Sri Lanka LGBT Items
From the U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights, 2012
The law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, or social status, and the government generally respected these rights in practice; however, there were instances where gender and ethnic-based discrimination occurred.
Societal Abuses, Discrimination, and Acts of Violence Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Same-sex sexual activity is punishable by a prison sentence up to 10 years and there were no legal safeguards to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In practice the criminal provisions were very rarely enforced. In recent years human rights organizations reported that, while not actively arresting and prosecuting members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, police harassed and extorted money or sexual favors from LGBT individuals with impunity and assaulted gays and lesbians in Colombo and other areas.
Crimes and harassment against LGBT individuals were a problem, although such incidents often went unreported. Social stigma against LGBT persons remained a problem. There were reports that persons undergoing gender-reassignment procedures had difficulty amending government documents to reflect those changes.
