possesing diverse cultural values, religions and beliefs, diverse states and hundreds of years of diverse historical development, coloring the nowadays political life in each state. LGBT is one of many issues faced by ASEAN, and ASEAN has been critisized for its role in handling this issues. International organizations like United Nations has been questioning ASEAN in protecting LGBT rights and endorsing mainstream international thoghts on LGBT rights which heavily influenced by secular-liberal Western values to ASEAN. Meanwhile, Southeast Asian people has developed their own values and beliefs passed to many generations and has been successfull to create harmony among its people. This short article explores diverse approaches toward LGBT rights issues in ASEAN states that shape ASEAN values and roles in the region toward LGBT issues.