Transgender people in El Salvador experience significant discrimination in daily life because there is no procedure for legal gender recognition, Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS said in a report released today. The Legislative Assembly should comply with a recent Supreme Court ruling and create a simple, efficient procedure to allow trans people to accurately reflect their self-declared gender identity on identity documents.
The 40-page report, “‘We Just Want to Live Our Lives’: El Salvador’s Need for Legal Gender Recognition,” exposes the pervasive discrimination that trans people experience due to a mismatch between their gender and their identity documents. The researchers focused on discrimination in four key areas: health, employment, voting, and banking. Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS found that a lack of accurate documents, often in combination with anti-trans bias, seriously impedes the realization of these rights for trans people.
“El Salvador’s Supreme Court has made patently clear that trans people have a right to their identity, and now the Legislative Assembly should comply with the ruling and ensure the rights of trans people,” said Cristian González Cabrera, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Without such legislation, trans people will continue to be disadvantaged in society, exacerbated by the generalized violence and discrimination they face in all aspects of life.”
In February 2022, the constitutional chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme Court ruled that the constitution prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and gave the legislature one year to create a procedure so that trans people can change their names in identity documents. To fully comply with international human rights standards and minimize discrimination, the Legislative Assembly should also allow trans people to modify the gender markers in their documents, via a simple, efficient, and inexpensive administrative procedure based on self-declaration.
To understand and document the harm related to a lack of legal gender recognition in El Salvador, Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS interviewed 43 transgender people in San Salvador, San Luis Talpa, Santa Ana, Santa Tecla, La Unión, and Zacatecoluca, as well as remotely.
In August 2021, lawmakers, in collaboration with trans organizations, introduced a draft Gender Identity Law that would create a legal gender recognition procedure, but members of the parliamentary Committee on Women and Gender Equality have not yet discussed it. In May 2021, the same committee blocked a similar bill introduced in 2018 in the previous legislature, along with 29 other bills on various other subjects calling them “not in accordance with reality.” Trans activists sharply criticized the move.
Most trans people interviewed told researchers that they experienced discrimination when they visited public healthcare facilities. They said that clinic staff exposed them as transgender by calling out their legal names in waiting rooms, subjected them to onerous questioning about their identities, and humiliated and mocked them.
People interviewed also described their experiences seeking jobs, with potential employers realizing the interviewees were trans when they looked at their documents. In some cases, potential employers explicitly told trans people they would not be hired because they are transgender.
Most of the trans people interviewed said that they faced obstacles accessing bank deposits and remittances from family living abroad, with bank employees questioning their identity because it didn’t match their documents.
Many of the people interviewed said they faced no impediment to their right to vote in the February 2021 elections. But two trans women said that they were not allowed to vote because their identity document did not match their gender, while several others said they were allowed to vote but faced questioning that left them feeling humiliated.
A growing number of countries in Latin America have created procedures for legal gender recognition, such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Uruguay, providing for simple administrative processes based on self-declaration. The president of neighboring Honduras recently announced that country would make the necessary reforms to allow for this right, in compliance with a 2021 Inter-American Court of Human Rights landmark ruling in a case involving Honduras.
In 2017, the Inter-American Court, which is charged with interpreting the American Convention on Human Rights, affirmed that states must establish simple and efficient legal gender recognition procedures based on self-identification, without invasive and stigmatizing requirements.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which El Salvador is also a party, provides for equal civil and political rights for all, everyone’s right to recognition before the law, and the right to privacy. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in charge of interpreting the ICCPR, has called on governments to guarantee the rights of transgender people, including the right to legal recognition of their gender.
In 2017, the Salvadoran government acknowledged in a report that LGBT people face “torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, excessive use of force, illegal and arbitrary arrests and other forms of abuse, much of it committed even by public security agents.” A 2021 Human Rights Watch reportconfirmed the Salvadoran government’s assessment and found that social and economic marginalization further increase the risk of violence, making trans people especially vulnerable to abuse.
“El Salvador has a historic debt to the trans community, which the creation of a legal gender recognition procedure can begin to address,” said Bianka Rodríguez, executive director of COMCAVIS TRANS. “We will continue to be objects of violence and discrimination in society until our self-determination, dignity, and freedom are recognized.”
The soccer governing body, FIFA, knew this in 2010, when it awarded Qatar the football tournament, one of the world’s most widely viewed sporting events. FIFA’s own governing statutes, in force at the time, ban LGBT discrimination of the kind Qatar enshrines in its national laws, and FIFA’s due diligence to enforce its own policies around the world has been ineffective.
In 2016, FIFA adopted the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which require it to “avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts.” It requires FIFA to take adequate measures for the “prevention, mitigation, and remediation” of human rights impacts.
To meet this responsibility for the Qatar World Cup, FIFA should have introduced concrete policies and a human rights due diligence process with regular reporting. But less than five months ahead of the football tournament, and despite FIFA’s recent celebration of Pride month, it is clear that it is failing to live up to its promises.
In March, an international coalition of groups noted FIFA’s and Qatar’s lack of progress in implementing civil society recommendations on LGBT rights made to the country’s Supreme Committee, including legal reform and free expression guarantees.
But despite Qatar’s dismal human rights record, including around the rights of migrant workers, severe restrictions on free expression and peaceful assembly, state policies that discriminate and facilitate violence against women, and a repressive environment against LGBT residents and visitors, Qatar remains the tournament host and has not changed its ways.
In 2020, Qatar assured prospective visitors that the kingdom will welcome LGBT visitors and that fans will be free to fly the rainbow flag at the games. But it begged the question: what about the rights of LGBT residents of Qatar?
Suggestions that Qatar should make an exception for outsiders are implicit reminders that Qatari authorities do not believe that its LGBT residents deserve basic rights. It risks erasing the lived repressive reality of LGBT residents of Qatar.
On May 20, at a news conference in Berlin, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, responded to a question about the rights of LGBT visitors by repeating that, “We [Qatar] welcome everybody, but we also expect and want people to respect our culture.”
Qatar’s steady reference to “culture” to deny LGBT people’s rights deflects responsibility away from abusive state systems. “Culture” should not be used as a cover for discourse, practices, and legislation that have effectively excluded content related to sexual orientation and gender identity from the public sphere.
Qatari authorities censor mainstream media related to sexual orientation and gender identity. And people who have experienced government repression have told us that the government surveils and arrests LGBT people based on their online activity.
In April, Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Al Ansari, a senior Interior Ministry official overseeing security for the football tournament, said that rainbow flags may be confiscated from prospective visitors “for their protection.” Al Ansari added: “Reserve the room together, sleep together — this is something that’s not in our concern.”
It certainly should be a concern. A recent survey by a Scandinavian media group showed that 3 of the 69 hotels on FIFA’s official list of recommended accommodations would deny entry to same-sex couples. It found that only 33 did not object to booking same-sex couples, while 20 others said that “they would accommodate same-sex couples as long as they did not publicly show that they were gay.” FIFA responded, warning that it will terminate any contracts with hotels that discriminated against same-sex couples.
Qatar’s hardening position may be connected to its improving geopolitical standing in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially in Europe where Qatar’s liquefied natural gas is viewed as an alternative to Russian energy.
Journalists, human rights organizations, and football associations have widely criticized allowing Qatar to host the World Cup in the first place. FIFA has a responsibility to hold host authorities accountable to an international rights-respecting standard, including on LGBT rights.
Long-term legal reform should prioritize the realities of LGBT residents of Qatar, including by introducing legislation that protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, online and offline. The Qatari government should repeal all laws that criminalize consensual sexual relations outside of marriage—before the World Cup begins this fall.
Lebanese authorities have unlawfully banned peaceful gatherings of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, theCoalition to Defend Freedom of Expression in Lebanonsaid today. The ban violates LGBTI people’sconstitutional rights to equality, free expression, and free assembly and Lebanon’s obligations under international law and comes during an economic crisis and a worsening climate for the rights of LGBTI people in the country.
On June 24, 2022, Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi sent an urgentletter to the directorates of Internal Security and General Security instructing them to ban any gatherings aimed at “promoting sexual perversion.” The letter includes vague and overly broad grounds, citing no legal basis, to determine that such gatherings violate “customs and traditions” and “principles of religion.” The interior minister said this decision was in response to calls to his ministry from religious groups to “reject the spread of this phenomenon.” The letter is understood to refer to gatherings by LGBTI groups, citing a message circulated on social media that detailed plans for activities organized by LGBTI activists.
“The Interior Ministry’s unlawful decision to ban events promoting LGBTI rights alarmingly indicates the deterioration of human rights and freedoms in Lebanon,” said Tarek Zeidan, executive director of Helem. “The ban tells LGBTI people that the government is willing to throw away their fundamental rights if others want them to.”
A wave of anti-LGBTI hate speech on social media byindividuals and somereligious groups, followed the ministry’s letter, includingincitement to violence, death threats, andcalls to ban the scheduled events by force. Several parliament members also made statements condemning the “promotion of homosexuality.” Activists who had planned and publicly announced a peaceful march on June 26 against the ban said they indefinitelypostponed the protest due to threats of violent counter-protests and fears that the security forces would not protect them.
The same day the ministry sent its letter, officers from General Security, Internal Security, and the Internal Security’s information branch questioned both LGBTI and feminist activists at a cultural center about a planned private seven-person workshop, telling them to cancel the event or apply for a permit. Since then, activists said, they have received repeated calls from the Internal Security’s information branch inviting them “for a chat over coffee,” which the activists declined, and indicating that they were monitoring the activists’ social media accounts.
Activists said the security forces attempted to justify their interference by claiming that the organizers “failed to obtain prior approval from the authorities,” citing the 1911 Lebanese Law on Public Meetings. However, that law only applies to public meetings. The security forces’ reasoning contravenesinternational guidance on freedom of assembly under human rights law, which excludes notification requirements where the impact of the gathering can be expected to be minimal, which would be the case for a small workshop held in private.
The interior ministry’s decision comes at a time when more than 80 percent of the country’s residents do not have access to basic rights, including health, education, and an adequate standard of living, according to the United Nations.
Since 2017, Lebanese security forces haveregularly interfered with human rights events related to gender and sexuality. On September 29, 2018, General Security forces raided and unlawfullyattempted to shut down an annual conference that advances LGBTI rights andissued entry bans for the non-Lebanese participants. In 2021, the State Council, the highest administrative court, annulled the entry bans and stated that participation in a conference related to LGBTI rights falls under freedom of expression guaranteed by article 13 of the Lebanese Constitution.
Such disruptions are contrary to Lebanese jurisprudence on same-sex conduct as well as international human rights law. In July 2018, a Lebanese appeals courtissued a groundbreaking ruling that same-sex conduct is not unlawful, dismissing charges brought against people under article 534 of the penal code, which criminalizes “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature.” The judges denounced the law’s discriminatory intrusion into people’s private lives and declared that homosexuality is not “unnatural.” The ruling followed four judgments from lower courts since 2009 declining to convict gay and transgender people under article 534.
In 2021, during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Lebanon accepted recommendations to ensure the rights to peaceful assembly and expression for LGBTI people. Lebanon’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression “within the limits established by law.” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Lebanon ratified in 1972, provides that everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association. The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), which interprets the covenant, has madeclearthat it is prohibited to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity in upholding any of the rights protected by the treaty, including freedom of expression, assembly, and association.
“The interior minister should immediately annul this discriminatory and unlawful decision and instruct the security agencies to robustly protect LGBTI people from violence and abuse,” Coalition Coordinator Najah Itani said. “Instead of using the rights of LGBTI people as a scapegoat, Lebanese authorities should be directing their attention to carrying out reforms to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis.”
Members of the coalition: Act for Human Rights (ALEF) Amnesty International Alternative Media Syndicate DARAJ Media Helem Human Rights Watch Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) Legal Agenda Maharat Foundation Media Association for Peace (MAP) Samir Kassir Foundation SEEDS for Legal Initiatives Social Media Exchange (SMEX) The Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH)
The High Court of Justice for Antigua and Barbuda struck down discriminatory legal provisions that criminalized same-sex relations in a landmark ruling on July 5, 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. The court found that such laws violated the right to liberty, protection of the law, freedom of expression, protection of personal privacy, and protection from discrimination.
Antigua and Barbuda’s Sexual Offences Act of 1995 sanctioned “buggery,” defined as “sexual intercourse per anum by a male person with a male person or by a male person with a female person,” with up to 15 years in prison. The act also penalized “serious indecency,” defined as “an act, other than sexual intercourse (whether natural or unnatural), by a person involving the use of genital organ for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire,” with up to five years’ imprisonment. “Serious indecency” explicitly excluded heterosexual sex.
“The High Court’s landmark ruling is a beacon for LGBT people in Antigua and Barbuda and other Caribbean nations, whose rights and freedoms have been stymied by these punitive laws,” said Cristian González Cabrera, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Laws criminalizing same-sex conduct, which are in still in force in eight other Caribbean nations, reinforce and tacitly permit discrimination, violence, and prejudice against LGBT people.”
The High Court held that Antigua and Barbuda’s constitutional provision prohibiting sex discrimination also prohibits discrimination based on “gender identity, sexual character, and sexual orientation,” which may expand nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people in various areas of life.
The court’s decision follows civil society efforts to challenge anti-LGBT legislation in the Eastern Caribbean region, spearheaded in part by the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality(ECADE). Claimants in this case included a gay man, whom the court recognized as being affected by the discriminatory laws, and Women Against Rape, a civil society organization from Antigua and Barbuda that provides information, education, general support, and direct services to the LGBT community.
In the Caribbean, the Belize Supreme Court became the first Commonwealth Caribbean Court to hold that laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy were unconstitutional in 2018. Trinidad and Tobago’s High Court followed suit later that year.
However, eight countries in the Caribbean still have versions of “buggery” and “serious indecency” law on the books – relics of the British colonial period. Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are all are outliers in the Western Hemisphere, where most countries have decriminalized same-sex conduct. At least 68 countries in the world still criminalize gay sex.
In a December 2020 decision, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Jamaica to repeal laws prohibiting consensual same-sex conduct, but the country has yet to do so.
While laws criminalizing LGBT intimacy in the Caribbean are rarely enforced, they are broad in scope, are vaguely worded, and serve to legitimize bias and hostility toward LGBT people. A 2018 Human Rights Watch report documented discrimination, violence, and prejudice against LGBT people in seven island nations in the Eastern Caribbean, including Antigua and Barbuda.
Matters of sexual orientation and gender identity, including consensual sexual relations, are protected under the human right to privacy and the human right to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful interference with, or attacks on, one’s private and family life and one’s reputation or dignity. Criminalizing same-sex intimacy violates these international norms and standards, as affirmed by the UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Organization of American States has urged countries “to adopt the necessary measures to prevent, punish, and eradicate” discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Core treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the American Convention on Human Rights; and a variety of other international instruments have been interpreted by courts and authoritative treaty bodies to ban such discrimination.
“Countries in the Caribbean and beyond that still criminalize same-sex conduct should follow in the footsteps of Antigua and Barbuda and repeal all legislation that discriminates on the basis of sexual and gender identity,” González said. “The Americas should become a region where consensual intimacy and identities are never criminalized, and LGBT people enjoy the same respect for their rights as everyone else.”
From the North American tundra to the South American Patagonia, an estimated 852 million people live in countries with marriage equality. Despite these high numbers, the Americas have a way to go before becoming a true beacon for same-sex couples. Countries with marriage equality should harness their remarkable advances thus far and urge the rest of the region to join the America’s growing marriage equality bloc.
Canada became the first country in the Western Hemisphere to enact legislation recognizing same-sex marriages nationwide in 2005, after the Netherlands, which was the first to do so in the world in 2001. South American countries followed suit, with Argentina in 2010 and Uruguay in 2013. Thanks to a series of important judicial decisions in the region soon after, four more—Brazil in 2013, Mexico and the United States in 2015, and Colombia in 2016—affirmed marriage equality.
Then, in 2017, a landmark opinion by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights confirmed that all rights applicable to the “family relationships” of heterosexual couples extend to same-sex couples. This opinion provides an authoritative interpretation of the American Convention on Human Rights for the 23 countries in the Americas that have ratified the treaty.
Judicial rulings in favor of marriage equality in Ecuador in 2019 and Costa Rica in 2020 explicitly cited the Inter-American opinion. Earlier this year, Chile became the latest country in the region to recognize the equal rights of same-sex couples.
All these countries have acknowledged that in such a diverse region, the rights to privacy, equality, and non-discrimination are critical to fostering societal harmony. These universal values are reflected in the Inter-American Court’s rich jurisprudence on privacy and diversity, including in 2017. These societal and legal norms are why the Americas have arguably the most advanced family diversity standards in the world.
But not all is well in the region, including in countries with marriage equality. Some conservative and religious actors, including in the United States and Costa Rica, continue to undermine the legitimacy of marriage equality. Ecuador bars same-sex couples from adopting children. And LGBT people in, for example, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico continue to suffer high levels of violence and discrimination that marriage equality has not helped to deter.
Against this backdrop, countries with marriage equality cannot rest on their laurels; instead, their governments and officials should continue to promote the principles of equality and non-discrimination for LGBT people through public statements and education campaigns.
And then there are the 25 countries in the region that do not have marriage equality. Some, like Honduras and Paraguay, have laws that explicitly ban same-sex marriage. In nine countries, all in the Anglophone Caribbean, consensual same-sex conduct remains criminalized – a relic of British colonialism – making the immediate prospect of marriage equality more challenging.
But activists haven’t stopped fighting for the equal rights of same-sex couples. Human rights lawyers have presented test cases before the courts in Panama, as well as before the politicizedcourts in Boliviaand Venezuela, aiming to set precedents in their countries. Despite setbacks, as in Peru, whose constitutional court recently issued two misguided rulings against same-sex couples, activists have rightly targeted national courts when their legislatures have left much to be desired.
Their efforts may be bolstered by potential positive changes coming to certain countries without marriage equality. The new Honduran President, Xiomara Castro, has signaled support for LGBT rights, including marriage equality. And while human rights should not be put to a popular vote, Barbados (an Anglophone Caribbean country where consensual same-sex conduct is criminalized) and Cuba have announced referendums on same-sex marriage.
This current lack of uniformity on the principles of privacy, equality, and non-discrimination in the region creates a dichotomy of pro- and anti-LGBT countries impacting same-sex couples. Some may be able to marry in their home country but not have their marriage recognized when they travel abroad. Others may not be able to marry at home and may only be able to do so if they choose to emigrate. For a more harmonized Americas, governments should rally around their regional achievements that expand human rights and the potential to set the bar for marriage equality in the world.
Countries with marriage equality can play an important role as champions of the issue, and some have already risen to the challenge. Argentina currently co-chairs the United Nations LGBTI Core Groupand the Equal Rights Coalition. Both groups aim to expand the rights of sexual and gender minorities around the world. Latin American countries have also played a significant role in championing various United Nations LGBT resolutions, including leading calls for the creation of an Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The United States and Canada have taken steps to advance LGBT rights through their foreign policy.
Whatever the initiative, governments should center marriage equality as a key element of non-discrimination; they should share information and good practices on political and legal strategies with their counterparts striving for marriage equality in their countries.
Five times as many people in the Americas enjoy marriage equality as those who lack this essential protection. But for 165 million in countries where discrimination and disparate treatment is written into law or imposed as a matter of policy, the burgeoning bloc supporting equal treatment under the law serves as a model for the rest of the region, and for the world.
June marks the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots over the treatment of LGBT people by New York City police, which was commemorated a year later with a protest march. In countries where it is possible, pride marches and parades are now ubiquitous, including in South Africa, which held its first in 1990.
Pride month is a time to reflect on progress but also ongoing challenges in advancing the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Many countries in Africa have poor reputations when it comes to LGBT rights. The anthropologist Zethu Matebeni has parodied this uniformly gloomy view in a piece entitled How Not to Write About Queer South Africa. But the same volume also highlights the ways in which sexual and gender minorities are marginalised by “African political, religious and traditional leaders”.
When it comes to the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Africa, the past year has been a mixed bag.
In the first half of 2021, instances of violence against LGBT people in Senegal were reported by rights groups there, while police in Kenya came under pressure to properly investigate the brutal murder of a non-binary lesbian in Karatina, north of Nairobi.
South Africa, notwithstanding strong legal protections, continues to battle violence directed against LGBT people. In 2021, at least 24 people were reportedly murdered in bias-motivated attacks. The Ministry of Justice is revising its policy and approach to combating systemic gender-based violence in the country.
Of the 69 countries that criminalize same-sex relations, 33 are in Africa. In most cases, these laws are remnants of colonial rule, and the vague wording of these prohibitions, such as “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” resonate with the decorum of that era. Although the examples are few, there has been some progress over the last year on the protection of LGBT rights in Africa.
In November, the Botswana Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision to decriminalise consensual same-sex conduct. The court found that the Penal Code provisions outlawing “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” were unconstitutional as they violate the right to privacy, the right to liberty, security of person, and equal protection under the law, and the right to freedom from discrimination. Judges on the Botswana high court had in 2019 said that these archaic laws belong “in the museum or the archives”.
Angola’s new penal code, revised from 1886, came into effect in January 2021 and no longer criminalises same-sex conduct. The law has a non-discrimination provision that includes ‘sexual orientation’ as a protected ground.
All former Portuguese colonies in Africa have now decriminalised same-sex conduct. Indeed, Cape Verde is a member of the UN LGBTI Core Group, a network of states seeking to advance the rights of LGBTI people within the UN. In 2020 Gabon abandoned its brief experiment with criminalising same-sex conduct when its parliament reversed a 2019 law that had criminalised same-sex conduct for the first time.
But legal opposition and challenges to these archaic laws are increasing, if not always successfully.
In 2019, Kenya’s high court upheld that country’s sodomy laws, arguing that they were not discriminatory as the laws applied to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Activists have appealed the decision, but no court date has been set.
In Mauritius, three cases are challenging the constitutionality of a law that punishes consensual same-sex conduct with up to five years in prison. At the same time, Mauritius’ Equal Opportunities Act 2008 protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation, including in employment, education, and accommodation.
While many countries with colonial-era sodomy laws do not actively enforce them, or do so only rarely, Cameroon actively enforces section 347 of its penal code, which punishes “sexual relations between persons of the same sex”, with up to five years in prison. At least 27 people were arrested in Cameroon in the first quarter of 2021, and in a similar period this year, at least 11 victims of mob violence were themselves detained for alleged consensual same-sex conduct and gender non-conformity. In May 2021, two transgender women received prison sentences of five years each under the law that forbids same-sex relations.
In February 2021, Tunisian security forces targeted activists working on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity at protests, through arbitrary arrest, physical assault, and threats.
Egypt continues to arrest, detain, and torture LGBT people, as noted in a joint statement delivered in March 2021 on behalf of 32 countries at the UN Human Rights Council condemning Egypt’s human rights record. Last July, five men accused of homosexual conduct were arrested in Kano State, Nigeria by a religious police unit that enforces Sharia, or Islamic law.
In 2016 Ghana showed signs of tolerance when its ambassador to the UN, Sammie Pesky Eddico, affirmed at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that “Ghana’s Constitution prohibits discrimination of all kinds” and he did not oppose the appointment of the independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. In Accra, Ghana’s capital, some police were trained to interact sensitively with LGBT people and the human rights commission instituted a reporting mechanism that allowed LGBT people to report abuse and discrimination without revealing their identities.
But this informal truce was broken in 2021. In February, religious and political leaders forced an LGBT centre to close in Accra. Then in May, police arrested 21 people attending a human rights workshop in Ho city, Volta region. And in August, lawmakers proposed a bill (still under review) so extreme that simply saying you are gay or lesbian could land you in mandatory conversion therapy or prison for up to 10 years.
Same-sex conduct is not illegal in Rwanda, but authorities there rounded up and arbitrarily detained people regarded as socially undesirable, including over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Freedoms of expression and association have been tested during the past year. Despite decriminalising same-sex relationships in 2015, Mozambique has still not allowed a prominent LGBT rights group, Lambda, to officially register as a non-governmental group. In neighbouring Eswatini, the high court asserted that LGBT people, like anyone else, had rights to freedom of association and expression but nevertheless upheld a decision to deny the registration request of Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities, a local LGBT rights group.
Freedom of expression was curtailed in Kenya when the Film Classification Board banned the documentary I am Samue’, on grounds that the film promoted same-sex marriage. The film follows a classic theme — the relationship between parents and their son, as he navigates a budding romance with another man in a rural setting. This ban came hot on the heels of the 2020 ban by the same board of the narrative film Rafiki, a love story about two young women whose fathers are political opponents. Rafiki was briefly unbanned and broadcast for a week in Kenya, to meet a requirement for it to be considered for an award at Cannes.
In recent years, as LGBT rights have advanced within the UN system, the African Group has acted with some uniformity in opposing these advances, including by leading the charge against the appointment of an independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. But this uniformity has given way to a more nuanced and varied approach. When opposition to the appointment of the independent expert reached fever pitch at the UN General Assembly in 2016, the South African representative, Ambassador Jerry Matjila delivered a passionate speech defending the expert’s mandate and reflecting on the anti-apartheid struggle: “After years of struggle our people black and white, straight and non-straight came together to bury discrimination once and for all.”
Cape Verde and Seychelles actively supported the mandate. In a sign that uniform opposition lagged, some African states abstained from voting at various points in the process, while others simply did not vote at all. South Africa also just recently joined the group of friends at the UN Human Rights Council supporting the renewal of the independent expert’s mandate.
However, within the African regional human rights system, the African Union used the pretext of objecting to the observer status granted to the Coalition of African Lesbians to limit the autonomy of the African Commission, berating the body for acting contrary to African values by recognising the lesbian group.
Pride events had been organised in Uganda since 2012, but in 2016, Ugandan police raided an LGBTI pride event and assaulted participants, and was cancelled in 2017, under threat of arrest. And when activists attempted to revive the tradition in 2019, they were again met with threats of arrest and violence and at the time decided it would not be safe to hold future events. Despite being denied registration, Rock of Hope, the LGBT group in Eswatini, has organised Pride events since 2018 in the face of considerable opposition. In 2021, Rwandan activists organised sporting and social events to mark pride for the first time. Others have turned to virtual events, such as the three-day event Pride Afrique, organised by a Nigerian storyteller, Kehinde Bademosi.
Leaders in Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and Tanzania have in recent years initiated vocal attacks against LGBT people. One way of looking at this is to recognise a pattern of stoking moral panics to detract attention from pressing social and economic problems and to defect political opposition. It is also true that it is a measure of the success of activists on the continent, who have increased visibility and raised awareness about LGBT issues. In this respect, the scale of opposition is also a testament to the resilience and tenacity of a growing social movement throughout Africa.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and other asylum seekers fleeing persecution in their home countries experience abusive and dangerous conditions in Mexicowhen not allowed to cross the border to seek asylum, Human Rights Watch said today.
Two policies implemented by the administration of former President Donald J. Trump – the Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly known as “Remain in Mexico,” and the Title 42 summary expulsion policy – continue to be used under the Biden administration to block access to the asylum system for most people who try to cross into the US to seek safety. This includes people at a greater risk of harm in Mexico because of their particular conditions or identities, including gender identity or expression, disability, and age who should be entitled to an exception from expulsion. US authorities should stop sending asylum seekers to Mexico or expelling them to their countries of origin and should quickly process people waiting at the border to seek asylum who are at particular risk of abuse.
“The United States should restore access to asylum for all, but so long as Biden is blocked from doing so, he should at the very least immediately use existing exceptions for at-risk asylum seekers, including LGBT people,” said Ari Sawyer, US border researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Continuing to summarily expel LGBT and HIV-positive asylum seekers to Mexico or their country of origin places their lives at serious risk.”
US government protocols include exceptions for asylum seekers at a greater risk, and President Joe Biden has promised US agents will apply them. But border agents have broad discretion to grant or deny exceptions, and there are no clear consequences for agents who fail to do so or checks to ensure that exceptions are being handled properly, Human Rights Watch found.
Despite a recognition by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that LGBT people may face “increased risk of harm in Mexico due to their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Human Rights Watch documented cases in which border officials returned LGBT asylum seekers, including those with HIV, to Mexico under both abusive anti-asylum policies.
Human Rights Watch conducted 29 interviews with asylum seekers, migrants’ rights groups, and United Nations agency officials in April and May 2022, in person and by phone, in Ciudad Juárez and Mexico City, and in El Paso, Texas. Human Rights Watch undertook research in coordination with Casa de Colores, a US-Mexican organization working to provide shelter and legal services to LGBT asylum seekers.
LGBT asylum seekers told Human Rights Watch they had been expelled even after expressing their fear of returning and telling border agents they identified as LGBT, had HIV, or had experienced abuse related to their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation. They also described serious abuse during their journeys to the border, including by Mexican officials.
One woman interviewed fled to the United States from Honduras, where she previously faced targeted violence for living openly as a lesbian woman, including one incident when someone cut her face, leaving a large scar. Near the US border, people she believed to be members of a Mexican cartel kidnapped her and forcibly took nude photos of her.
She said that when she explained to US border officials that she was a lesbian seeking asylum from Honduras and that she had also experienced abuse in Mexico, agents laughed at her. She said one agent told her, “I don’t care what’s happening to you.” She was expelled to Honduras, and immediately fled again to the US border, this time afraid to seek asylum for fear of being returned to Honduras again.
Previous Human Rights Watch research has highlighted the risk of illegal and arbitrary arrest, torture, extrajudicial execution, sexual assault, and enforced disappearance for LGBT people in Central America.
Although the Biden administration has moved to terminate both Title 42 and Remain in Mexico, several US state officials have filed suits in federal court, resulting in orders to keep the programs in place during the litigation.
A federal district court judge has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from ending the expulsion policy, which was first issued at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic against the recommendation of top public health experts. There is no evidence that people seeking asylum pose a public health threat to the United States, and the expulsion policy cannot be justified on public health grounds.
Though the initial Title 42 was issued without “notice and comment” procedures, allowing a period for the public to comment, the judge found that the Biden administration should have gone through these administrative consultation processes to end Title 42. Some US lawmakers have proposed legislationthat would keep summary expulsions in place until pandemic public health measures are terminated.
Asylum seekers and other migrants sent to Mexico are often unable to support themselves or access basic services such as shelter, food, water, safe transportation, or health care, and have no meaningful recourse for abuses from criminal cartels or Mexican authorities. In the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, Human Rights Watch found that asylum seekers and other migrants are systematically targeted for kidnapping, extortion, rape, and other violence, by both government officials and criminals.
LGBT people constitute one particularly at-risk group of asylum seekers, among others, including people with disabilities and chronic health conditions, Black and Indigenous asylum seekers, asylum seekers who do not speak Spanish as a first language, and families traveling with children.
LGBT asylum seekers and asylum seekers with HIV described additional discrimination and abuse as well as barriers to accessing essential services, including life-saving antiretroviral therapy and gender-affirming health care, services that include medical and mental health services, continuation of hormonal treatment, and other services for transgender and nonbinary people that are crucial to their health and well-being.
Human Rights Watch asked Mexico’s National Migration Institute for more information on allegations made against immigration agents. The agency responded on May 31 and said they were unaware of any reports of such abuses, were not able to investigate them, and that the Mexican constitution prohibits such behavior.
The United States has an obligation to protect refugees from returning to a threat of persecution, ill-treatment, and threats to life and safety, Human Rights Watch said. President Biden should ensure that the United States complies with its domestic and international legal obligations to respect the right to seek asylum.
“LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive asylum seekers face grave risks to their health and safety from the time they flee their countries, often after years of targeted abuse, to when they arrive at the US border,” said Susana Coreas, director of Casa de Colores. “Biden has rightly committed to protecting LGBTQ+ refugees. He should follow through on that promise and ensure all asylum seekers are welcomed with dignity at the border.”
Abuse at the US Border
Human Rights Watch spoke with 20 LGBT asylum seekers in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, who hoped to cross into the United States and be allowed to seek protection. Nearly all reported they were not approaching the border or trying to ask US officials for asylum because they feared they would be expelled to Mexico or their country of origin. They said they preferred to wait for the Biden administration to restore access to asylum or for legal aid to make a request for exemption from the expulsion policy. Four asylum seekers reported that they had previously been expelled to Mexico or their country of origin without an asylum screening.
When Adolfo H. and Gerardo C., a gay couple fleeing Cuba and El Salvador, respectively, who like others interviewed are not identified by their real names for their protection, tried to seek asylum at the US border in February 2022, they were expelled by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to Mexico. They had previously experienced extortion several times by Mexican immigration agents, who stopped them at various points along their journey and demanded payment to continue. At the time, they were not yet married. US officials told the couple that Adolfo could stay and seek asylum in the United States because he is from Cuba but that his partner would be expelled, even though border officials had the authority to allow both men in. Instead, they gave them the option of being separated or of being expelled together. They said that while they were in custody, US officials told them to stop holding hands or touching one another. Faced with the prospect of being separated again, they got married in Mexico, hoping that given another chance, they would be allowed to seek asylum together.
José M., a gay man who fled death threats in Honduras based on his sexual orientation, said he had tried to cross the border in March 2021. He was afraid to stay in Mexico, where he said he has experienced extortion and violence at the hands of Mexican police and discrimination at shelters. On his way to the border, Mexican immigration agents stopped the bus he was on and made everyone get off, he said, forcing each migrant to pay a bribe of about US$25 each or be expelled from the country. He also said that because of his gender expression and sexual orientation, some shelters did not allow him to stay there, leaving him to sleep on the streets. In Ciudad Juarez, the shelter operators told him it was a sin to be gay and said that if he and other LGBT asylum seekers didn’t go to religious service, they would be forced to leave. He said he had told US border officials that he is gay and that he was afraid to be sent to Mexico, but hours later CBP agents sent him to Mexico. Before expelling him, US officials made him throw away everything he had, including the few clothes he had. US border agents typically throw away migrants’ possessions, including items such as medicine, baby blankets, important identity documents, documents needed to prove an asylum claim, and memorabilia that hold sentimental value, claiming the practice is for health and safety reasons.
The Biden administration has also recently placed some LGBT people in the Remain in Mexico program, officials with the International Organization of Migration (IOM) told Human Rights Watch, sending them to Ciudad Juárez despite the exemption for LGBT people and others at particular risk of abuse. IOM operates a shelter for newly expelled or returned asylum seekers to test them for Covid-19 and provide quarantine before they move on to other shelters. IOM officials said LGBT asylum seekers had been sent to Mexico even after they explicitly told US border agents about their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Abuses in Country of Origin
LGBT asylum seekers interviewed reported serious abuses in their countries of origin, including rape, assault, death threats, extortion, and forced disappearances or killings of romantic partners and friends.
Juan C., a transgender man, fled Honduras after he received death threats related to his gender identity and activism in an LGBT rights organization. He said that several LGBT people he has known have been killed or disappeared there. He said that the police detained him without charges on several occasions. In 2021, two men raped him and his girlfriend after saying, “Who is the man and who is the woman in the relationship?” and saying that the couple were transgender and lesbian only because they had not had sex with a man. “They said, ‘We are going to make you women,’” Juan said.
Eduardo O., a gay man from Honduras, said he fled the country shortly after gang members beat his romantic partner to death. Gang members had previously threatened to kill Eduardo. Then in June 2021, the same gang members attacked him and his partner while they were together. While Eduardo was able to escape, he said, his partner could not. He said he reported his partner’s murder to the police, who did not investigate.
Kayla R., a transgender woman from Guatemala, said she had to flee and seek asylum after the gangs who were extorting the business where she worked beat her when she and the store owner couldn’t pay, leaving prominent scars on her face. On another occasion, gang members beat her in the street while using anti-LGBT slurs. They left a large gash and scar on her head.
Discrimination and Abuse in Mexico
Human Rights Watch also documented serious abuse and discrimination against LGBT asylum seekers in Mexico. Several LGBT asylum seekers said that Mexican immigration agents, police, and National Guard soldiers targeted them for extortion. Other asylum seekers experienced kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, and other physical violence by both Mexican government officials and criminals.
Brenda F., a transgender woman, fled El Salvador in 2017 after gang members who wanted her to sell drugs beat and threatened to kill her. After applying for protection and living for a few years in Mexico, she said she was riding a bus from Monterrey to Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas in May 2020 when, at a checkpoint, immigration agents pulled her off the bus and took her into an office about 25 meters away. While another immigration agent stood watch outside the office, the agent questioned her about her destination and reason for traveling, she showed him an order from a doctor for laboratory tests. He accused her of lying and of wanting to cross into the United States and grabbed his genitalia, saying if she wouldn’t “give me what I want,” he could have two police officers expel her to Guatemala. Afterward, he told her that if she reported him, he had already taken a photo of her identification and would come after her. She said she knows other trans women who have experienced sexual assault at the hands of Mexican immigration agents.
Mariana L., a lesbian woman who fled Honduras in 2021, said she was kidnapped for ransom in January 2021 and held for over a week near the US-Mexico border by people she believed to be cartel members. They took her to a house in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, where she saw several other kidnapped migrants. She said they stole her passport and forcibly photographed her naked until her sister managed to pay a ransom of US$3,000. Her kidnappers would hit her to make her cry when they called her sister for the ransom money.
When Erika L., a lesbian woman, and Samuel B. and Martin G., gay brothers from El Salvador, arrived at the Mexico-Guatemala border in January 2022, a group of men kidnapped them. On the Mexican side of the border, the men raped Erika while beating her friends and forcing them to watch. They went to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), Mexico’s refugee authority, in Tapachula, Chiapas, where they applied for asylum in Mexico. COMAR gave them a document confirming that they were in the process of seeking asylum in Mexico, giving them legal status in Mexico. An immigration agent apprehended them outside the COMAR office as they left. When he saw their application documents, he tore them up, saying they were meaningless and sent them to a detention center. They were released and then took a bus to the US-Mexico border. They said Mexican immigration agents periodically stopped the bus and boarded it to extort them and other migrants, saying they had to pay if they wanted to continue their journey to the US border.
Kayla R., the transgender woman who fled Guatemala, said that in July 2021 Mexican state police in Piedras Negras robbed her and beat her with batons so badly that she was ultimately hospitalized and vomited blood. The police detained her and another transgender woman she was traveling with for two days without food and water and then turned them over to immigration agents, who sent them to an immigration detention facility. There, she said, a Mexican immigration agent told her she should report the crime, which would make her eligible for a one-year humanitarian visa, giving her legal status in Mexico. She said she would like to do so, and that the agent took down her information but never gave her any paperwork or began any immigration process. Instead, after she reported the crime, Mexican immigration agents returned her to Guatemala, where she had experienced brutal violence. She immediately fled again. While she was making her way back to the US border in March 2022, criminals threatened her with a machete and robbed her.
Six asylum seekers and migrant rights workers reported that some of the shelters in Ciudad Juárez that accepted LGBT asylum seekers subjected them to discriminatory treatment, including the shelter where LGBT asylum seekers were forced to go to Christian religious services. Shelters in Ciudad Juárez are at capacity, meaning they would be homeless if they did not agree to go to the service. Some migrant shelters in Ciudad Juárez would not accept LGBT asylum seekers at all, migrant rights workers there said.
Accessing lifesaving health care for asylum seekers with HIV or other chronic illnesses was also difficult, asylum seekers said. All five HIV-positive asylum seekers interviewed, and one asylum seeker with diabetes and hypertension, said they had gone periods ranging from a few weeks to four months, without their necessary medication because they did not have any money or support.
Mari R., a transgender woman who is HIV positive and who fled Honduras after she refused to sell drugs for a gang whose members had raped and threatened to kill her, went without her antiretroviral medication in Mexico for four months. In April, with the support of Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción (DHIA), a local migrant rights organization, she was finally able to see a doctor, who told her that her condition had significantly worsened. The day after Human Rights Watch spoke to her, she was hospitalized.
Four transgender asylum seekers, as well as IOM officials and a local trans rights organization called Red Solidaria Trans, said that transgender asylum seekers have not had access to gender-affirming health care in Ciudad Juárez.
Brenda F., a transgender woman who fled after facing an attempted gang recruitment and death threats in El Salvador, said she had previously been taking hormones but that in Ciudad Juárez, she has not been able to access to gender-affirming hormone care, though she has repeatedly tried. “They always say they don’t offer that care, they can’t, or they don’t know how,” she said. Transgender people who take hormones to develop secondary sex characteristics consistent with their gender identity and expression experience a reversal of these physical traits when hormone therapy is stopped, which can cause distress among other symptoms. Brenda said she hasn’t had access to hormone care since October 2021 and that she is suffering from depression as a result. “I have asked for help getting my hormones and they have said they don’t offer that kind of support here [in Ciudad Juárez],” she said. “We are suffering marginalization in that way – hormone treatment is necessary, and they are denying us.”
Recommendations
To the Biden Administration
Continue and redouble efforts to end the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42 summary expulsions, including by initiating a “notice and comment” rulemaking process to end Title 42.
While these abusive policies remain in place, ensure that border agents do not to return at-risk asylum seekers under the Remain in Mexico program or expel them under the Title 42 summary expulsion policy. People at particular risk of harm include LGBT asylum seekers; those with HIV, disabilities, and chronic health conditions; Black and Indigenous asylum seekers; those who do not speak Spanish as a first language; and families traveling with children.
Take immediate steps to parole into the United States all LGBT asylum seekers and other asylum seekers at particular risk of harm who have previously been subjected to the Remain in Mexico program or the Title 42 summary expulsion policy.
Review regulations, Board of Immigration Appeals and Attorney General decisions, and policies and other guidance, rescinding or amending as appropriate to ensure consistency with the right to seek asylum and the right to protection from return to harm or threat of harm as defined in the Refugee Convention, the Convention against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Continue to increase the number of appropriately trained personnel – asylum officers, doctors, child-care specialists, mental health services professionals and other first responders – at the border using funds currently allocated toward immigration enforcement and detention.
Beyond initial screening of migrants, transfer humanitarian reception, including migrant processing and asylum functions, from CBP to a separate government agency, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), or groups with trauma-informed training and whose mission is to perform humanitarian services.
Take steps to ensure that LGBT asylum seekers and asylum seekers with HIV feel safe enough to self-identify while in the custody of CBP, including by ensuring that US officials affirmatively explain a policy of nondiscrimination and ask each migrant if they would like to share their gender identity and sexual orientation.
Investigate and discipline US border agents who wrongfully send LGBT asylum seekers and other particularly at-risk asylum seekers to Mexico or their countries of origin.
Work with Mexico and other governments to implement a holistic regional plan for access to protection and safe and dignified migration.
To the US Congress
Reject proposed legislation introduced by Sens. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) to keep Title 42 in place until after the government’s Covid-19 emergency declaration is terminated.
Enact legislation to end the Title 42 summary expulsion and Remain in Mexico policies.
To the Mexican Government
End the practice of accepting non-Mexican nationals sent to Mexico by US authorities under the Remain in Mexico and Title 42 summary expulsion policies.
Investigate abuses by Mexican immigration agents, including reports of extortion at immigration checkpoints, and take disciplinary action against any found to have been involved in such conduct.
Ensure that Mexican immigration agents do not expel people who may need international protection without due process and screening for fear of return to potential harm.
Oklahoma’s legislature has passed a bill that would ban transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Senate Bill 615 would require students in the state’s public schools to use restrooms according to the sex on their birth certificate, barring transgender girls from using female bathrooms, and transgender boys from using male bathrooms. Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to sign the bill into law this week.
Bathroom bans have a pernicious history. In 2016, at least 18 US states considered bills that would restrict transgender students’ access to restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities. Now, after two years of relative silence from state lawmakers, there are troubling signs of a resurgence of these legislative efforts: Alabama recently enacted a bathroom ban, and now Oklahoma is on the verge.
Oklahoma’s bathroom ban is part of a larger wave of recent attacks against transgender youth in the United States. Lawmakers in at least 30 states have proposed athletic bans this year limiting or completely barring transgender students from participating in sports; 16 states now restrict transgender students from playing alongside peers. In addition to these athletic bans, officials in Texasand Arkansas have taken steps to investigate or prosecute the provision of gender-affirming care for transgender children.
Oklahoma’s bathroom ban would endanger transgender students’ health and undermine their rights to education and privacy. Bathroom bans are documented to exacerbate physical and verbal harassment against transgender children, and adversely affect their physical and mental health, academic achievement, and participation in school. If enacted into law, Senate Bill 615 would further isolate and stigmatize transgender children who are already prone to bullying, rendering schools an unsafe and hostile environment. Many students are effectively “outed” through these bans as they are compelled to implicitly disclose their transgender status through their bathroom usage.
Oklahoma’s lawmakers have chosen to expand a nationwide assault on transgender children’s rights. Officials should instead ensure transgender children have safe and comfortable access to bathrooms, and an education free from discrimination. Lawmakers should defend the rights of all students, not undermine them.
Karar Nushi, an Iraqi model well known for his long blond hair and flamboyant clothing, was found dead in Baghdad on July 2, 2017. Nushi was reportedly tortured and stabbed, and his body mutilated. His attackers also cut his hair. Indeed, friends of Nushi believe he was murdered by an armed group because of his long hair.
For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, who are often pushed to the social margins, hair can be an especially significant form of self-expression. Styling can signal group affiliation, or simply distance from the mainstream. But in repressive settings, hairstyles can also be a liability, visible markers of difference, and even a catalyst for violence. In some contexts in Iraq, hair can trigger egregious acts of cruelty by armed groups, and, in numerous instances, even death.
Nushi’s case is one among many others Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented in a recently published report on Iraqi armed groups’ killings, abductions, torture, and sexual violence against LGBT people. In numerous accounts, the attackers shaved their victims’ hair, or demanded that they sign documents pledging they would cut their hair.
Springing up amid the breakdown of security after the US-led 2003 invasion, armed groups in Iraq feed on poverty when recruiting members, offering unemployed men a job and the prospect of gaining power and influence through violence. Although many armed groups in Iraq have claimed to be enforcers of their interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law), a Human Rights Watch report demonstrated how a 2009 killing campaign of men suspected of same-sex conduct, led by Iraqi armed group members, violated standards in Sharia law for legality, proof, and privacy. Stretching over the last two decades, violence directed against LGBT people in Iraq can be understood in the context of patriarchal social norms, the low social status of women, and a culture of impunity.
In Iraq’s environment of persistent violence, why would armed groups pay such close attention to something as seemingly inconsequential as a hairstyle? As many people told HRW, hairstyles are an important symbol of compliance and conformity with social norms and gender roles.
Policing hair has become a part of a crude enforcement of gender norms among some powerful armed groups in Iraq. When hairstyles publicly signal difference by breaking with rigid gender roles, they symbolise a perceived threat to the social order and an affront to authority.
Last year, an 18-year-old gay man was stopped by an armed group called Hashd al-Atabat in Karbala governorate in central Iraq. He was told it was due to his “shameful appearance,” in this case: having long hair. He said, “after the armed group’s leader came, he told his men to cut my hair and then let me go.”
Of the 54 LGBT people interviewed, 48 said that unconventional hairstyles were regarded by armed groups as a punishable offense. This means that men and transgender women with long hair, or women and transgender men with short hair, were perceived as deviant and hence more likely to be targeted. The consequences of having non-normative hairstyles can range from arrest to torture, rape, and even death.
Ahmad Majed al-Mutairi, known as Hammoudi, had been targeted and shot by suspected armed groups in 2018 due to his long hair. Hammoudi was popular on social media for posting pictures highlighting his feminine appearance. He was only 14 when he was murdered. A video of his gruesome murder circulated widely on social media. The attackers can be heard taunting him with homophobic slurs as Hammoudi, bleeding from his abdomen, pleads to see his mother.
These violent attacks are not new. In 2012 HRW documented attacks directed against young people who participated in “emo” subculture, based on a form of alternative rock music, characterized by a distinctive style of dress, and unconventional haircuts. In the wake of systematic and fatal attacks, panicked “emos” scrambled to change their wardrobes and cut their hair.
Gender nonconforming hairstyles are also conflated with homosexuality, which is further construed as inherently anti-Islamic and pro-Western. One of the documented forms of punishments in the attacks on LGBT people is rape—and in particular male attackers sexually assaulting male subjects as a form of punishment for consensual same-sex activity, or gender non-conformity. Anti-sodomy laws which were reintroduced in Iraq in 1919 during the British Mandate, after the Ottoman Empire abolished them in 1858, and are still in use today.
Some police and members of armed groups mete out brutal punishments that leave permanent scarring; those carried out in public are intended as a clear message to others. That message is that difference and freedom of expression outside of stereotypical gender roles will not be tolerated.
No one should be punished for how they style their hair. In addition to protecting LGBT people from violence, the Iraqi government should undertake public campaigns to end stigma against LGBT people and work with ministries, institutions, and civil society to raise awareness about respecting diversity in gender norms, including free expression through hairstyles.
When FIFA convenes its 72nd Congress in Doha, Qatar, on March 31, 2022, in preparation for the World Cup, journalists, football associations, fans, and others should press both FIFA officials and Qatari authorities about human rights in the Gulf state, particularly the rights of migrant workers, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Since 2010, human rights organizations, trade unions, and media have consistently documented the rampant human rights abuses in the country, especially against migrant workers, including widespread wage theft, high recruitment fees, unexplained deaths, and passport confiscation, among others. While Qatar has introduced several reforms with much fanfare, they came too late, have proven to be woefully inadequate, and are poorly enforced. Similarly, the authorities have made no serious reforms to the severe discrimination in law and practice against women and LGBT people.
Despite repeated warnings and concrete evidence of rights violations, FIFA has not used its leverage or authority to pressure Qatar to follow through on its reform promises. Instead, FIFA has covered up for Qatar’s slow progress and championed the authorities’ reform narrative built around worker welfare that clearly does not reflect the reality for migrant workers.
FIFA has also failed to effectively push back on other repressive laws on press freedom, LGBT rights, and women’s rights. Not only has FIFA been a dismal steward for protecting and promoting human rights in Qatar, failing to use its leverage to truly push for football as a “force for good,” but it has also failed to fulfill its own human rights obligations under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the Guiding Principles) that were adopted in 2016. As per the Guiding Principles, FIFA should step up and make reparations to the thousands of migrant workers or their families who experienced abuses, including unexplained deaths, to make the World Cup 2022 possible.
The FIFA decision to award Qatar with hosting the 2022 World Cup has been itself mired in controversy, starting with US Department of Justice allegations that FIFA officials were bribed to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup. FIFA made the decision despite the country’s poor human rights record and its massive infrastructure deficit, knowing it would rest on vulnerable migrant workers to build.
In March 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that workers at Bin Omran Trading and Contracting (BOTC), a prominent Qatari trading and construction firm, had not received their salaries for up to five months. BOTC’s projects include landscaping and underground utility works for Al Bayt Stadium, where the opening match will be held.
Indeed, Human Rights Watch research reveals that wage theft remains a systemic failure in Qatar with many employers getting away with it. Workers are still forced to pay exorbitant recruitment fees to secure jobs in Qatar, between US$700 and $2,600. This means they are already in debt before they arrive in Qatar, making them vulnerable to abuse and debt bondage.
Companies often withhold contractually guaranteed overtime payments and end-of-service benefits, and they regularly violate their contracts with migrant workers with impunity. In the worst cases, workers said, employers have simply stopped paying their wages, and the workers have often struggled to buy food.
Such abuses persist despite several reforms that Qatar has introduced since 2015 to improve wage protection for migrant workers. The government’s Wage Protection System (WPS), designed to ensure that workers receive their salaries through direct bank transfer by the seventh day of every month, allows the government to monitor wage payments and to impose sanctions on employers for noncompliance.
The Worker’s Support and Insurance Fund, which became fully operational in 2020, was established specifically to ensure that workers are paid wages they are owed when companies fail to pay or go out of business.
However, Human Rights Watch found that the Wage Protection System does little to protect wages and can be better described as a wage monitoring system with significant gaps in its oversight capacity. The authorities have yet to fully dismantle the causes for wage theft, which lie with the kafala (sponsorship) system; deceptive recruitment practices including high recruitment fees; and business practices including the so-called “pay when paid” clause, which allows the subcontractor to delay payments to workers until the subcontractor is paid and leaves migrant workers vulnerable to payment delays in supply chain hierarchies.
Had Qatar addressed the real causes of wage theft and had its announced reforms been well enforced, the WPS would have flagged companies like BOTC, which would have faced sanction, while workers would have been paid in a timely manner using the Workers Support and Insurance Fund. Instead, unpaid workers have been protesting collectively despite the risks, given that Qatar prohibits worker strikes.
One of the most prominent rights issues since Qatar was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010 is the unexplained deaths of thousands of migrant workers.
Despite the global attention and consistent pressure on Qatari authorities for transparency, they have failed to publicize sufficient data on worker deaths. The numbers in the public discourse therefore vary widely. Qatari authorities say that the number of non-Qatari deaths between 2010 and 2019 is 15,021 for all ages, occupations, and causes. But because the data is neither disaggregated nor comprehensive, it is difficult to do any meaningful analysis on migrant worker deaths.
A Guardian investigation shows that between 2010 to 2020, there were over 6,751 deaths in Qatar of people from just five South Asian countries, which were neither categorized by occupation nor place of work. According to a recently commissioned report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), there were 50 work-related deaths in Qatar in 2020, and these have been disaggregated by key characteristics such as places of injury and death and the underlying cause where available.
Despite the widespread criticism, the authorities have dragged their feet in making comprehensive data on deaths of migrant workers publicly available. FIFA, too, has not used its leverage to push for more transparency around migrant deaths, but instead made erroneous remarks about them. According to media reports, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has even suggested that there have been just three work-related deaths in FIFA stadiums in Qatar, an incredible claim that is lower than even what Qatari authorities have announced.
According to the Guardian investigation, 69 percent of the deaths of migrant workers from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh between 2010 and 2020 were attributed to “natural causes.” A fifth of the 50 work-related deaths from 2020 were attributed to “unknown causes,” the ILO reported. According to Qatar’s Supreme Committee’s Workers’ Welfare progress reports, 18 of the 33 fatalities recorded between October 2015 and October 2019 attribute the cause of death to “natural causes,” “cardiac arrest,” or “acute respiratory failure,” terms that obscure the underlying cause of deaths, such as heat stress, and make it impossible to determine whether they may be related to working conditions.
When deaths are attributed to “natural causes” and categorized as non-work-related, Qatar’s labor law denies families compensation, leaving many of them destitute in the absence of their often-sole income provider. For a country with a highly advanced healthcare system, it is unfathomable that transparent data on worker deaths is not available and meaningful investigations of deaths have not been conducted but are simply attributed to “unknown” or “natural causes.” This does not prevent future deaths nor provide any consolation to the grieving families who are left in the dark.
Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, FIFA too has the responsibility to provide reparations for abuses it caused or contributed to. As an entity that has immense resources, it has no excuse not to fulfill its obligations. In 2014, for example, the qualifying rounds and final tournament brought FIFA US$4.6 billion, with profits amounting to over $2 billion.
National football associations, which can be tarnished by association with rights abuses, also have leverage over FIFA that they can and should use. No player would want to be a complacent participant in a tournament that has caused such immense loss of migrant workers’ lives and livelihoods. It is encouraging that many national associations have started speaking up on the issue and should continue to push for tangible commitments including reparations to those who were subject to wage theft and to families who lost loved ones. This would ensure that thousands of families of migrants who lost their lives in Qatar while making the games possible are not left with nothing.
Human Rights Watch has obtained a circular from Qatar’s Public Works Authorities requesting companies to reduce their migrant labor workforce from September 21, 2022 to January 18, 2023. As per the circular, “All Contractors shall prepare a strategic plan for workers’ leave which maximizes the reduction in the number of workers in the country during the period. It should not adversely impact the migrant worker’s well-being and established RPD [Roads Project Department] projects’ targets and objectives.” According to Migrant Rights, construction companies – primarily subcontractors – also shared that the directive has been communicated to them informally.
Migrant workers hired for jobs in Qatar do not have the luxury to take unpaid leave for extended periods. A large majority of workers, especially the recently hired ones, have outstanding loans associated with their illegally imposed recruitment fees that will continue to pile up during the months they are back home if they are not paid. The wages in Qatar are also how workers and their families make ends meet on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis without any savings or support system to draw from. Workers who face early dismissal or whose contracts will not be renewed should be allowed time to find another employer in the country. All such workers should be paid all their outstanding payments due, including for any untaken vacation time, wages, overtime pay, end-of-service payments, and any severance pay.
It is important for Qatari authorities and companies to clearly communicate to workers the details of the arrangement, with strong systems in place to ensure that companies do not take undue advantage of the situation to cheat workers.
Just as the construction phase of the World Cup has rested almost entirely on the backs of migrant workers, who comprise over 95 percent of the Qatari workforce, the delivery of the World Cup will also be almost entirely dependent on migrant workers. They will serve players, fans, and other visitors as waiters, hotel workers, shop staff, housekeepers, stadium workers, security guards, and drivers. Recent evidence has shown that hotel workers and security guards have continued to pay high recruitment fees. Every worker that a fan or a player comes across could, therefore, potentially be a victim of some form of abuse, such as paying exorbitantly for the jobs.
The Worker Welfare Standards from the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup organizer, were originally developed for the construction sector, but have been extended to the hospitality sector. Stakeholders have come together to develop a guidance tool for fair recruitment and employment for the hospitality sector in Qatar that hotels are expected to follow.
Proper due diligence by national football associations is key to ensuring that they do not contribute to or are associated with the abuses. However, it is also important for news media to be aware that they should not have a narrow focus when covering how migrant workers are treated. Just as some coverage has focused on stadium workers who comprised only 1.5 percent of the migrant workforce, media focus should not be limited to service workers in companies serving elite visitors like players and coaches. Conditions for workers serving elite visitors will undoubtedly be under disproportionately higher scrutiny and standards, but they will be a tiny proportion of the total service sector workforce that will directly or indirectly cater to the 1.2 millionvisitors expected to visit Qatar for the tournament.
Migrant workers in Qatar are part of the estimated 3 billion viewers of the World Cup who, in addition, also were indispensable in making the World Cup in Qatar possible. A good illustration of the popularity of the game among migrant workers in Qatar is captured in the documentary The Worker’s Cup.
Now that fans are flocking in from all over the world, migrant workers’ freedom of movement should be respected. They should not be restricted to parts of the country or in cramped labor camps or worse, sent back to their home countries, out of the sight of visitors who would otherwise be appalled if they got a glimpse of their living conditions.
Football is often called “the beautiful game,” which means there should be no discrimination among fans, whether they are low-paid workers who built and serviced the stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup or visitors who bought the most expensive tickets and flew in from afar. Migrant workers and visitors should be allowed to mingle with each other. Visitors, including journalists wanting to report on the migrant worker situation, fans, and stakeholders like national football associations, sponsors, and rights organizations should not be restricted from visiting labor camps.
Qatari authorities require women to obtain permission from their male guardians to marry, study abroad on government scholarships, work in many government jobs, travel abroad until certain ages, and receive some forms of reproductive health care. Some hotels require women to have a male guardian or be married to book and stay in a hotel room. Some events, such as concerts where alcohol is served, even ban Qatari women from attending. Such policies are discriminatory and facilitate violence against women.
Qatar moreover, has no domestic violence law and women who attempt to flee abuse can be returned to abusive families, arrested, or sent to psychiatric hospitals. A lack of transparency over discriminatory rules makes it difficult for women to challenge them. Women in Qatar have appealed to the authorities to repeal such laws. However, repressive laws limiting freedom of expression and association, government intimidation, and online harassment prevent women from challenging such rules or punish them when they do. There are no independent women’s rights organizations.
The authorities have made no serious reforms to the severe discrimination in law and practice they impose against women, affecting Qatari women and the many foreign women who live in the country. The authorities should eliminate all discriminatory male guardianship rules and practices, pass anti-discrimination law to end discrimination in practice, and repeal laws and practices that limit women’s civic participation to demand their own rights.
Qatari authorities criminalize extramarital sex, which disproportionately affects women, who can be prosecuted if they report rape and because pregnancy serves as evidence of the so-called crime. The penalties for these offenses are some of the harshest in the region, with up to seven years in prison, and floggings if they are Muslim. Police often do not believe women who report violence. Women are also required to show a marriage certificate to access certain forms of sexual and reproductive healthcare.
At major sporting events like the World Cup, the risk of sexual violence increases greatly, not just for fans, but particularly for migrant women in low-paid sectors. A Mexican woman who was a Supreme Committee official reported a physical assault by a man to the police in Qatar in June 2021. Instead of getting protection and justice, she found herself accused of the so-called crime of extramarital sex because the man claimed to be in a relationship with her, which she denied. Even though she managed to leave the country, the authorities proceeded to prosecute her on this charge and she remains on trial. Qatar should repeal legal provisions criminalizing extramarital sex, including article 281 of the Penal Code. The authorities should ensure support for survivors of sexual violence including medical, legal, and psychosocial – mental health assistance, and including emergency contraception, sexual health checks, and post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV. The authorities should allow all women access to sexual and reproductive health care without requiring a marriage certificate and should ensure that police and prosecutors have gender-responsive training.
Qatar has assured prospective visitors that it will welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) visitors and that fans will be free to fly the rainbow flag at the games. However, prospective visitors including LGBT fans have been deterred from attending the games, as shared by the English Football Association Manager, Gareth Southgate based on his discussion with English fans.
People who have experienced government repression have told Human Rights Watch that the Qatari government surveils and arrests LGBT people based on their online activity. The authorities also censor traditional media related to sexual orientation and gender identity, including people who show support for LGBT individuals. They have effectively excluded LGBT content from the public sphere.
Suggestions that Qatar should temporarily suspend domestic laws and state practices during the games would reinforce the idea that same-sex desire and gender variance are a peculiar preoccupation of outsiders. That leaves LGBT residents of Qatar struggling to navigate their sexuality and gender identity in a repressive environment that risks resuming in full after the World Cup.
As Qatar advances its surveillance capabilities, including inside football stadiums, the possibility of LGBT Qataris being persecuted for publicly supporting LGBT rights will remain long after the international fans leave. Physical and virtual spaces free from surveillance are vanishing in Qatar as its data protection law allows broad exemptions that undermine the right to privacy. Digital targeting is combined with laws that target people based on consensual sexual conduct outside of marriage.
Long-term legal reform should prioritize the realities of LGBT residents of Qatar, including by introducing legislation that protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, online and offline. The Qatari government should repeal article 285 and all other laws that criminalize consensual sexual relations outside of marriage.
Press freedom is curtailed in Qatar, which ranked 128 on the World Press Freedom list for 2021. Qatar also introduced an amendment to its penal code that imposes up to five years of prison for spreading rumors or false news with ill intent. It is not clear who determines what is a “rumor” or “fake news,” and what standards they will use in making such a determination.
In November 2021, two Norwegian journalists investigating migrant worker issues in Qatar were arrested and detained for 36 hours. Film showing evidence of the migrant worker situation in Qatar was destroyed. Separately, the same month, another Norwegian journalist was also held in solitary confinement for 24 hours. Such cases are common in Qatar, posing a credible threat to the narrative that the country is trying to build through its heavy public relations machinery.
Similarly, migrant workers who speak up about their realities and become important sources of information are also at great risk of immediate and arbitrary detention or deportation. Over the last year alone, Qatari authorities forcibly disappeared the Kenyan labor activist Malcolm Bidali before releasing him, and put Abdullah Ibhais, a Jordanian former employee of the Supreme Committee, on trial for bribery and misuse of funds, which some evidence suggests was in retaliation for his criticism of the poor conditions for migrant workers.
Qatar should have had every expectation of massive global media interest and coverage over the decade leading up to the World Cup and in the year of the tournament. It should not come as a surprise to Qatari authorities or FIFA that journalists who come to Qatar during the tournament will be interested in stories beyond the matches and who scores goals. They should be ensured that they will be safe and allowed to do their work with little interference. They should face no undue restrictions to report on social or economic issues should they wish to do so. Similarly, fans and other supporters should also not face any safety concerns for posting openly on social media platforms.
If Qatar and FIFA do indeed believe their own reform narrative, they should see the arrival of thousands of journalists and commentators from all over the world to the country as an important opportunity to bear witness to the positive transformation, not restrict their access or suppress their voices.
