Canada reaffirms it will resettle LGBTQ Afghans
The Canadian government on Dec. 31 once again said it will resettle LGBTQ Afghans in the country.
Reuters reported a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser did not say how many LGBTQ Afghans will be resettled in Canada, but said they would have “been referred by a third-party aid organization.”
The spokesperson also told Reuters the Canadian government will allow upwards of 230 female judges and their relatives who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of the country to settle in Canada. They are expected to arrive in Canada this year, but the spokesperson did not provide a specific timeline.
The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15 after it entered Kabul, the country’s capital.
A Taliban judge in July said the group would once again execute people if it were to return to power in Afghanistan.
The Canadian government previously said it would offer refuge to LGBTQ Afghans.
Two groups of LGBTQ Afghans who Rainbow Railroad, a Canada-based group, helped evacuate from Afghanistan arrived in the U.K. last fall. Some of the 50 Afghan human rights activists who Taylor Hirschberg, a researcher at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health who is also a Hearst Foundation scholar, has been able to help leave the country since the Taliban regained control of it are LGBTQ.
Rainbow Railroad is one of the many advocacy groups that has urged the Biden administration to do more to help LGBTQ Afghans who remain in the country.