Pride Month: A List Of Countries With Asylum Laws That Protect Those Fleeing Gender Persecution

In the recent years, many leading international agencies, including the UN and European Union, have endorsed the idea that ¡°LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] rights are human rights and human rights are LGBT rights¡±, but at the regional and national levels support is still far from guaranteed.

Globally, there has been significant progress in recognising the rights of the LGBTQIA+ people resulting in a cultural transformation, although there has also been an accompanying rise in both popular, religious, and political homophobia in many states.

These conflicting and frequently highly contradictory dynamics are particularly evident in Southeast Asia, where some prominent leaps forward in protecting the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community have occurred in parallel with substantial setbacks.

For example, in late 2014, a Malaysian Appeals Court ruled that a ban on cross-dressing was unconstitutional, while a Singapore Court held that a law criminalising consensual same-sex conduct between men was constitutional.

In Afghanistan, the queer community is marginalised and persecuted, more so after the takeover by the Taliban. In Brunei, Indonesia same-sex relationships are forbidden and could also result in the death penalty. Thailand, which has been recognised as an LGBT+ "paradise", does not allow same-sex marriage despite the issue being discussed in parliament for nearly a decade.

Reuters

The lack of recognition and persecution of the queer community forces people from the community to look for safe spaces.

At a time when many countries are failing to provide them with basic human rights and criminalising same-sex relationships, numerous countries around the world have opened up to accepting fear of persecution due to sexual orientation as a valid ground to seek asylum or refuge.

LGBTQIA+ people have long been subjected to various forms of marginalisation, abuse, and discrimination. Unfortunately, homosexuality and/or homosexual conduct are still illegal in as many as 75 countries.

Thirteen of the 75 nations use the death penalty to punish those who break certain inhumane laws. When these persecutions are backed up by state legislation, these people have no choice but to flee their homeland.

Sexual orientation as grounds for asylum

A person's sexual orientation is an intrinsic part of his or her identity, and it should not be used as a basis for social condemnation, state punishment, or legal subjugation.

Agencies

According to Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," and "everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set out in this declaration."

The Yogyakarta Principles, which focused on the application of International Human Rights, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and its 1967 Protocol, to sexual orientation and gender identity, were adopted in 2007. Despite the fact that the principles are not legally binding, they help to draw the dots between international human rights and the issue of sexual minorities' persecution.

Which countries grant asylum on the basis of sexual orientation

Among 84 million people who are currently forcibly displaced worldwide, LGBT persons are particularly vulnerable and marginalised. Fleeing persecution and socio-economic exclusion, they often reside in countries that do not provide strong human rights protections or actively discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Over the years, many countries around the world have legalised homosexual relationships and are actively working to provide safe haven to the queer community facing persecution in their own countries.

AP

In Latin America, countries such as Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, and Paraguay, among others, have legal provisions for the protection of people based on gender-based persecution.

In the European Union, Article 9 of legal provisions states, "Acts of persecution as qualified in Paragraph 1 may, inter alia, take the form of (f) acts of a gender-specific or child-specific nature.¡±

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, among others, provide refuge to queer folks facing persecution.

African nations such as Kenya, South Africa, South Sudan, and Uganda recognise gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum.

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