Global Gaze: Asylum for Sexual Minorites

TNG Events Editor and Contributor Jolly submitted this post.

There are many benefits to being queer in America: double wardrobes, little chance of a pregnancy scares, etc. These perks are also accompanied by some drawbacks, of course, including inequality and social stigma among others.

For LGBT individuals around the world living under repressive governments and in conservative societies, however, the negative effects can include harassment, torture, imprisonment, forcible "medical treatment," and execution. So it’s not surprising that every year a number of queer individuals who have the means and opportunity to do so choose to flee their home countries and seek political asylum in countries such as the US, Canada and the UK.

A couple of weeks ago two stories were reported in the international media which were strikingly similar: two gay men in Canada and a lesbian in Britain, all three from Iran, were granted asylum by their new host countries.

While these cases are encouraging, they are also more the exception rather than rule and the result of years of work and legal maneuvering. Not sending a sexual minority back to a place where he or she may be killed may seem like a relatively straightforward decision, but there are a multitude of complex considerations which must be taken into account when making a ruling on asylum for LGBT individuals.

Asylum policies vary from country to country, but they are guided by the international legal framework for asylum and refugees, which is laid out in the United Nations’ 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. These documents define a refugee as a person who is outside their own country due to fear of persecution on protected grounds, which include race, nationality, religion, political opinions and membership and/or participation in any particular social group or social activities.While queer individuals fall into the “social group” category (we, like women, as a group, and the disabled, are considered a “social minority” for the purposes of international human rights law) it’s only been since the 90s that some countries have been reluctantly acknowledging that sexual persecution can be grounds for asylum.

So why the hesitation on the part of government officials and courts?

First, it’s notoriously hard for anyone to get asylum status in many countries. According to international standards, to qualify for asylum an individuals must: be outside his or her country of nationality; be afraid of persecution; be harmed or fear harm by the government or others; be affected by at least one of several defined conditions (as mentioned above, these conditions are: political opinion, race, religion, nationality, and social group); not be a “dangerous person.”

Even if someone meets these requirements, governments and citizens are generally wary that asylum-seekers are trying to take advantage of the system and are attempting to get around the regular immigration process. Also, states fear sending the message that they are so welcoming that foreigners will come flocking to the country in droves. A spokesman for the UK Border Agency proved this when he said of the Emambakhsh case: “We consider each case on its individual merits and, whenever someone needs our protection, we grant it. We constantly monitor the human rights situation in countries like Iran and press for an end to abuses, but we do not believe that everyone claiming to be a homosexual from Iran is in need of international protection.”

This statement also hints at the fact that to grant asylum is to make a political statement. By approving an asylum request for an LGBT individual, a country is bluntly and publicly stating that another state is oppressing its citizens, which, for obvious reasons, is a diplomatic statement which countries are sometimes hesitant to make.

There’s also the issue of changing policies in countries around the world which must be taken into consideration. When I read about these recent cases, I was immediately reminded of an article which appeared in the Washington Post last August about how fewer and fewer asylum requests were being approved for LGBT people coming from Latin America as some states’ policies are becoming increasingly liberal. This once again raises the issue which comes up whenever dealing with sexual minorities around the world and was rightly raised by a commenter in my last Global Gaze column: the potential disconnect between a country’s official policies and the situation “on the ground.” Just because official equality and non-discrimination laws exist doesn't mean they're upheld by the government or respected by the populace in a country. Researching such matters alone can be a major part of making the asylum-seeking process as drawn out as it is.

As conditions hopefully continue to improve for queer individuals around the world, this issue will perhaps become less and less relevant. But for now, it’s a topic that deserves the attention of the international LGBT community and is, quite literally, a matter of life and death for sexual minorities around the world.