Database

This study explores the asylum claims of unaccompanied children concerning sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) and examines how case officers at the Swedish Migration Agency (SMA) responded to the credibility of their claims. The SMA provided one calendar year of asylum decisions concerning unaccompanied children, and 16 SOGI cases were identified. A thematic analysis of the cases was conducted. The results showed that case officers directed their focus to the quality of the children’s sexual relationships. This indicates that the case officers expect children to engage in long-term relationships similar to adults, despite their age. Furthermore, case officers tended to only render narratives credible if the society as whole was narrated as perpetrators. This indicates that case officers expect origin societies to be monolithic. The main conclusion, therefore, is that case officers are guided both by homonormative as well as homonationalist views in their decision-making process.

The key role of digital and mobile media for refugees is increasingly acknowledged, but while the literature on the topic tends to celebrate the advantages of digital media, it is important to also acknowledge limitations. Thus, the focus on the creation and maintenance of connections through digital media may obscure experiences and practices of disconnection. This is certainly the case for forced migrants with non-normative sexual orientations, for whom experiences of homophobia within the family and ethno-cultural community in the country of origin may extend to fraught situations in the country of residence. As with digital media in general, it is important to consider the ‘offline’ social and cultural conditions determining online media uses. This article focuses on the specific challenges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer refugees, both in general and in Belgium, drawing on desk research and expert interviews, as well as nine in-depth interviews with gay-identifying male refugees. While the refugees are relatively positive about the Belgian situation, they do identify a number of challenges. They use digital media to stay connected to family and other people in the country of origin, but often this connection has become difficult. Social media and dating sites also offer a way to connect to other gay men, but these connections can be equally fraught, particularly in the country of origin for danger of exposure but also in Belgium as social media transcend national boundaries. For this reason, some participants created new or parallel profiles, to keep their gay lives disconnected from their family lives. Overall, then, digital media are a tool not only of connection but also of strategic disconnection for gay refugees.

Die Beitrag befasst sich mit geschlechtsbezogenen Fragestellungen, die sich im Asylverfahren ergeben. Dabei wird die Situation bei der Unterbringung und im Verfahren ebenso diskutiert wie die Regelungen zu geschlechtsspezifischer Verfolgung, die bei der Prüfung von Asylanträgen zu berücksichtigen sind.

In the last decades, international refugee law (‘IRL’) and international human rights law (‘IHRL’) have increasingly taken into account sexual minorities’ needs. Despite not being one of the grounds of persecution under the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, sexual orientation has been identified as a relevant factor for the recognition of refugee status for more than twenty years. In parallel, IHRL has evolved to a point where sexual minorities are more fully included within the scope of rights and freedoms set forth in universal and regional human rights treaties, especially via the prohibition of discrimination. Yet, strange as it may seem, this simultaneous evolution has not always led to a fruitful intersection between IRL and IHRL, even in terms of interpretation despite what the Law of Treaties requires. Drawing from documentary and qualitative data and by taking people fleeing homophobia as example, this article looks at the role that IHRL may play in complementing and in intersection with IRL. It argues that IHRL may, firstly, raise obligations to facilitate the access of these claimants to asylum determination procedures and, secondly, inform the notion of persecution used in IRL more comprehensively than it currently does in practice.

Human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity are grounds for seeking asylum in Europe. However, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) people claiming asylum face particular legal and social challenges when they go through the asylum process. Within Germany’s asylum system, LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum belong to the least visible and most vulnerable group.

Menschenrechtsverletzungen aufgrund der sexuellen Orientierung und Geschlechtsidentität stellen Asylgründe in Europa dar. Lesben, Schwule, Bisexuelle, Trans-, Queer- und Intersexuelle (LSBTQI*) Menschen, die Asyl beantragen, stehen jedoch vor besonderen rechtlichen und sozialen Herausforderungen. Innerhalb des deutschen Asylsystems gehören LSBTQI* Geflüchtete zu den am wenigsten sichtbaren und am stärksten gefährdeten Personen

Transgender legal protections have long been contentious issues, with courts often pathologizing or refusing recognition of transgender identities. Recently, however, courts adjudicating asylum claims have recognized “transgender” as a legitimate category of protection. I take this legal development as an opportunity to ask how courts determine if individuals are transgender. While previous work has shown how courts maintain the gender binary, asylum law offers the first chance to analyze how recognizing a distinct transgender category affects the legal gender order and the classification of trans claimants. Drawing on court decisions, ethnographic observations, and interviews, I argue that the recognition of transgender as a category implicitly acknowledges the malleability of gender. Yet, the adjudication of transgender asylum cases continues to uphold a fixed and binary conception of gender by assuming a “born into the wrong body” narrative and that claimants should always already know their gender identities. Courts thus enforce a cis–trans binary wherein only certain claimants are found “trans enough.”

The Refugee Convention was not written with the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI) people in mind. This article shows the dilemmas this creates for LGBTQI asylum seekers and their advocates when establishing the case for protection. It uses the United Kingdom (UK) experience as an example and brings the literature on this topic up to date with reference to recent cases with implications for LGBTQI applicants. While there has been a welcome shift to recognize that LGBTQI persecution is a legitimate basis for asylum, contradictions and tensions between United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, European, and UK guidelines and instruments, as well as between UK policy and practice, have resulted in a lack of consistency and fairness in the treatment of LGBTQI asylum seekers. The article identifies three specific areas of concern and goes on to show what happens when they converge, using a case that exemplifies some of the problems – AR (AP), against a decision of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) [2017] CSIH 52. It concludes by suggesting a shift in the focus of questioning, from the identity of the asylum seeker to the persecution in the country of origin, as a possible basis for fairer treatment of LGBTQI asylum claims.

While the refugee convention was not written to protect women and LGBTI people, subsequent treaties and directives recognise the violence they experience as legitimate grounds for claiming asylum. However, to meet the threshold for persecution, it is expedient for women and LGBTI asylum seekers to present themselves as abject victims of brutal and backward regimes, reinforcing dichotomies between refugee-producing and refugee-receiving countries. Such narratives obscurethe misogyny, homo- and transphobia prevalent in the West, potentially appropriating migrants’ rights for neocolonial agendas.This phenomenon has been identified by theorists within feminism, black feminist theory, queertheory, and post-colonialism. However, move to the field of practice and the surest way to secure refugee status is invariably to tell a story that resonates with decision-makers; one in which anoppressed individual is given sanctuary in the pro-gay and female-friendly West. To tell a morenuanced story would jeopardise the individual’s claim, and women and LGBTI people already struggle to meet the requirements for refugee protection in a system that was not designed forthem. This paper explores this difficulty in bridging theory and practice in relation to gender and sexual orientation based asylum claims.