Caleb Orozco Says Awareness Will Lead to Change

Caleb Orozco

And while this is at the discussion stage, how does UNIBAM plan to get all citizens covered under the laws, regardless of orientation or identity? Orozco explains that the process starts with documenting and monitoring to raise awareness.

Caleb Orozco, Executive Director, UNIBAM

“Our process is really partnering with legal clinics to do the legal research to identify the gaps and our process is then to submit those findings to Legal Reform Process which is occurring through the National AIDS Commission – policy and legislation process. Our process then is to monitor and identify what the priority areas are and so for us it is to identify the economic priorities that we have and the systemic needs that we have to promote accessible justice for citizens. It is not for us – our work has never been about LGBT/human rights. It has been about citizen rights and making accessible justice or creating a system where fair treatment is for all.  Our Constitution is liberal enough to allow any citizen to take their issue to court and we don’t have any kind of state sanctioned murder when that occurs. So, in that regard we are relatively free. Within the context of our constitution while it is pretty liberal, it does not match or is not consistent in terms of practice when we create substantive laws to address issues of domestic violence, issue of benefits, issues of accessible justice.”