Database

In vielen Staaten der Welt werden lesbische Frauen und schwule Männer bis zum heutigen Tag staatlich verfolgt. Auf der Grundlage so genannter Sodomieparagraphen wird Homosexualität mit Freiheits- und Leibesstrafen sowie in einigen Ländern — beispielsweise dem Iran — mit dem Tode geahndet (vgl. Dinkelberg et al. 2001). Aber auch dann, wenn gleichgeschlechtliche Sexualität nicht als Tatbestand im Strafgesetz Erwähnung findet, drohen sexuellen Minderheiten staatlich geduldete oder motivierte Repressalien. Homophobe Gewalt — in der Flüchtlingsforschung als eine Variante geschlechtsspezifischer Verfolgung verstanden löst Flucht- und Migrationsbewegungen von Schwulen und Lesben in diejenigen Länder aus, in denen Homosexualität nicht (mehr) unter Strafe steht.

Britain’s approach to refugee claims by lesbians and gay men has been notably hostile in comparison to other Western refugee-receiving nations. For many years decisionmakers in the UK have refused to accept that those fleeing persecution on the basis of sexual orientation were even capable of being refugees under the terms of the Refugees Convention. Since accepting eligibility in 1999, UK decision-makers have repeatedly held that asylum seekers are under a duty to protect themselves by hiding their sexuality. They have also been extremely reluctant to hold that criminal sanctions for gay sex are themselves persecutory and have frequently failed to appreciate the relationship between violence against lesbians and gay men and the existence of criminal provisions. This article suggests that there is a discernible national response in the courts and tribunals of Britain to sexual orientation-based refugee claims. That response carries echoes of the 1956 Wolfenden Report, most notably its ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of homosexuality: privacy.

Sexual migration, a concept developed recently in the sexuality studies literature, is defined as international relocation that is motivated, directly or indirectly, by the sexuality of those who migrate. I argue that to conceptualize sexual migration fully, we need to consider a number of dimensions associated with this kind of transnational movement, including sexual immigrants’ transportation of practices across international borders, their lives in their places of origin, their exposure to local and foreign sexual ideologies prior to migrating, their agency in adapting and appropriating ideologies and practices prevalent in both home and host countries, and the transformations in sexual identities and behaviors that they experience after migration. I present two case studies that illustrate these points, analyze the conceptual relationship between sexual migration and sex tourism, and discuss the effects of sexual migration on immigrants’ sexual health.

When we consider sexuality as the grounds of an application for refugee status weenter into a highly charged discursive field which has existed since the introductionof the United Nations Convention of 1951. This controversy surrounds the provisionfor persecution on account of membership of a particular social group. This is oneof the most contested ‘provisions’ in refugee law. Lesbian and gay applications forrefugee status under the persecuted social group category are characterized by thefollowing three problems, which I have presented below in the form of questions

Vertrag von Amsterdam zur Änderung des Vertrags über die Europäische Union, der Verträge zur Gründung der Europäischen Gemeinschaften sowie einiger damit zusammenhängender Rechtsakte

This paper focuses on parallels between the processes of migration and coming out for lesbians. These parallels have become apparent in the course of a study on the transformations of sexuality in lesbian and heterosexual women who are immigrants to the United States. The psychological transformations created by migration and coming out mirror each other.