Category: News

The UK’s asylum system’s designation of Nigeria as a “safe country” poses real risk to queer Nigerians facing persecution, reporter Daniel Anthony outlines for PinkNews. 

Under UK asylum policy, Nigeria is treated as a country that is generally stable rather than affected by civil war, active conflict, or a failing government. It is listed as a safe country of origin for men, meaning UK authorities presume that, in general, there is no serious or widespread risk of persecution or indiscriminate violence. 

However, for queer Nigerians, this perception of safety is misleading and dangerous.

In Nigeria, safety can disappear with a whisper, a hint of effeminacy, a phone search, a neighbour’s suspicion, or the arrival of police who know that Nigeria’s homophobic laws will protect them and justify whatever horrific fate they are about to impose on you.

Nigeria prohibits same-sex relationships under federal law. The Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act (SSMPA), enacted in 2014, criminalises same-sex relationships and in several northern states, Sharia-based penal codes impose severe penalties, including the death penalty.

In August of last year, two secondary school students were beaten to death by their classmates after being accused of homosexuality. In a separate incident a month prior, videos surfaced online showing two university students being attacked by a mob over similar allegations. Violence of this nature has become disturbingly normalized in Nigerian schools, often supported — and at times applauded — by school authorities, with little to no accountability for those responsible.

Weeks later, in September, a young gay man named Hillary was thrown from a three-story building to his death because of his sexual orientation. Earlier this year, during New Year celebrations in northern Nigeria, two underage girls were stoned to death after being accused of lesbianism, without evidence, trial, or mercy.

Perhaps the most widely reported case is the murder of Abuja Area Mama, a well-known TikTok creator and LGBTQI+ figure. In August 2024, her stabbed and mutilated body was found by the roadside in Nigeria’s capital. No suspects have been identified, and the case remains unsolved — a grim reminder of how easily fatal violence against queer people fades into silence.

Often, violence against queer people in Nigeria is not condemned but celebrated. Videos of beatings, abuse and public humiliation circulate widely online, filmed by bystanders and shared for entertainment. Comment sections fill with applause, mockery, and calls for harsher punishment, signalling that violence against LGBTQI+ people is not only tolerated but socially rewarded. In this environment, harm is learned early, repeated often, and carried out with impunity — collapsing any meaningful distinction between mob violence and state violence.

Rights groups say this is not exceptional. In 2023, more than 1,000 violationsbased on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity were recorded, and in 2024, civil society monitors documented 556 violations affecting over 850 people — a snapshot they believed to represent only a fraction of actual unreported incidents.

One common form of abuse is “KITO”, where queer men are lured online, taken to private locations, beaten, filmed, and blackmailed — with videos sent to families and threats of exposure or death if ransoms are not paid.

Survivors report that this cycle of abuse, which accounts for about 70 per cent of the mistreatment of queer individuals in Nigeria, has driven many victims to despair and suicide.

One gay man from Nigeria, now living in the UK after being granted asylum, described how a “KITO” attack permanently altered the course of his life, an experience that left him deeply traumatised and suicidal.

“That incident ruined my life,” he told me. “I tried taking my own life, but it didn’t work. I was depressed and I became a shadow of myself.”

He said the psychological damage outlasted the physical violence. Returning to daily life in Nigeria after his exposure meant living under constant ostracization, repeated attacks, and public scrutiny. 

“There was no safety after that,” he said. “You’re just waiting for the next thing to happen.”

With the help of a friend, he eventually fled and sought asylum in the UK. 

The contrast, he said, was stark. 

“I spent 30 years of my life in Nigeria. But in just over a year here, I’ve had more peace than I ever had back there,” he said. “I would rather jump in front of a speeding bus — than relive that experience again. That kind of life, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”

What haunts him most, he added, is not only what he survived, but the people he left behind. 

“There are still men like me back there, dealing with this every day,” he said. “That’s what breaks my heart.”

This is the reality many queer Nigerians are fleeing — and the context UK asylum policy increasingly fails to account for.

Under the UK government’s proposed asylum reforms, safety is being treated as a fixed for a nation, assessed from a distance and applied broadly. As the asylum system tightens, claims are judged less on lived risk and more on whether a country is deemed generally “safe”. 

For LGBTQI+ Nigerians, whose danger is constant and systemic, this approach is especially dangerous.

In practice, this logic misreads how persecution operates. The violence enabled by Nigeria’s Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act — police extortion, arbitrary arrests, mob attacks — is routinely treated as incidental rather than structural. When asylum seekers raise these experiences in the UK system, they are often dismissed as isolated incidents or deemed insufficiently severe, leaving LGBTQI+ applicants with an almost impossible evidentiary burden.

This is where the UK’s latest reforms, which would make refugee status contingent on a country of origin never becoming safe, become dangerous and further reinforce misconceptions. By relying more heavily on country-of-origin designations, the system shifts away from group-specific risk and toward blanket assessments that assume danger must be universal to be credible.

But queer persecution rarely works that way.

LGBTQI+ people are targeted precisely because they are minorities. Their persecution is localised, informal, and socially enforced — carried out by families, vigilantes, or corrupt officials rather than through formal state channels. These realities rarely leave paper trails and do not fit neatly into asylum frameworks that privilege documentation and national stability over lived risk.

How does one document a lynching that no authority investigated? 

How does one prove the constant threat of exposure in a society, where queerness itself is treated as criminal intent?

Charities supporting LGBTQI+ asylum seekers warn that this gap routinely leads to wrongful refusals, even as the Home Office acknowledges that LGBTQI+ people from countries like Nigeria face persecution. Rainbow Migration has assisted Nigerians whose claims were rejected by the UK government on credibility grounds, overlooking the surveillance, blackmail, and violence faced by queer individuals in the country.

This is both a moral and legal failure. According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, individuals persecuted for their sexual orientation or gender identity are entitled to protection, regardless of their country’s overall safety. International law only requires that the risk of persecution is real and that the state fails to provide protection.

There is also a history that remains largely unacknowledged. 

Nigeria’s criminalisation of same-sex relationships is rooted in British colonial rule, which imposed sodomy laws later absorbed into postcolonial legal systems and currently being reinforced by political and religious leaders. Yet when queer Nigerians seek asylum, Britain positions itself as a neutral evaluator of safety — without reckoning with its role in shaping the danger they are fleeing.

If the UK is genuinely committed to its human rights obligations, it must reject the misleading simplicity of “safe country” narratives. The safety of minorities cannot be determined by national averages. Asylum systems should be evaluated not on how effectively they exclude people, but on whether they adequately protect those who are most in need.

For queer Nigerians, asylum is not a policy abstraction. It is a vital lifeline.

Europe’s parliament has agreed to a resolution declaring that trans women are women.

The resolution, adopted last week, made a host of recommendations for the EU to pursue at the 70th annual UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is set to take place next month.

Among the recommendations was a proclamation emphasising the “importance of the full recognition of trans women as women, noting that their inclusion is essential for the effectiveness of any gender-equality and anti-violence policies”.

Other proclamations referencing LGBTQ+ people included the need for a “comprehensive tool to monitor and counter democratic backsliding and backsliding in women’s rights”, as well as the acknowledgement of a rise in attacks against LGBTQ+ and women’s rights activists.

The array of recommendations were adopted in a 340-141 vote, with 68 abstentions, according to LGBTQ+ Nation.

While most European Parliament resolutions aren’t legally binding, their passage typically marks significant influence within EU member states.

Covering the convention, journalist Erin Reed suggested the resolution’s passage had put the European Union on a “direct collision course” with the United States, which will also attend the UN’s conference in New York next month.

The North American country’s LGBTQ+ rights record has plummeted following the inauguration of US president Donald Trump, who has signed a slew of executive orders targeting the community, particularly trans people.

It also comes in stark contrast to the UK government’s stance on trans rights after prime minister Keir Starmer declared that he believed trans women were not women last year.

Several countries within Europe have, themselves, begun enacting anti-LGBTQ+ policies and legislation, particularly EU member state Hungary, which enacted a ban on Pride marches last year.

Tens of thousands of Hungarians across the nation joined together to protest the law’s passage at the time, with near-daily protests taking place across June and April.

Gergely Karácsony, mayor of the Hungarian capital Budapest, faces criminal charges after defying the Pride ban in June 2025, allowing organisers to host an LGBTQ+ Pride march.

Responding to the accusations, Karácsony said on social media that he had “gone from being a proud suspect to a proud defendant”.

He added: “It seems that this is the price we pay in this country when we stand up for our own freedom and that of others.”

Hate crimes targeting people on the grounds of their sexuality, gender identity or disability would be made an aggravated offence, under a proposed new law. 

If passed, an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill would see hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ and disabled people brought in-line with racially and religiously aggravated hate crimes, meaning they too will carry a higher maximum sentencing penalty. 

The bill is currently progressing through the House of Lords and is intended to tackle anti-social behaviour alongside crimes including offensive weapons, sexual offences and stalking and public order. 

Stonewall CEO Simon Blake described the amendment a “major step in the journey of LGBTQ+ equality”. 

“Putting hate crime against LGBTQ+ people on the same footing as religious and racial hate crime has always been the right thing to do. It sends a powerful message that LGBTQ+ people deserve equal access to justice,” Blake said. 

“Stonewall, and others, have campaigned hard for this change for many years; and we welcome that the Government is delivering on a manifesto commitment for LGBTQ+ people at a time when many in the community are feeling increasingly under threat.”

He added: “Now that this amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill has been laid, Stonewall will continue to work hard with Government and Parliamentarians to make sure this vital change becomes law.”

LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop described it as a “landmark step” towards increasing access to criminal justice for LGBTQ+ and disabled people. 

Jasmine O’Connor, co-chief executive of Galop, said: “At a time when our services are seeing consistent rises in LGBT+ hate crime victims seeking support, this long-overdue change sends a clear message that anti-LGBT+ hate crime is as deserving of justice as crimes motivated by religious or racial hate.”

Home Office data shows that in the year ending March 2025, there were a total of 137,550 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. 

In the 2024/25 year, there were 18,702 hate crimes targeting people on the basis of their sexual orientation and 3,809 targeting trans people because of their gender identity, decreases on 2023/24 by two and 11 per cent respectively. 

In terms of disability hate crime, there were 10,224 incidents recorded in 2024/25 compared with 11,131 recorded in 2023/24. 

However, these figures are all higher than five years ago in 2020/21 when there were 15,668 sexual orientation hate crimes, 2,510 related to gender identity and 9,418 in relation to disability.

A new human rights report has claimed the US is undermining LGBTQ+ and wider human rights across the world, with the second Trump administration marked by a “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations”.

The report from Human Rights Watch, entitled World Report 2026, examines the state of human rights in countries across the globe, with a focus on key events that happened throughout 2025. 

“The global human rights system is in peril,” Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said in the introduction to the report. 

“Under relentless pressure from US President Donald Trump, and persistently undermined by China and Russia, the rules-based international order is being crushed, threatening to take with it the architecture human rights defenders have come to rely on to advance norms and protect freedoms. To defy this trend, governments that still value human rights, alongside social movements, civil society, and international institutions, need to form a strategic alliance to push back.” 

Bolopion went on to say 2025 “may be seen as a tipping point” for human rights. 

“In just 12 months, the Trump administration has carried out a broad assault on key pillars of US democracy and the global rules-based order, which the US, despite inconsistencies, was, with other states, instrumental in helping to establish,” he wrote. 

“In short order, Trump’s second-term administration has undermined trust in the sanctity of elections, reduced government accountability, gutted food assistance and healthcare subsidies, attacked judicial independence, defied court orders, rolled back women’s rights, obstructed access to abortion care, undermined remedies for racial harm, terminated programs mandating accessibility for people with disabilities, punished free speech, stripped protections from trans and intersex people, eroded privacy, and used government power to intimidate political opponents, the media, law firms, universities, civil society, and even comedians.” 

Bolopion outlined how the Trump administration has “embraced policies and rhetoric that align with white nationalist ideology”, whilst the US has left dozens of international organisations and has also culled US aid programmes, including those which support children, women and LGBTQ+ people. 

In the specific US section of the report, Human Rights Watch states the Trump’s second administration has “been marked from the start by blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations”, adding the nation took significant steps backward on various issues including immigration, health, environment, disability, gender and freedom of speech. 

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It outlined how in many parts of the US, officials at all levels of government continue to target LGBTQ+ people, with the administration particularly having escalated attacks on transgender communities. 

Following his return to the White House, Trump has signed several executive orders seeking to remove the rights of trans people. 

These orders have included proclaiming the official policy of the US is that there are “only two sexes”, banning transgender people from serving in the military, restricting gender-affirming healthcare for trans youngsters under the age 19 and barring trans women and girls from female sports.

Trump has also moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes across the government and in the military. This move, coupled by campaigning by anti-woke MAGA activist Robby Starbuck, has seen several big name US businesses – including Walmart, Target, Ford, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s – drop their DEI policies, programmes and targets.

As the report outlines: “Twenty-seven states now ban medically indicated gender-affirming care for youth, and several impose criminal penalties on providers. In June, the Supreme Court upheld these bans, which have a devastating impact on young peoples’ health and well-being. Eight states require school staff to disclose students’ gender identity to parents and twenty states restrict bathroom access for transgender people in schools. Nineteen states restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Less than half of US states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Congress has failed to enact comprehensive federal protections for LGBT people in education, housing, public accommodations, and federally funded programs.” 

In his introduction, Bolopion mused who will defend human rights in the face of the US “undermining the global human rights system”. 

“Despite rhetorical flourishes, many governments treat rights and the rule of law as a hindrance, rather than a benefit, to security and economic growth,” the executive said. 

“The European Union, Canada, and Australia appear to hold back out of fear of antagonizing the US and China. Others are weakened by the way political parties displaying illiberal tendencies have skewed their domestic politics and discourse away from a rights-respecting approach. In many parts of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, many voters gladly accept limits on the rights of “others,” whether immigrants, women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, or other marginalized communities. 

“But as history shows, would-be autocrats never stop at ‘others’.”