10 Aug 2017

Tonga Leitis Association working to reform current laws

4:07 pm on 10 August 2017

The president of the Tonga Leitis' Association wants the criminal offences act of 1988 to be looked at, to avoid it being used against the LGBT community.

A group of Tongan leitis

A group of Tongan leitis Photo: Pacific Sexual Diversity Network

Henry Aho and his team will be visiting the East and West districts of Tongatapu this month to propose the changes.

Mr Aho said there were two clauses from the act that the association wanted to amend or revise.

"Section 81 deals with cross dressing for moral purposes. There's an element of solicitation there, but the wording is quite vague and we don't want people to use it as a weapon against LGBT people just because a man is dressed as a woman in a public place and things like that. Section 136 probably has more to do with the homosexual side of things and this is the law on sodomy, so we've got revised wording for that."