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Europe is telling gay asylum seekers they are not gay enough

…The legitimacy of asylum claims is adjudicated with outdated and often inscrutable policies.

HUNGARY SERBIA REFUGEE CAMP

At the end of 2016 in Istanbul, 26-year-old Sercan Özmeral’s parents tried to force him to marry. It was at this moment that Özmeral, who is gay, realized he would have to come out. His parents did not take it well.

“They responded in a very aggressive way, and my father and uncles threatened to kill me,” he said.

Turkey, where Özmeral is from, has become less and less friendly to the LGBTQ community, especially in the last few years. He considers the Kurdish community, of which he is a part, even less tolerant.

“About ten years ago, a friend of mine was killed by his father after coming out,” he said, referencing the case of Ahmet Yildiz, a young Kurdish man whose 2008 murder in Istanbul is sometimes referred to as the country’s first gay honor killing.

Soon after, Özmeral fled to the Netherlands, a country famous for its LGBTQ acceptance, and one he had visited before.

But what he found when he arrived was not what he expected. In fact, his arrival marked the beginning of a drawn-out process in which officials from the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) asked him probing questions about his life as a gay man. After months of waiting, he was denied asylum on the grounds that the IND did not believe he was gay.

Özmeral’s case is but one example of a daunting problem in the Netherlands, where hundreds of people apply for asylum each year on the grounds that they’re persecuted for their LGBTQ status. But immigration attorneys and advocacy groups question the way the IND determines if an applicant’s claim is credible.

At the time Özmeral applied, his case hinged upon his ability to convincingly recount a story of becoming “self-aware” and “accepting” of his sexual orientation, effectively forcing him and other applicants to conform to a Western template of a coming-out narrative. But “coming out,” as it is commonly understood in Europe and North America, is a highly distinct cultural conception that doesn’t map neatly onto a variety of queer experiences.

“Other countries don’t have the same phenomenon to reflect on themselves like this,” said Brian Lit, a Dutch immigration attorney. “It’s not normal for someone, say in Western Africa. I’m missing that realization from the IND.”

Last summer, after a public outcry, the IND updated its guidelines, and said it would stop this line of questioning and replace it with a search for an “authentic story” from applicants that would prove their claim. But immigration attorneys say that little has changed in practice, and the revised guidelines are vague.

“[The IND’s] focus is no longer on these processes by name, but they still want to hear a story about a process of awareness and self-acceptance,” said Eric Hagenaars, an immigration attorney who has represented hundreds of gay asylum seekers in the Netherlands.

Philip, an LGBTQ asylum seeker from Uganda whose name has been changed for his safety, underwent the process this past March of last year. Even though he did the interview after the IND issued the revised guidelines, the questions the officer asked Philip followed the old approach.

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“They exactly ask you about awareness and acceptance of your sexual orientation,” Philip said. These were hard questions for him to answer. “In my culture, you cannot just talk about your love life like that.”

Two appeals later, the IND now recognizes that Özmeral is gay. This past summer, though, the authorities ruled that living in Turkey does not pose a threat serious enough to give him asylum. Özmeral then filed yet another appeal with the help of a new attorney.

In late November of 2019, Özmeral and his lawyer were shocked when the Dutch government informed them that it had thrown out his most recent denial, saying, without explanation, that it would issue a new ruling. On January 2, the IND ruled in Özmeral’s favor, saying that it now believed that living in Turkey would pose a serious threat to Özmeral.

The ruling ended a years-long process filled with misdirection and seeming caprice. Since arriving in the Netherlands, Özmeral has spent most of his time in a refugee camp. He did, however, spend a month in a Rotterdam prison because he passed the IND’s window to apply for asylum—by nine days.

The uncertainty weighed on him. Last fall, before the positive decision from the Dutch government, Özmeral described the hardship of the process: “I feel so bad. I am a helpless person, and unfortunately, the Netherlands is leaving me to die instead of helping me.” Now, with his Dutch residency in hand, his outlook is much more positive.

“I still can’t believe this decision because I’ve been waiting so long, almost three years. I am very happy now, and I feel safe,” Özmeral said just hours after the IND issued its decision.

In a statement, an IND spokesperson did not respond directly to questions about its asylum practices.

Processing asylum applications for people in the LGBTQ community has been a struggle in Europe for many years, even before the refugee crisis.

This challenge has led to many unfortunate cases over the last few years, including one in the Hague in 2017, where an Iraqi refugee was denied asylum and told by the judge he was “not gay enough.” Similar cases have taken place in Austria, where immigration officials once denied an applicant on the grounds that “neither your walk, your behavior, nor your clothing indicate even in the slightest that you could be homosexual.”

European law on the subject has long been complicated. According to Sabine Jansen, a Dutch lawyer from the non-profit COC Nederland who studies LGBTQ asylum policy and practice, prior 2011, many European countries simply advised LGBTQ asylum seekers from countries where homosexuality is criminalized to conceal their sexual identity.

It was that year that Jansen gathered experts from 25 countries and produced a report called Fleeing Homophobia. In the period that followed, the Dutch Council of State referred two sets of questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), asking about how to deal with gay asylum seekers—questions meant to highlight the injustice and unfeasibility of requesting gay asylum seekers to simply “tone it down” back home. In response, the CJEU issued two judgments that defined Europe’s modern LGBTQ asylum policy: XYZ versus the Netherlands, on criminalization of same-sex sexual orientation and ‘discretion’ in expressing sexual orientation or gender identity (2013) and one year later ABC versus the Netherlands, on credibility of sexual orientation (2014).

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Still, Europe has a patchwork of unharmonized policies for determining the legitimacy of a person’s claim.

In the intervening years, and as LGBTQ asylum seekers arrived in Europe in larger numbers, at least two European Union countries used arousal tests to determine if an applicant’s case was legitimate. These tests were outlawed in 2014. In January of 2018, the European Court of Justice—which is under the umbrella of the CJEU—banned Rorschach tests for asylum seekers after a Nigerian man sued the Hungarian Immigration Office.

Jansen thinks that in the past 10 years, policy has shifted from “discretion” to “disbelief,” that is, the old policy of telling gay applicants to go home and simply be discreet has been supplanted by a tendency to simply not believe applicants. Jansen doesn’t think IND agents are all homophobic. She says the problem comes from the guidelines, which are full of stereotypes.

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“The most common stereotype is to believe that these people are ashamed about themselves,” she says.

It is difficult to pin down an exact source for the IND’s approach to handling LGBTQ asylum cases. But a 2004 article written by Canadian researcher Nicole LaViolette seems to have inspired current IND practice. Asylum researcher Sabine Jansen’s “Pride or Shame” argues that the IND’s interpretation of LaViolette’s work lacks nuance, and should not be grounds for policy.

When the IND issued revised guidelines on how applicants should be questioned, Dutch lawyers and advocates hoped that this would mean applicants who were denied before would be eligible to reapply. But the IND has rejected this.

“From the legal perspective, this is a change of policy, and so prior denials could be opened to a new review, but they denied this, saying it’s the same policy that they simply fine-tuned,” said Brian Lit, the immigration attorney.

This means that the hundreds of applicants currently appealing their denials are unable to simply reapply under the current guidelines.

Issa, who is from Iraq and whose name has been changed to protect his safety, is one of those applicants. He was denied in 2017 on the grounds that while the IND believed he is gay, they didn’t think life in Iraq posed any serious threats to him. Issa says he fears violence from his family if he returns home.

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Issa did the asylum interview in Arabic through a translator, which posed another problem: He didn’t feel comfortable discussing his homosexuality with a Muslim. “They asked me, are you on top or on bottom or something else? How can I explain this thing to a translator?” According to Issa, the translator struggled with the questions the IND posed and with Issa’s responses. “I felt the shame from the translator. He was looking at me and with his looks he was saying shame on you. Shame. I could feel it. I cried a lot after the interview.”

Issa is in a state of limbo. He has appealed again, but a long-term life in a refugee camp is taking a toll.

“To be honest with you, every day I spend in my room, and I do not know what is my fate. I think of suicide, but I do not have the courage to end this moment,” Issa said.

Sandro Kortekaas, the chairman of LGBT Asylum Support, an NGO that helps LGBTQ refugees in their asylum process in the Netherlands, says the revised guidelines that call for an authentic story do represent an improvement—that is, when IND officials stick to them.

But he wants to see a much bigger reform. “We want the IND to admit that it made a mistake with the old interview questions and give all the people who were rejected by it a second chance.”

For now, major reform seems unlikely. Attorney Brian Lit still prepares his clients to answer the old questions: “I still drill them on their process of awareness. If you convince them on a process of awareness that’s the easiest way, as no one knows what the ‘authentic story’ means.”

According to the COC, the IND rejects four in 10 applications for asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity, 85 percent of which because the IND does not believe that the person is actually gay.

Eric Hagenaars, the asylum lawyer, said that the IND is rejecting more and more asylum claims, especially for gay people. He attributes this to the current center-right government. He says that he now loses most of his cases but continues to represent LBGTQ asylum seekers.

(Culled from thenation.com)

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Stop enslavement of Africans in other continents- Experts tell African leaders

The second international migration summit by the Journalists International Forum For Migration (JIFORM) ended on Friday, October 16, 2020, at the Pensioners FM, Ibadan, Oyo State, with a call to African leaders to deliver good governance to halt continued enslavement of the Africans in other continents through irregular migration.

The conference themed: Migration governance and media strategy for development with physical and virtual presentations was attended by hundreds of journalists and other participants across the world.

President of JIFORM, Ajibola Abayomi, in his remark after signing a memorandum of understanding with the Diaspora Innovation Institute (DII), US, on training and investment opportunities for journalists, said the global media body with over 200 journalists spread across the continents as parts of the fallouts of the summit would produce glossary of terminologies for over 10,000 journalists and media houses beyond Africa.

Speaking at the occasion, Governor Oluwaseyi Makinde of Oyo State hailed JIFORM’s advocacy and identified poverty as the root cause of irregular migration pledging commitment to reverse the tide through good governance.

Represented by Barrister Olubunmi Ogunniran, Director General of Legal Administration, Oyo State Ministry of Justice, the governor said apart from rescuing trafficked indigenes of the state abroad and creating diaspora unit, he had inaugurated a task force against human trafficking, sexual offenders with prosecute department and further engagement of the youths through economic activities.

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Minister of Labour Sierra Leone, Mr Alpha Timbo; Ghana Ambassador to Egypt, Lebanon and Sudan, Nii Okai Hammond, and the United Nations Youth Ambassador (Ghana), Lilian Addo, all praised what they tagged courageous movement by JIFORM and promised to support the body in its quest to further spread its advocacies.

Chairman of the summit, Patrick Lumumba, rued the faulty labour and trade laws in Africa limiting development and called on the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) for ntervention to remove migration barriers causing undue frictions between Ghana and Nigeria ditto for the African Union to end the xenophobic attacks in South Africa against other African nationals.

He blamed the crisis on misapplication of resources and corruption among African leaders and urged them to retrace their steps to save the youths from desperate migration to other continents through the desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Matters, Tolulope Akande-Sadipe lauded JIFORM’s efforts to eradicate irregular migration and vowed to rescue and end the suffering of stranded Nigerians lured through human trafficking to the Middle East and other Arabian nations through collaborations.

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Member of African Union Advisory Committee on Labour Migration, (Ghana) Dr Princess Ocansey urged the African nations to end the Kafala bilateral agreement entered into with some Middle East countres that permitted the en-slavery of mostly African women.

“African leaders must wake up to save the youths from deadly work they are being subjected and replace that with decent work. The Kafala system is a shame and very dehumanizing” she said.

Former Canada Minister of Immigration, Gerry Weiner while delivering his presentation urged the African youths to acquit themselves with the right processes to tap into numerous diaspora opportunities in Canada and elsewhere.

Weiner, who had 12 years working experience in Africa, said only safe and regular migration, would guarantee the actualization of the desire to be part of economic activities in the world.

The summit had participation from several international speaker that Prince Akin Ojomo from DII; included Johanna Mac from Erich Brost Institute, Germany; Barrister Samuel Adeusi and Ms Omotola Fawunmi both from the US; International Organization for Migration (IOM), Nigeria and Gambia; Rescue African Mission; Synergy Rescue Mission; ThisLebanon Lebanon; Nigerians In Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM); National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP); Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS); Ghana Immigration Service; Diaspora Innovation Institute, New York, America; and Ghana Immigration Service.

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IOM, African Union Commission, launch the first Africa Migration Report

Those are among the historic findings of the study, Africa Migration Report: Challenging the Narrative, released today (15 October) by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the African Union Commission (AUC). The work is the first continent-specific report on migration and is being released during a virtual meeting bringing together policymakers, experts on migration and UN partner agencies. This inaugural edition attempts to unpack commonly held misperceptions about migration in the continent.

The AMR is modelled on the IOM flagship World Migration Report produced bi-annually since 2000.

“This report has become even more relevant for us to read in the context of pandemic, and particularly meaningful given that the lion’s share of African migration remains within the continent,” IOM Director General António Vitorino said in his opening remarks. “It reminds us how migration is integrated into every aspect of our societies and economies. It reinforces the critical need to include migrants into our responses to multifaceted crises, and in all our public policies. And it forces us to look beyond the problems of today, and consider where the challenges, and solutions, of tomorrow might be found.”

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H. E. Commissioner Amira El Fadil added: “On behalf of the AUC Chairperson. H.E. Faki Mahamat, and on my own behalf, I wish to thank IOM for this collaborative initiative that begins to lay the foundations for important future work on migration policy and operational work in Africa. This is especially important as the continent makes ever greater steps towards integration through the implementation of, among others, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the continental free movement protocol which, as we know, is adopted but is yet to come into force.”

Globally, the salience of migration issues is getting higher on the policy agenda. Stories of desperate Africans on rickety boats trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe or embarking on the perilous Eastern trek to the Gulf States have become mainstream. This trend distorts the public’s understanding that most African migrants are moving across land borders, not across oceans.

Yet the narratives that characterize it are not always accurate, the joint report reveals. To ensure a better understanding of the complex phenomena that spur human mobility, and to reorient the narrative, the newly released Africa Migration Report takes a deep dive into the key issues and trends characterizing the continent’s migration patterns.

In 2019, Africa was the youngest continent for international migrants with a median age of 30.9 years. According to the African Union, intra-African mobility numbers have never been higher, with international migration in Africa increasing from 13.3 million to 25.4 million migrants between 2008 and 2017. Meanwhile, according to IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC), 80 per cent of Africans, when asked about migrating in 2017, said they have no interest in leaving the continent, nor of permanently relocating.

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Today’s report further notes that 94 per cent of African migration that does occur across oceans takes a regular form. Moreover, the report notes that Africans comprise no more than 14 per cent of all global migrants, while over 40 per cent come from Asia and another 24 per cent from Europe.

Experts from IOM, the AUC and other UN agencies collaborated to produce sixteen chapters covering, migration data, migration and health, migration and development, urbanization, migration and climate change, migration and trade, remittances and managing borders in the age of free movement.

The work was edited by three migration specialists: Professor Aderanti Adepoju, a Nigerian economist and demographer and leading voice in African migration research, served as Editor-in-Chief, assisted by two writers – Ms. Nanjala Nyabola and Mr. Corrado Fumagalli.

“A deeper understanding of the role migration needs to play in an Africa that is moving stridently towards continental integration has never been more urgent. It is hoped that both practitioners and policymakers will find this Africa Migration Report a useful basis for migration policy development,” Maureen Achieng, IOM Chief of Mission to Ethiopia and Representative to the African Union and UNECA said. “This inaugural Africa Migration Report presents migration policy makers with the opportunity to reflect on critical policy questions, especially in the impending post-pandemic era.”

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IOM works closely with the African Union Commission to advance the migration agenda, recognizing that well-managed migration has the potential to drive development and transformation on the continent.

The Africa Migration Report was funded by the Government of Switzerland and the United States’ Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration’s Africa Regional Migration Program, the African Union Commission and IOM.

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JIFORM signs MoU with Institute of Innovation (DII), US for members’ training

The Journalists International Forum For Migration (JIFORM), a global media foundation with over 200 journalists focusing on migration matters on Friday, October 16, 2020, signed. a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate foreign trainings and other international engagements for its members in America and other nations with the Institute of Innovation (DII), US.

Also, JIFORM at the second day of the summit, honouted a Nigerian lawmaker, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Matters, Tolulope Akande-Sadipe, for her positive advocacy on migration matters alongside Pensioners’ FM, King FM and Federal Radio Corporation Nigeria, Ibadan for their commendable roles in promotion of safe and regular migration.

The conference held at the Pensioners’ FM Board and Training Hall, Onireke Ibadan, Oyo State, was officially unveiled by the Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede, MFR. Virtual and physical presentations beamed on zoom and other social media networks were adopted for the summit

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Ajibola Abayomi, JIFORM President said in a statement made available to the media on Wednesday that the summit themed Migration Governance and Media Strategy for Development During Pandemic under the chairmanship of Professor Patrick Lumumba from Kenya would produce glossary of terminologies for over 10,000 journalists and media establishments to upgrade the reportorial capacity of media practitioners across the world as JIFORM mapped out strategies to organize the African/Middle East Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2021 aimed at fast tracking discussions on the abolition African women slavery in the Gulf and Arabian nations.

JIFORM praised the media houses for their excellent delivery of services to the nation saying: “Pensioners FM, the only known labour radio in world is a success to behold within just one year ditto for King FM and Radio Nigeria with unparalleled quality information promoting the right values, uniting the people and uplifting the nation.”

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Prince Akinwale Ojomo, the Chief Executive Officer of DII Africa, said the Global Director of the institute, Professor Byron Price and his team were excited to work with JIFORM and would ensure successful implementation of the MOU especially to improve capacity of journalists on migration matters.

The epoch occasion will witness participation of Gerry Weiner, the former Canada immigration minister; Dr Princess Ocansey, member African Union on Labour Migration Advisory Committee and Chairperson, United Nations Youths Association, Ghana; Mr Gbenga Omotoso, Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Lagos State; Professor Ikechukwu Kanu Anthony; Johanna Mac from Erich Brost Institute, Germany; Ms Omotola Omowunmi, the Executive Director Rescue Africans In Slavery Foundation; Patricidal Phradan from Lebanon; International Organization for Migration (IOM), Nigeria and Gambia, Ghana Immigration Service and others.