International

South Korean officials scrambled on Monday to contain a new coronavirus outbreak, searching for thousands of people who may have been infected in a cluster of cases linked to nightclubs and bars in the capital Seoul.

South Korea has been lauded for its quick, effective action on its epidemic, significantly reducing the rate of new infections in recent weeks, but the resurgence of cases has raised worries about a second wave of infections.

Officials reported 35 new cases as of midnight on Sunday, the second consecutive day of new cases of that magnitude and the highest numbers in more than a month.

Twenty-nine of the new cases were linked to several Seoul nightclubs and bars, many of them catering to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community.

That has raised complications for officials trying to track those who might be infected in a nation where homosexuality is often taboo and LGBTQ people face discrimination, including job loss and hate speech.

Authorities have tested more than 2,450 people who went to the night spots in the Itaewon neighbourhood, but were still trying to track about 3,000 more. Hundreds of other people who came into contact with club patrons have also been tested.

“Our top priority is to minimise the spread of the infections,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a meeting with government officials, calling on authorities to work with police.

“We should quickly find and test them, and speed is key.”

The outbreak has highlighted a possible unintended consequence of South Korea’s invasive tracing methods and its disclosure of some patient information, including their recent locations, as part of its approach to tackling the coronavirus.

Health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho acknowledged concern that individuals within the LGBTQ community could be outed and face discrimination if they came forward.

“We release the movement of confirmed patients to encourage anyone who might be exposed get tested voluntarily,” he told a briefing.

“We urge you to refrain from distributing patients’ personal information or groundless rumours, which not only hurts them but can also be subject to punishment.”

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The Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said 86 people had tested positive in connection with the Itaewon outbreak, which was made public on Friday, including people who had travelled to the capital and subsequently returned home.

Seoul mayor Park Won-soon pleaded with clubgoers to be tested, promising that personal information would be protected and warning that people caught evading testing could be fined.

“The nation is at risk,” Park said, noting the city has about 700 of the country’s 10,909 cases, which include 256 deaths.

Second wave?

The spike in cases comes just as the government was easing restrictions and reopening schools and businesses. Official data on Monday showed exports and imports suffered a precipitous decline in the first 10 days of May, underlining a bleak outlook for Asia’s fourth largest economy.

The education ministry put off the reopening of high schools, which was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, by one week in light of the new outbreak.

Responding to calls for all teachers and staff to be tested before schools reopen, Vice Minister of Education Park Baeg-beom told a briefing the government did not have the capacity to test all 600,000 of them.

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Technology firms Kakao Corp (035720.KS) and Naver Corp (035420.KS) suspended plans for employees to return to work from Monday, after two cases linked to the club outbreaks were reported at IT firm TmaxSoft, company representatives said.

TmaxSoft said on Friday it had shut its office near Seoul and would test all employees.

The 69 cases reported by the KCDC over the latest 48 hours were equivalent to the entire number of cases recorded over the previous week.

Still, KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong said while the outbreak was worrisome, it was not appropriate to call it a second wave.

“The epidemic is ongoing,” she said.

Alis Nicolette Rodriguez is bracing themself, nervously looking over their shopping list and preparing in case someone tries to bar their way at the grocery store. It has happened before.

To keep crowds thin during the coronavirus quarantine, Colombian capital Bogota — like some other places in Latin America — has specified that men and women must go out on separate days. That has turned a routine food shopping trip into an outing fraught with tension for social work student Rodriguez, who is transgender and nonbinary.

From Panama to Peru, transgender people say gender-based quarantine restrictions have exposed them to discrimination and violence from people questioning their right to be out.

In Bogota, women can only go out on days with even-numbered dates and men on odd, while transgender people are allowed to choose.

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However, rights group Red Comunitaria Trans said it had received 18 discrimination complaints since the measure began. One of those complaints was from a transgender woman in southern Bogota stabbed by a man who said she was out on the wrong day, a case also reported in local media. The woman is recovering from her injuries.

“The last time I went out things happened that were really tense,” said Rodriguez, 20, who uses neutral pronouns and began hormone treatments four months ago. “My features are still very masculine so people still say ‘I see the body of a man’ and they deny who you are.”

Rodriguez said the previous Sunday an employee stopped them at a grocery entrance and a police officer asked to see their identification, although the mayor’s office has told police not demand ID to prove gender during the quarantine.

A spokeswoman for Bogota’s government department for women confirmed the police do not have the right to question anyone’s gender identity.

In response to questions about the accusations of discrimination, Bogota’s Metropolitan Police sent Reuters a publicity video of officers and members of the transgender community speaking to store employees, explaining that transgender people can choose their shopping day.

Rodriguez was eventually allowed into the store, but at the check-out one cashier asked another why “this man” had been able to shop, they said. Being nonbinary complicates the choice about which day to go out, said Rodriguez, who has chosen the women’s days.

“If you don’t go out with make-up on, with a skirt… If you don’t comply with those stereotypes and gender roles then you can’t identify yourself or be in a public space,” said Rodriguez, who was wearing pink eye shadow and a sparkly silver jacket.

Afraid to report discrimination

Juli Salamanca, communications director for Red Comunitaria Trans, said the coronavirus pandemic had left transgender people particularly exposed.

“They’re trying to protect themselves from the violence of the police, the violence of the supermarkets, the violence of society in general,” Salamanca told Reuters, referring to the physical and emotional toll of discrimination and prejudice.

She said some transgender people may be afraid to report discrimination because of previous police abuse.

Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellin, has restricted outings based on ID numbers rather than gender, a valid alternative to enforce social distancing, Salamanca said.

Colombia is not the only Latin American country where restrictions have stoked fear among transgender people.

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The Panamanian Association of Trans People has received more than 40 discrimination complaints since restrictions began in April, director Venus Tejada said, including problems getting into supermarkets or buying medicine.

Transgender people who are immunocompromised are particularly worried, according to Tejada, and some with HIV fear additional discrimination because of their illness.

“If they need anything we’ve advised them to ask a neighbor or someone else to get it,” Tejada said.

In Peru, the government canceled restrictions based on gender after just over a week, as retailers struggled to control crowds on women’s days and LGBT groups complained of discrimination.

Back in Bogota, Rodriguez is piling a shopping cart with items. They avert their eyes when two police officers walk into the store.

The officers escort out an older man who is violating the rules and then stare briefly at Rodriguez before leaving.

Today, at least, they shopped in peace.

Eva Nabagala hoped she and her young son would be safe from her family when they fled Uganda for a Kenyan refugee camp – but instead, the 28-year-old says she was attacked and raped there as punishment for being a lesbian.

“I have been threatened with death, I have been beaten, I have been harassed sexually, and I have been sexually abused, raped,” Nabagala told Reuters by phone.

She’s one of a group of around 300 gay, lesbian and transgender refugees in Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya, who say other refugees repeatedly attack them because of their sexual orientation. The group say police and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, have failed to protect them.

UNHCR Kenya told Reuters that police investigate reports of violence, assault, or other crimes and UNHCR offers support to survivors.

“Whenever we are informed … we do our utmost to provide medical, legal and social-economic support and psychosocial counseling to survivors,” the agency said.

Kenya’s national police spokesman Charles Owino said he was unaware of any violence against the group of refugees.

Nabagala said she and her now two-year-old son came to Kenya in 2018 after her family threatened to kill her because she is a lesbian.

“I ran from my home … because I wanted to be safe, I wanted protection, but it has turned into something the opposite,” Nabagala said.

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Stephen Sebuuma, another Ugandan refugee in Kakuma, said refugees armed with iron bars, sticks and machetes damaged their houses on three occasions, injuring four adults and two children.

“Police insult us instead of helping us,” Sebuuma, 32, told Reuters by phone.

Pictures Sebuuma and another refugee sent to Reuters from the camp showed holes punched in the walls of homes made of corrugated iron. Kambungu Mubarak, 31, also from Uganda, said the attackers also burnt two houses.

UNHCR Kenya said as soon as they were informed of the attack, they contacted Kenya’s Refugee Affairs Secretariat, and sent an ambulance. UNHCR also contacted police, who had started investigations, the agency said. But Sebuuma said the police never helped them.

“We have written complaints, people have gotten OBs (Occurrence Book reports) from police. So many of them, and police even sometimes chase us, saying ‘we are tired of you’,” he said.

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Same-sex relationships are punishable in Kenya by 14 years in jail. It is rarely enforced but discrimination is common.

Kenya also requires refugees to stay in camps. Some have tried to leave but say life is so hard that they returned. Nabagala left but was raped again in Mombasa, where she had gone seeking shelter, so she came back.

Another refugee, 23-year-old Winnie Nabaterega, told Reuters by phone that she fled Uganda in 2019 after being raped and becoming pregnant. Her father pressured her to marry her attacker. Her daughter, now two, lives with her. She is constantly threatened by other refugees, she said.

“We were told because we were homosexuals … they would put poison in the water,” she said.

A Chinese lesbian couple’s landmark court battle over the custody of their two children has stirred debate over LGBTQ rights and put a spotlight on a legal vacuum created by the absence of a same-sex marriage law.

Shanghai resident Zhang Peiyi split up with her partner last year. The partner has since broken off communication and taken their two toddlers away to an unknown location.

So Zhang has turned to the courts, filing a case in the eastern province of Zhejiang this month, to fight for custody of one of the children, the one she gave birth to, and visitation rights to the other.

A court has accepted the case but hearings have yet to begin.

“Even if I can find them, I won’t be able to see them,” Zhang told Reuters. “I thought who else can help me? I could only find a lawyer.”

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The case is the first of its kind in China and has attracted media attention. It is likely to be complicated by the fact that Zhang and her partner are women and not legally married, at least not in China, where marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman.

More LGBTQ couples are choosing to have families but many find themselves pushing up against the limits of the law if the relationship ends, said Yang Yi, a program officer at LGBT Rights Advocacy China.

“There are more than 100 assistive reproductive companies that target gay couples,” said Yang.

Yang said there have been custody battles between same-sex couples before but they were settled out of court.

‘Rights and interests’

Zhang and her former partner had their children with the help of reproductive technology in the United States. Zhang’s partner provided the eggs for the embryos and then each of them carried a separate embryo to full term.

While they were there, they also got married. However, that is not recognized in China, nor is there an existing law for Zhang’s claim over the children.

Traditionally in custody disputes, the law recognizes the birth parent. While Zhang can claim that she gave birth to one child, her partner can claim that she is the parent by blood.

The court will have to decide whether Zhang can claim custodial rights or is it only her partner who provided the egg and therefore has the genetic connection.

Another question is whether an LGBTQ parent can claim custodial rights over a child who they raised but may not have any biological relationship to, as is the case with Zhang’s other child, whom her partner carried to term.

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The case has stirred public interest with social media posts attracting more than 380 million views this week.

“I can’t say whether I support gay people … but I support this opportunity to give them their legitimate rights and interests,” said one social media user.

For Zhang, the key is the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“The focal point is how can you determine who is a child’s mother. But if you consider that there are two mothers, then it will return to the issue of same-sex marriage,” she said.

Zhang supports a campaign for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Though the prospect of the legislation looks slim, she said she won’t give up.

“You may feel like it wouldn’t happen very quickly, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything,” Zhang said.

“So you need to, bit by bit, make it happen.”