Kabul was known as one of the few “liberal” cities in Afghanistan. The word liberal is in quotation marks, and inflected, because it is liberal compared to the rest of the country. Now that the Taliban has taken over, most people who expressed themselves differently and openly are forced to adhere to Sharia law, completely change their ways, hide their identity, or be killed.
The U.S. State Department reported in 2020 that even before the Taliban took power in August, LGBTQ people in Afghanistan faced “discrimination, assault and rape” and “homosexuality was widely seen as taboo and indecent.” Laws against lesbian, gay and transgender people made their existence illegal and punishable by up to two years in jail. Those laws were not always enforced, but they did leave LGBTQ people at risk of extortion and abuse by authorities, as reported by the U.K. government.
Even with the discrimination and abuse, LGBTQ people still had a sliver of space in society. Nemat Sadat, an LGBTQ Afghan author living in the United States said that gay, lesbian and transgender people helped the country’s cultural life develop since the Taliban’s last rule 20 years ago. But, most of these people built their lives quietly.
Now with the Taliban regime, their sliver of space in society is gone, there is no room to live quietly as an openly LGBTQ person. Under the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law, homosexuality is punished by death.
In an interview with Reuters, Waheedullah Hashimi, a top decision maker for the Taliban said, “there will be no democratic system at all because it does not have a base in our country,” and continued to say, “what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan is clear. It is sharia law and that is it.”
One source spoke to a 20-year-old university student who is lesbian in Afghanistan. Her family accepted her as a lesbian, but now the new Taliban leadership has put the lives of all of her family at risk. There is a new surge of violence against any lesbian, gay and transgender people. This includes anyone speculated of being lesbian, gay, or trans, and those who support them.
This young lesbian woman has gone into hiding. She is part of hundreds of LGBTQ people in Afghanistan who are pleading with advocates and organizations outside Afghanistan for help to escape the Taliban tyranny.
Nemat Sadat shares stories of lesbian, gay and trans people in hiding. He shared a story of a gay man who watched from his hiding place in the ceiling as Taliban fighters beat the friend who refused to disclose his location.
LGBTQ people in Afghanistan fear the risk of being arrested, beaten and killed. The Taliban made it clear that it is enforcing its strict religious laws against Afghanistan’s LGBTQ citizens. In an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, one Taliban judge said there were only two punishments for homosexuality: “stoning or being crushed under a wall.”
LGBTQ people in Afghanistan are reporting that their friends, partners and members of their community are being attacked and raped. They also stated that Islamic fundamentalists and riotous groups are encouraged by the new tyranny and are on the hunt for LGBTQ people.
Another source shared that a gay man was targeted for his sexuality and then raped by his male attackers. That is a terrible paradox. He was raped by his male attackers, who criminalizing him for having same sex relations.
LGBTQ people are in hiding, desperately trying to get out of the country, and trying to erase any proof of their queer identity.
They feel abandoned by the international LGBTQ community. The Taliban is proving that the Western nations have normalized relations to their government. The Taliban and their supporters see this a proof of their victory. This leaves LGBTQ people defeated and fearing torture and death.
The U.S. government and other Western countries evacuated many people out of Afghanistan, including journalists, women’s rights activists and those who worked with foreigners. But, LGBTQ activists said that nothing has been done for them. A source says about her situation, “we will definitely be killed. We are asking to be evacuated immediately from Afghanistan.” To date, no safe route has been found.
Even underground measures to help LGBTQ people are challenging and near impossible. The Rainbow Railroad is a non-governmental organization helping LGBTQ people around the world escape persecution. Executive Director Kimahli Powell said evacuating LGBTQ people from Afghanistan is especially hard as they are often alone, in hiding, and unable to contact each other. If routes to get them out is nearly impossible, that still means those routes are somewhat possible. As difficult as it may be, we must find pathways to save these people and get them out.
The Taliban regime has established itself, knowing with certainty that the world will stand aside, albeit condemning and protesting, but not intervening. This is empowering jihadists across the world, especially in the Middle East. The Taliban has many allies and admirers, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas.
The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, travelled from Palestinian territories to meet with Taliban leaders in Qatar. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad has a history of ties to the Taliban, even with radicals joining each other’s organizations. Very public statements of congratulations were made between leaders of the Taliban, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and all with full Iranian support.
The increase in brazen forcefulness of these groups reaches beyond Afghanistan, and spreads to the lands dominated by other similar groups. This causes an escalation of the threats to anyone who opposes Sharia law or who lives differently than what Sharia law allows. LGBTQ people in these lands are in peril.
If we do not help LGBTQ people in Afghanistan, the lives of LGBTQ people under other similar tyrannies face increased uncertainty and danger.
India’s National Medical Commission has ordered publishers and medical schools to edit their textbooks and curricula to exclude discriminatory and unscientific portrayals of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people.
The order from the country’s highest medical regulator follows a June 2021 Madras High Court rulinginstructing institutions across the country to roll back prejudicial and inaccurate portrayals of sexual and gender minorities. In the judgment, Judge Anand Venkatesh said, “Ignorance is no justification for normalizing any form of discrimination.” His language echoes previous court rulings and commission reports in India.
In 2018, when the Supreme Court unanimously struck down India’s colonial-era criminal prohibition on same-sex relations, Justice Indu Malhotra stated that, “an apology [is owed] to members of the LGBT community … for the ostracization and persecution they faced because of society’s ignorance.” In the case’s early stages, the Indian Medical Association made clear: “We are seriously concerned that homosexuality is looked upon as a disorder and in our joint petition appealed to the Supreme Court that it was not an illness.”
In January 2021, the Delhi Child Rights Commission recommended a ban on medically unnecessary “normalizing” surgeries on children born with intersex variations. This follows the southern state of Tamil Nadu banning such operations in 2019 after a court upheld the informed consent rights for intersex children. The commission’s recommendation received support from the Delhi Medical Council, which wrote that, “[s]urgical interventions … that are not deemed medically necessary should be delayed until the patient can provide meaningful informed consent.”
Welcoming the medical commission’s advisory this week, Dr. L. Ramakrishnan, vice president of SAATHII, an LGBT advocacy group, said: “The issue is not only one of misrepresentation but also one of absence. For instance, standard Indian textbooks in Pediatrics do not mention same-gender attraction or transgender identity in a non-pathologizing manner while addressing child and adolescent development.”
The National Medical Commission’s announcement further indicates the widespread support for reform among Indian legal and medical experts. It is a good precedent for what is needed across the education sector – a comprehensive update of outdated curricula.
Edgar García and his partner, Dannys Torres, on Oct. 3, 2018, used a canoe to cross the Arauca River that marks the Venezuela-Colombia border.
García was a member of the board of directors of Alianza Lambda de Venezuela, a Venezuelan LGBTQ rights group, before he fled Venezuela. Torres worked as a hairdresser in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
The couple now lives in Rafael Uribe Uribe, a working-class neighborhood in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Torres continues to work as a hairdresser. García most recently worked for a telecommunications company.
“We are settled here in Bogotá,” García told the Washington Blade on Sept. 21 during an interview with him and Torres that took place at a shopping mall near their home. “You have your life here.”
From left: Dannys Torres and his partner, Edgar García, at a shopping mall in Bogotá, Colombia, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
García and Torres are two of the more than 5.4 million Venezuelans who the Coordination Platform for Migrants and Refugees from Venezuela say have left their country as of November 2020 because of its ongoing economic and political crises.
Statistics from the Colombian government indicate there are currently more than 1.7 million Venezuelans in the country. More than 50 percent of them live in Bogotá and the departments of Norte de Santander, Atlántico and Antioquia.
Colombian President Iván Duque in February announced the country would legally recognize Venezuelan migrants who are registered with the government.
Sources in Colombia with whom the Blade has spoken say there are likely many more Venezuelan migrants in the country than official statistics indicate. Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV remain disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination and violence and often lack access to health care and formal employment.
A report the Red de Movilidad Humana LGBTI+—a network of advocacy groups in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico—published with the support of the U.N. Refugee Agency notes sex trafficking and even death are among the myriad threats that LGBTQ migrants from Venezuela face once they enter Colombia. The report indicates they also face discrimination in shelters because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual violence and a lack of access to the Colombian judicial system.
Trans woman left Venezuela ‘in search of a better quality of life’
Vanesa, a 25-year-old transgender woman from the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, came to Colombia eight years ago “in search of a better quality of life.”
She told the Blade on Sept. 14 during an interview at Fundación de Atención Inclusiva, Social y Humana (FUVADIS)—an organization in Barranquilla, a city in Atlántico department that is near the mouth of the Magdalena River in northern Colombia, that serves Venezuelan migrants—she entered Colombia near Maicao, a city in La Guajira department via an informal border crossing known as a “trocha.” Vanesa said she was nearly kidnapped.
“The people who were standing on the sides (of the “trocha”) who ask you for money were supposedly security,” she said. “There was no security. They left me there because I was trans. They said a lot of ugly things. They assaulted me, including one (man) who was not going to let me go. They wanted me to kidnap me or have me there to do whatever they wanted to me.”
Vanesa said a woman helped her escape.
“The experience was horrible,” she said.
Vanesa traveled to Cartagena, a popular tourist destination that is less than two hours southwest of Barranquilla, and began to work at her friend’s hair salon. Vanesa told the Blade that her friend’s mother “never liked me because … she is a Christian.”
Vanesa now lives in Barranquilla and supports herself through video chats. Vanesa also competes in local beauty pageants and is able to send money to her mother in Venezuela.
“I work here,” she said. “I am relatively well off.”
Vanesa, a 25-year-old transgender woman from Venezuela, at the offices of Fundación de Atención Inclusiva, Social y Humana (FUVADIS) in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
Andy, a trans man from Venezuela’s Maracay state, left Venezuela four years ago with his partner and their daughter. Andy, like Vanesa, entered Colombia via a “trocha” near Maicao.
“I migrated because the situation was becoming worse and worse each day,” Andy told the Blade on Sept. 14 as he attended a workshop that Caribe Afirmativo, an LGBTQ group in northern Colombia, organized at a Barranquilla hotel.
Caribe Afirmativo has opened three “Casas Afirmativos” in Barranquilla, Maicao and Medellín that provide access to health care and other services to Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV/AIDS. Caribe Afirmativo also operates several “Casas de Paz” throughout northern Colombia that support the implementation of an LGBTQ-inclusive peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that came into force in 2016.
Andy said his work in Venezuela allowed him to learn how “to sell whatever product,” but he told the Blade he struggled to find a job once he arrived in Colombia.
Andy told the Blade that he, his partner and their daughter now have stable housing in Barranquilla. Andy said he also has received a job offer in Medellín, the country’s second-largest city that is the capital of Antioquia department.
Andy, a transgender man from Venezuela, at a Caribe Afirmativo workshop in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
Jesús Gómez is a 33-year-old gay man from Venezuela’s Trujillo state in the Venezuelan Andes that are close to the country’s border with Colombia.
He previously worked with Venezuela Diversa, a Venezuelan LGBTQ advocacy group, and accepted a position with the municipality of Chacao that is part of Caracas. Gómez, whose mother was born in Colombia, also joined a student protest movement against the government.
Gómez fled to Colombia and is pursuing his asylum case with the help of UNHCR.
“I feel bad emotionally, but I am well-off compared to other people,” he told the Blade on Sept. 16 during an interview at a hotel in Cúcuta, a city in Norte de Santander department that is a few miles from the country’s border with Venezuela. “I am working to help other people who are in the same situation.”
Gómez in December is scheduled to graduate from nursing school. He also works with Fundación Censurados, a Cúcuta-based HIV/AIDS service organization that works with Venezuelan migrants, and has supported other organizations in the area that serve them.
Jesús Gómez in Cúcuta, Colombia, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
FUVADIS Executive Director Luis Meneses, like Gómez, was an LGBTQ activist in Venezuela.
Meneses, who is from Venezuela’s Zulia state, in 2010 unsuccessfully ran for Venezuela’s National Assembly. Meneses in February 2018 fled to Colombia because of the “political persecution” he said he suffered.
“Discrimination and prejudice against me began when I came out to defend LGBTI rights,” Meneses told the Blade on Sept. 14 during an interview at his office.
Meneses in August 2018 launched FUVADIS, which receives support from groups that includes UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. FUVADIS provides health care, antiretroviral drugs and a host of other services to Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS and other populations that include sex workers. Vanessa and nearly 900 other FUVADIS clients are LGBTQ.
“We cannot work for the migrant population by only giving them humanitarian assistance,” said Meneses. “It’s also about guaranteeing access to their rights.”
Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS die because of lack of medications
The New York-based Aid for AIDS International estimates more than 10,000 Venezuelans with HIV have left the country in recent years. Activists and health care service providers in Venezuela with whom the Blade has spoken in recent years have said people with HIV/AIDS in the country have died because of a lack of antiretroviral drugs.
The Venezuelan government has also targeted HIV/AIDS service organizations.
Members of Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence in January raided the offices of Azul Positivo, an HIV/AIDS service organization and arrested President Johan León Reyes and five other staff members. Venezuelan police on Feb. 15, 2019, raided the offices of Fundación Mavid, another HIV/AIDS service organization in Valencia, a city in Carabobo state, and arrested three staffers after they confiscated donated infant formula and medications for people with HIV/AIDS
Deyvi Galvis Vásquez, a doctor who is the manager of prevention and testing for AIDS Healthcare Foundation Colombia on Sept. 17 during an interview at AHF’s Cúcuta clinic showed the Blade pictures of Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS in Colombia who had cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma.
“The conditions are of extreme vulnerability,” said Galvis.
People wait in the waiting room at an HIV/STI clinic in Caracas, Venezuela, on Feb. 13. 2019. Venezuelan HIV/AIDS service providers tell the Washington Blade that people with HIV/AIDS have died because of an acute shortage of available antiretroviral drugs in the country. (Photo courtesy of Alianza Lambda de Venezuela)
Andrés Cardona, director of Fundación Ancla, a Medellín-based group that works with migrants and other vulnerable groups, during a Sept. 13 interview with the Blade in his office echoed Galvis. Cardona added stigma specifically against Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS is one of the myriad issues he and his colleagues confront.
“The issue of the elimination of HIV also implies not only an issue of communication and prevention, but also an issue of effective attention,” said Cardona. “We have our conservative culture, an idea that the Venezuelans who are coming are going to give us HIV.”
“This is totally discriminatory,” he added.
Cardona, like those inside Venezuela with whom the Blade has spoken, said there are no services in the country for people with HIV/AIDS.
“There are many Venezuelan migrants with HIV who enter Colombia, because they are going to die if they don’t,” he said.
AHF operates clinics throughout Colombia
AHF operates other facilities in Bogotá and in the cities of Bucaramanga, Yopal, Valledupar and Ríohacha. The organization, along with the Colombian Red Cross and the government of Santander department, in March began to distribute condoms, food and water and offer rapid HIV tests to Venezuelan migrants who travel through Páramo de Berlín, a high plateau in the Colombian Andes through which a highway between Cúcuta and Bucaramanga passes.
AHF, among other things, offers migrants rapid HIV and syphilis tests and counseling for people who test positive. AHF also provides lab tests, formula for children of mothers with HIV and health care with an “interdisciplinary health care team.”
AHF Colombia Country Program Manager Liliana Andrade Forero and AHF Colombia Data Manager Sandra Avila Mira on Sept. 20 noted to the Blade during an interview at AHF’s Bogotá clinic that upwards of 2,000 migrants currently receive care from the organization. They also pointed out that 1,952 of them are taking antiretroviral drugs the Brazilian government donates.
Galvis noted to the Blade that many of AHF’s patients also have access to mental health care and social workers.
“AHF’s policy is to reach out to everyone,” he said.https://www.youtube.com/embed/yJBrbPEkilw?feature=oembed
Pandemic has made migrants even more vulnerable
Galvis, Fundación Censurados Director Juan Carlos Archila and other Colombian HIV/AIDS service providers with whom the Blade spoke say the pandemic has made Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS in the country even more vulnerable.
Lockdowns prevented sex workers and others who work in the informal economy from earning money. A “pico y género” rule implemented by Bogotá Mayor Claudia López that allowed women to leave their homes on even days and men to leave their homes on odd days sparked criticism among trans activists.
Archila, who is a nurse, on Sept. 16 told the Blade during an interview at a Cúcuta hotel the pandemic has also left Censurados in a precarious situation.
“We endured practically two years with the doors closed, with expenses increasing,” he said. “The need of people who come to us for the issue of HIV remains, and yet we are all trying to cope with the situation.”
Andrade noted AHF’s Bogotá was closed for several months at the beginning of the pandemic because of the city’s strict lockdown.
The pandemic also forced FUVADIS to close its offices in March 2020, but Meneses told the Blade the organization was able to see a handful of patients at a time. He said “basic humanitarian assistance” that included hygiene kits and food were among the things that FUVADIS was able to provide its patients during the pandemic.
“Understanding how the situation for the LGBTI community, people with HIV, the migrant population and the refugee population is, we could not allow (our services) to shut down,” Meneses told the Blade.
A gay refugee who was forced to flee El Salvador because of anti-gay discrimination has opened up about his painful efforts to start a new life in the United States.
Martin – not his real name – is currently residing in a refugee camp in Reynosa, Mexico, where water supplies are short and living conditions areinhumane.
He never intended to leave El Salvador – he lived “peacefully” in his home country and even had his own business. But everything changed for Martin when he was raped.
“I am from the LGBTQ community, I am gay,” Martin said. “And in my country, I suffered discrimination and violent because of that.
“So, at that moment I had no choice but to take the savings I had and try to flee to a more liberal place, where they don’t push you aside, where they don’t see you badly.”
Shortly afterwards, Martin made contact with a person who claimed he could help him get into the United States as an undocumented migrant.
The deal was simple – this person would try three times to get Martin into the United States. If he was turned away at the border – as so many migrants are – he was on his own.
He left El Salvador on 5 March and managed to make it to Monterrey, Mexico – but his plans quickly disintegrated. He tried to cross into the United States on three separate occasions. Each time, he was sent to Reynosa in Mexico.
“Then the last time, I was kidnapped as I was leaving the bridge,” Martin said. “Someone told me that he could help me, made me get into a car and took me to a house where they locked me up for several days.
“We took advantage of an oversight by the kidnappers and escaped with another boy who had also returned to Reynosa. We managed to get to a highway and got on the first bus that passed, which took us to Monterrey. With a 500 pesos bill that the boy had been able to hide we bought some food and cleaned ourselves up a bit.
“There I found out through Facebook that, instead of trying to cross illegally again, I could ask for asylum in the United States to get there by doing things right.”
Martin ultimately decided to return to Reynosa, where he has remained ever since. According to MSF/Doctors Without Borders, at least 2,000 people – most of them from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – have been living in the makeshift camp in Reynosa since it was set up.
People live in “deplorable conditions” and have limited access to basic services, the advocacy organisation said.
Gay refugee stuck living in ‘deplorable’ camp with limited access to water
“The process of being in the camp has not been comfortable at all, the situation here is very difficult, because everyone lives in tents and I don’t have one yet, so I have to sleep where there is space,” Martin said.
“Besides that, there are many needs. For example, water is very vital for humans, but here we have very little for the amount of people we have at the moment.
“The conditions are not the most pleasant for us. I am trying to endure this.”
Martin said that living in Mexico isn’t an option for him long term. He has faced “abuse attempts” in Reynosa and he only feels safe inside the plaza.
“With the guidance of other people, I started the process of applying for asylum and I am waiting to see what the future holds from now on,” he said.
“Here they tell you to be patient, because patience is the only thing that can sustain us. I only hope the there will be a positive result.”
Martin’s story is just one of many, according to Doctors Without Borders. Many others are living in appalling conditions as while they await a decision on their applications for asylum in the United States. Most have fled countries where their human rights were under threat – including other gay refugees.
Most of the migrants currently based in the Reynosa camp were previously expelled from the United States under Title 42, a public health order that constitutes “a flagrant violation of international law,” according to Doctors Without Borders.
The policy means that people can be deported under COVID-19 regulations – and it is putting asylum seekers in danger.
“The situation of migrants in Mexico is unsustainable,” said Gemma Domínguez, MSF’s general coordinator in Mexico.
“Policies that criminalize migration, the lack of an adequate humanitarian response, and repeated violence and persecution against migrants are unacceptable and endanger the lives of thousands of men, women and children”.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday met with more than a dozen LGBTQ activists.
Tremenda Nota, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Cuba, reported the meeting took place at Havana’s Palace of the Revolution. Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, a gay man living with HIV who writes under the pen name Paquito el de Cuba, and Malú Cano, coordinator of Transcuba, a transgender organization that is affiliated with the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), are among those who participated.
“I see it as a political will to advance the recognition of the rights of LGBTIQ+ people, an outstanding debt that the revolution has always had with us,” Cano told Tremenda Nota.
The Cuban government tweeted pictures of of the meeting. Rodríguez in a blog post notesCENESEX Director Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro, was sitting next to Díaz-Canel.
Former President Fidel Castro, who was Mariela Castro’s uncle, in the years after the 1959 revolution that brought him to power sent gay men and others to work camps known by the Spanish acronym UMAP. The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with AIDS in state-run sanitaria.
Mariela Castro and Díaz-Canel both publicly support marriage rights for same-sex couples. Friday’s meeting took place less than a month after Cuba’s Justice Ministry released a draft of a proposed new family code that would allow gays and lesbians to tie the knot.
Yoan de la Cruz, a gay man from San Antonio de los Baños in Artemisa province who live-streamed the first of a series of anti-government protests that took place across Cuba on July 11, and hundreds of others who participated in the demonstrations remain in custody.
14ymedio, an independent website founded by Yoani Sánchez, a prominent critic of the Cuban government, earlier this week reported the country’s attorney general is seeking an 8-year prison sentence for De La Cruz. 14ymedio also notes Cuban authorities continue to hold De La Cruz “somewhat incommunicado” in a prison east of Havana.
At the end of August, the last U.S. passenger plane disappeared from Afghanistan’s horizons. The Taliban had finally taken control of the entire country after several days of battles and fire within the capital city. The leaders of the Taliban declared a new state of rule from the presidential palace formerly occupied by President Ashraf Ghani.
Soon after the Taliban’s taking of Kabul, Afghan men and women panicked in troves to the airport to flee oppressive rule. Getting a ticket onto an American bound plane was like winning the lottery for many Afghans.
Canada declared it would help resettle 20,000 Afghans, purposefully including LGBT Afghans among that mix. Canada made its intention to resettle those who would suffer tremendously under Taliban rule: Gay and trans folk, and any other kind of queer person, among a few other marginalized groups.
In early August of 2021, when the Afghan crisis was unfolding, a group of Democratic senators urged Biden to prioritize LGBT refugees. This group of senators, including Amy Klobuchar, wrote a letter to the State Department asking them to explain in greater detail a statement that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made regarding LGBT asylum seekers.
In February of 2021, President Biden signed a memorandum that instructed U.S. agencies to ensure the rights of LGBT persons around the world. After that memorandum was signed, the State Department under Sec. Blinken said that it would make an enhanced effort to protect LGBT asylum seekers.
But the group of senators, in their letter, are still asking what has specifically been done to protect LGBT asylum seekers. What new steps has the Biden administration taken? And specifically, what steps has it taken to protect these LGBT refugees in Afghanistan?
It’s time that the United States not only resettle Afghan refugees, but purposefully make it part of its mission statement to resettle LGBT people. Although, since 1994, the U.S. has acknowledged asylum claims based on homosexuality, during the latest Afghan crisis, the Biden administration never made any intentional effort to prioritize LGBT folk as refugees. Biden never came out and aggressively prioritized LGBT Afghans.
Under Taliban rule, gay people are killed and thrown off buildings. Under the former Afghan administration, being gay was a punishable crime and LGBT folk who were outed were sent to jail.
Taliban rule also spells disaster for trans people: Being trans is not even an option in Afghanistan, where the Taliban would surely kill trans people as well as those who are gay.
Article 130 of the Afghan constitution implements Sharia law, which bans homosexuality. In these cases, men who have sex with men or women who have sex with women can be put to death. Moreover, Sections 645 and 646 of the constitution punish intimacy between two women with jail time.
Some recent victims of Taliban rule describe how the Taliban is asking LGBT folk to identify others in the LGBT community within the country. They are promising a safe rite of passage to those who identify members of the queer community. Such targeting is inordinately cruel—asking members of the LGBT community to turn on each other.
The Biden administration, armed with a liberal agenda, should create an LGBT refugee resettlement initiative. Some details about this kind of initiative have to be ironed out—take, for instance, the issue of metrics. How would the U.S. accurately assess someone’s LGBT status? If you were to argue that this initiative already exists, then I must ask—where is it? Where are these concrete steps that Biden has taken to make the lives of LGBT Afghans safer? Has he given a speech on this topic?
Perhaps the administration can start by reaching out to LGBT nonprofits in these uncertain regions—Rainbow Railroad, is, for instance, an organization that helps LGBT people in the Middle East find better lives in safe countries. Other groups in countries such as Jordan help smuggle trans people to safer countries, such as Turkey. Preexisting LGBT citizens who seek help from these nonprofits can be identified by the Biden administration to come to the United States, seeking a safe rite of passage.
Afghanistan serves as an example to help LGBT people who suffer in crisis. It’s high time that the U.S. government not only acknowledge LGBT asylum seekers, but place them on a pedestal, along with other groups who are immune to abuse.
Isaac Amend (he/him/his) is a transgender man and young professional in the D.C. area. He was featured on National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ in 2017 as a student at Yale University. Isaac is also on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Find him on Instagram @isaacamend.
Despite the annulment of the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act that was meant to criminalize the act of same-sex relations by life imprisonment and even capital punishment in Uganda, members of the LGBTQ community continue to face unwarranted reproof.
Several bills have been proposed in Parliament, such as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, the revised Anti-Homosexuality Bill and just recently bills that would criminalize sex work and gay sex. However, none of these bills saw the light of day thanks to the rigorous fight put down by LGBTQ activists against the government through the Constitutional Court and protests.
Who could forget the horrific and traumatic experience that was faced by 44 LGBTQ people at the end of May of this year when police raided a private function that was being held in Kampala that saw the 44 being arrested, assaulted and humiliated by the police, who even went an extra mile of posting their faces on social media and national television.
That petrifying moment is still being relived not only by the 44, but other LGBTQ community members as Iga Isma, executive director of Happy Family Youth Uganda, aptly states.
“In May, police raided a private function that had 44 LGBTQI+ personnel and they were arrested for conducting a gay wedding which was not the case as they were just having a party and since their arrest although they have now been released, they have been receiving a lot of stigma because after they were incarcerated their photos were paraded on social media, national television and it is now difficult for them to move, to get a job or do anything because when they get on the streets people intimidate, harass and assault them so they are facing a lot of challenges. They cannot talk in the community, they cannot buy anything, some of them when they were released from prison actually came back to burned down houses. Their houses were set on fire by some members of the community and others were chased away by their families,” said Isma.
In addition, Isma cited that many members of the LGBTQ community now do not have a sense of belonging as they have been rejected and sidelined by those they deem to be their loved ones.
“In Uganda today, hundreds of LGBTQI+ personnel have no place to call home as they are kicked out by their homophobic and transphobic, conservative communities as well as family members due to stigma and a lot of LGBTQI+ personnel continue to live in the shadows and do not come out due to fear of rejection from their families, colleagues and members of their communities.
However, we as LGBTQI+ organizations are trying to educate members of the community, government and all stakeholders about the LGBTQI+ community because that is the only way we can do away with the repugnant attitude towards the LGBTQI+ community. Though it is difficult due to the homophobic and transphobic communities within our midst, we are trying to change the narrative,” said Isma.
It is now yet to be seen whether or not the new administration, which formed earlier in January under President Yoweri Museveni, who has governed the East African country for the past 35 years, will lift the cumbersome tribulations and aspersions that are continuously being faced by members of the LGBTQ community.
Chay Brown, director of TransActual, said: “These findings are shocking but in no way unexpected. They merely put figures to a perilous situation that almost every trans person in the UK is well aware of.
“Transphobia feels unescapable, whether we’re at home, at work or when we go to the doctors.”
Transphobic discrimination in healthcare worse for trans people of colour and disabled trans people
Alongside prejudice and discrimination against trans people trying to access healthcare, problems also persist in the workplace.
In the workplace, high numbers of trans people have experienced transphobia while trying to get a job (63 per cent), or from their line manager or colleagues. Seventy-three per cent of trans men and women have experienced transphobia from their colleagues, as have 80 per cent of non-binary people.
While anti-trans discrimination affects the majority of trans people, for trans people of colour and disabled trans people the situation is even worse. Seventy-three per cent of Black people and people of colour (BPOC) have experience transphobia while seeking employment, and 88 per cent have experienced transphobia from colleagues.
In healthcare, a greater number of disabled trans people reported that healthcare services are inadequate than non-disabled trans people. Sixty per cent of disabled respondents to TransActual’s survey reported experiencing ableism when trying to access trans-specific healthcare services.
Trans people with disabilities are also more likely to experience delayed treatment, with 93 per cent having done so compared with 85 per cent of non-disabled people.
Additionally, 53 per cent of BPOC said they have experienced racism when trying to access trans-specific healthcare services.
Outside of work and healthcare, trans people face other serious issues: 27 per cent of British trans people have been homeless at some point in their lives, rising to 36 per cent of BPOC and disabled trans people.
jane fae, chair of Trans Media Watch, said of the report’s findings that the “real scandal” is “how comprehensively the media have conspired to ignore this situation, preferring, instead, to produce tens of thousands of words on the largely imagined consequences of reform to the Gender Recognition Act”.
fae added: “We are not at all surprised to find that 70% of respondents said that media transphobia has impacted their mental health. In addition, 93% reported that media transphobia had an impact on their experience of transphobia from strangers on the street, while 85% said it has impacted how their family treat them.
“The bottom line is: transphobia impacts all aspects of daily life for trans people, from relationships with our friends and families, to healthcare, and even listening to the radio. This report is essential reading for anyone working in healthcare or in the media, as well as for policy makers and employers, and we hope that it provides food for thought.
“Your actions (and inactions) have a profound impact on all of us.”
Gen Suzuki, a Japanese trans man, has filed a request with a Japanese court legally change his gender without having to undergo surgery and be sterilised.
Suzuki, 46, filed a request on Monday (4 October) with the Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court to alter his family registry to align with his gender identity, Mainichireported.
Currently, Japanese law requires transgender people to get sterilised before they can legally change their gender. According to Mainichi, any changes to family registers in Japan, which record information about an individual including their gender and familial relationships, require permission from family courts.
After filing the request, Suzuki held a news conference with his female partner, saying they intended to get married. He said he found it “nonsensical that transgender people cannot enjoy marriage equality in Japan” unless they switch genders in their family registers.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) previously called on the Japanese government to revise Law 111 to “bring it into accordance with international human rights standards and medical practices so that individuals’ gender marker in the family registry can be changed without having to satisfy any medical conditions”.
It said the government needed to abolish the “current conditions of sex reassignment surgery and irreversible infertility” and the “requirement that applicants have no underage children”.
He added that he cannot legally “get married to my partner” and doesn’t have “any legal ties with our children”.
“It’s okay when everything is all right,” Sugiyama told the BBC. “But if she becomes ill, or if something were to happen to our child, I might not be able to visit them in the hospital or sign a waiver.”
Japan implemented the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) special case law in 2004. Under the law, transgender people must meet five requirements before they can legally change gender. The individual must be at least 20 years old, not presently married, not have any underage children (under 20), must be sterilised and have genitalia that “closely resemble the physical form of an alternative gender”.
In 2019, the Japanese supreme court unanimously upheld the law requiring trans people seeking to legally change their gender to be sterilised. Takaito Usui, a trans man, appealed to the court to overturn Law 111, but the supreme court rejected his case, ruling the law was constitutional.
However, according to the AFP, the court acknowledged “doubts” were emerging on whether the rule reflected changing societal values in Japan.
According to Mainichi, Suzuki previously told reporters that he would be willing to appeal his case to the supreme court if it is rejected.
Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference, Human Rights Watch said.
They were held in a transit center in Gikondo neighborhood of the capital Kigali, unofficially called “Kwa Kabuga,” known for its harsh and inhuman conditions, which appear to have deteriorated further due to the increase in the number of detainees held there and the pandemic. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), first scheduled for June 2020 and rescheduled for June 2021, was eventually postponed indefinitely in May.
“Rwanda’s strategy to promote Kigali as a hub for meetings and conferences often means continued abuse of the capital’s poorest and most marginalized residents,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “As the meeting is rescheduled, Rwanda’s Commonwealth partners have a choice: either speak up for the rights of the victims or be silent as the crackdown is carried out in their name.”
Following reports on abuses at the Gikondo transit center in 2015, 2016, and 2020, this practice was condemned during Rwanda’s review by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Geneva-based treaty body, in February 2020. Between April and June 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed via telephone 17 former detainees from Gikondo. Interviews with nine people who identified as transgender or homosexual, three women who were detained with their babies, four men who worked as street vendors at local markets, and a 13-year-old boy living on the streets in Kigali, confirmed that patterns of abuse that Human Rights Watch documented previously are ongoing. Due to fear of reprisals against interviewees, Human Rights Watch has withheld all identifying information.
At Gikondo, detainees are held in overcrowded rooms in conditions well below standards required by Rwandan and international law. The former detainees said they have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and are rarely allowed to leave filthy, overcrowded rooms. People were detained there without basic due process standards. None of the former detainees interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention. There were no measures to protect people from Covid-19, and former detainees said they did not have access to testing, soap, masks, or basic hygiene and sanitation amenities.
People interviewed who identified as gay or transgender said that security officials accused them of “not representing Rwandan values.” They said that other detainees beat them because of their clothes and identity. Three other detainees, who were held in the “delinquents’” room at Gikondo, confirmed that fellow detainees and guards more frequently and violently beat people they knew were gay or transgender than others.
In the past, round-ups have been connected to high-profile government events, ahead of which security forces may ramp up efforts to “clear up” Kigali’s streets. Human Rights Watch documented a similar round-up in 2016 before an African Union Summit held in Kigali. Ahead of the now postponed 2021 Commonwealth meeting, several former detainees said the police told them they did not want them on the streets during the event.
A civil society activist in Kigali said: “The streets were empty before the meeting. You couldn’t see any street children in town. Even the fruit vendors were taken [to Gikondo]. But now you can see them in the streets again.” Sources in Kigali confirmed that fewer people were living or working on the streets in the month preceding the date for the meeting. Several former detainees said the conditions at Gikondo had worsened in the lead-up to the meeting due to severe overcrowding.
An 18-year-old woman, a street vendor arbitrarily detained for two weeks with her 9-month-old baby, said: “[The police] said the government wanted to clear the city because of CHOGM. They said they would detain us until CHOGM has happened without our filth on display.”
Rwanda is one of a few countries in East Africa that does not criminalize consensual same-sex relations. Vagrancy, begging, and sex work are not criminalized either. Yet the authorities continue to use Gikondo Transit Center to imprison people accused of “deviant behavior that is harmful to the public,” including street vending and homelessness.
Rwanda should urgently close the transit center in Gikondo and amend the legal framework governing the National Rehabilitation Service. The authorities should promptly investigate all reported cases of ill-treatment and beatings of detainees by police and transit center personnel – including reports of detainees dying in detention – and prosecute the suspected abusers, Human Rights Watch said.
“Based on past experience, there is every likelihood that similar patterns of abuse will occur ahead of whatever new date is set for the Commonwealth meeting,” Mudge said. “Locking up marginalized people and abusing them simply because the authorities believe they tarnish their country’s image violates human dignity, and Commonwealth leaders should not tolerate this.”
Gikondo Transit Center
Since 2017, legislation and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate so-called transit centers, presenting them as part of a “rehabilitation” process aimed at supporting poor and marginalized people. The authorities acknowledge that there are 28 “transit centers” in Rwanda, including “Kwa Kabuga,” the unofficial name of Kigali’s transit center situated in the Gikondo residential suburb of Kigali.
A January 2020 Human Rights Watch report found that the 2017 legislation provides cover for the police to round up and arbitrarily detain people accused of so-called “deviant behaviors” at Gikondo in deplorable and degrading conditions, and without due process or judicial oversight. Detainees are released with very little formal procedure, reflecting the arbitrary manner in which they were initially arrested.
Based on the 2017 legal framework and statements by Rwandan authorities, the broader objective of Gikondo is to serve as a short-term screening center to allow authorities to process detainees to send on to rehabilitation centers. However, in practice, there is no judicial process to determine the length of time people spend at the center or whether they are released or transferred. Some people interviewed said they were released when the center was overcrowded. Two said they were released in June 2021, after the decision to postpone the Commonwealth meeting was announced.
The 13-year-old boy said he was held for two weeks in late April and May, in a room with over 200 other street children, and was released after the announcement: “The police told us: ‘Don’t be afraid, children. The meeting isn’t happening; you’ll be released tomorrow.’” He said that district authorities collected all children detained at Gikondo and returned them to the streets of Kigali. He was not offered support to rejoin his family or return to school.
The civil society activist confirmed that, “Children were detained, moto-taxis had to stop working, street vendors were harassed – all because of the Commonwealth meeting. Since it’s been postponed, the abuse has calmed down.”
Former detainees said police told them that they were “trash,” and that they would be detained during the meeting and released in August. “Before the [Commonwealth] meeting, they would arrest us and seize our goods,” said a 20-year-old street vendor, who was detained for two weeks in April with her 9-month-old baby. “With this meeting coming up … Gikondo [was] very overcrowded.”
Arrest and Transfer to Gikondo
Round-ups by police or officers from the District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO), a local state security body, are often the first step toward arbitrary detention at Gikondo. The arbitrary nature of the detention is reflected in the complete absence of due process once people are taken to Gikondo. In most cases, detainees are held in various police stations or sector (local government) offices across Kigali before being transferred to Gikondo. None of the interviewees were taken before a judge or given access to a lawyer before being transferred to Gikondo.
Detention of Gay and Transgender People
The detention of transgender people at Gikondo was reported in the media in November 2020. The nine transgender or gay people interviewed by Human Rights Watch were detained at Gikondo between December 2020 and April 2021. They said they had been targeted due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and treated worse than other detainees.
Several said the police or local security officers detained them after members of the public reported seeing them with their partners and other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, or wearing women’s clothing if they were perceived not to be female. At Gikondo, police officers or guards accused them of being homeless, thieves, or delinquents and held them in a room reserved for “delinquent” men. One 27-year-old transgender woman said:
They took me at Kabuga and said I was causing problems in Rwanda…. When I arrived, police asked why am I looking like this? Why am I looking like a girl? They asked: ‘Are you a prostitute?’ I said, ‘No, I am a Rwandan.’ They jailed me with other people who were [accused of being] thieves.
One said he was arrested in late December 2020, after leaving a bar in Nyamirambo neighborhood in Kigali: “When we were about to get on motorbikes, local patrol men came and asked us who we are and what we are doing here … they said we don’t represent Rwandan customs. My friend [a transgender woman] has long hair and was wearing a skirt.” Another former detainee was arrested by local security officials in February 2021 after kissing his same-sex partner in a bar. He said customers from the bar insulted them and called the security patrol, who took them straight to Gikondo transit center.
Transgender and gay people interviewed described being harassed, insulted, and beaten by security officials during their arrest and detention. A former detainee who was arrested by DASSO officials in December 2020 said she was taken to the Nyabugogo police station. “They asked me what I was doing … if I am a girl or a boy,” she said. “I said I am a girl and that’s when the problems started … At Kabuga, we were beaten by the leaders. They asked if we were boys or girls.”
A transgender woman detained at Gikondo in February 2021 said: “Police said we were cursed, and asked how we could behave in this way, having sex with people of the same sex as us. They said we’re delinquents and put us in that room. But in the room, we were badly beaten by other detainees and police did nothing despite our cries.” Another gay former detainee who was arrested with a group of transgender people said a policeman beat his feet and told him he should be “rehabilitated.”
Several other former detainees confirmed these patterns of abuse. An 18-year-old street vendor accused of “delinquency” was detained with about 1,000 other men, where he said “men who dressed as women” – referring to transgender people – “were beaten more than the others. We were all beaten but they were really badly beaten.” All transgender women interviewed were housed in male facilities.
Beatings
Beatings often begin as soon as people are rounded up and taken to a nearby police station or post. A 30-year-old woman with a 3-year-old child said:
I was taken to the police, where they kept us in a room with others who had been arrested. At that point we were violently beaten. I had a baby with me, but they still beat me, although they didn’t beat him. At 2 a.m. they transferred us to “Kwa Kabuga.” They told me: “Your baby is none of our business. Get in with the others.” I insulted them, so they beat me badly. They said they don’t want me to do this kind of business [on the streets].
Once detainees arrive at Gikondo, they are registered and often beaten by other detainees. Long-term detainees at Gikondo, known as “counsellors,” are often in charge of daily life in the rooms and beat other detainees. The 30-year-old street vendor said that other detainees in the women’s room beat her and her child: “An adult woman is hit twenty times, whereas her child will be beaten four times. It’s only babies under one year old that are not beaten.”
Interviewees detained in the women’s room also said they were beaten when their child defecated or cried: “We were beaten every day. We were also beaten when we asked for permission to use the toilet. If a baby cried, or urinated, its mother would pay the price,” said the 23-year-old mother of a 2-year-old child, who was detained at Gikondo for three weeks in April.
Guards or “counselors” also regularly beat detainees in the children’s room or rooms for adult men. Children are often beaten when they make noise or play together. “We were beaten a lot…. If you fight, if you make a mistake, or if you shout, they beat you with sticks,” the 13-year-old boy said. A 21-year-old street vendor held in the room for “delinquents” said that detainees are beaten for spending too long in the bathroom, for talking too loudly, or “for any fault you commit.”
Conditions at Gikondo
Conditions in Gikondo Transit Center, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented since 2006, fall well below international standards and violate Rwandan law.
In March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture called on governments to “reduce prison populations … wherever possible by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release.” Yet Rwandan authorities continued to detain people in Gikondo transit center, without due process or judicial oversight. Overcrowding and poor hygienic and sanitary conditions at Gikondo put people at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to close proximity, inability to practice “social distancing,” a lack of adequate sanitation and hygiene, and lack of adequate medical care, including a lack of Covid-19 testing.
During their arrest and transfer to Gikondo, people interviewed said, they were not tested for Covid-19, were not given masks to wear, and were not given the space to maintain distances from other detainees. Many were taken to Gikondo in an overcrowded truck with windows closed. Some said that upon arrival, they washed their hands with water, but were not given soap. One former detainee said hand sanitizer was confiscated by the authorities upon arrival.
Former detainees who were held at Gikondo between 2019 and 2021 estimate that between 50 and 200 girls and boys detained together at a time in the “children’s room,” in deplorable and degrading conditions. But they described conditions in the room for male “delinquents” – which also holds teenage boys – and facilities for adult women with their infants as far worse.
In those two rooms, some children were held together with adults in severely overcrowded conditions and many detainees were forced to sleep on the concrete floor. Former detainees held in the room for “delinquents” estimated that over 1,000 people were held together. One person interviewed said it was not possible to see the floor at night when the detainees attempted to lay down to sleep on the concrete floor.
Most former detainees said they were given food once a day, in insufficient quantities and with poor nutritional value. Food is particularly insufficient for young children and babies, who regularly get sick. One woman said she was released after her baby got so ill he had blood in his stool, while another said her baby had to be transferred directly to a hospital due to malnutrition.
Detainees in the rooms for women and “delinquents” had irregular access to drinking water, sometimes only once a day. “Sometimes we go an entire day without drinking water, and then they give a tiny amount that we all have to share,” said one interviewee who was held at Gikondo for almost all of April.
Sanitation and hygiene conditions are very poor, and many interviewees reported being allowed to wash at most once a week. One former detainee said: “When it’s time to wash, they take a 20-liter basin and around 20 to 30 people wash at the same time.” Former detainees said they were rarely given soap. The mother of a 3-year-old said: “We only washed once a day with filthy water that had worms in it, mostly without soap … we didn’t change our clothes.”
Three interviewees said that during their time at Gikondo, they saw or heard of detainees who had died due to the poor conditions and lack of appropriate medical care. “In the two weeks I spent [at Gikondo] there were three nights where we couldn’t sleep because there were too many people in the room,” said a 40-year-old street vendor detained at the transit center in April. “Two people died because of this treatment and illnesses…. They were ill and had diarrhea and skin rashes. They were refused permission to see a doctor, and one morning they were found dead. I don’t know what caused their death or what their names are.”
Human Rights Watch requested information on these allegations from the Justice Ministry and the National Rehabilitation Service but received no response and was not able to independently verify them.
Lack of Government Response; Criticism by Regional and International Entities
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reviewed Rwanda’s record on January 27 and 28, 2020, said it was concerned that the reference to “deviant behaviors” in Rwanda’s legislation was leading to “the deprivation of liberty of children in need of protection.” The committee said the abusive detention should end and that the government should change the law.
During the committee’s review, the Rwandan government denied that the detention of street children in transit centers is arbitrary. The government also claimed that children in transit centers are either placed with a family or transferred to a “rehabilitation center” within 72 hours. These claims contradict reports by the National Commission for Children and the National Commission for Human Rights, as well as Human Rights Watch findings.
In response to the Human Rights Watch January 2020 report, then-Justice Minister Johnston Busingye was quoted in KT Press saying: “These children have been redeemed…. We believe they can become useful citizens…. HRW [Human Rights Watch] can come and interview them if they wish.” During Rwanda’s review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the gender and family promotion minister, Soline Nyirahabimana, also said that independent observers should visit the center.
On December 4, 2020, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights held that states’ laws enabling the detention of people who, often because of poverty, are forced to live on the street, violate human rights law. The opinion issued in response to a request by the Pan African Lawyers Union, upheld the rights of people deemed “vagrants” by the state. The opinion concluded that laws permitting the forcible removal or warrantless arrest of a person declared to be a “vagrant,” violate the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights instruments.
On February 6, 2020, December 14, 2020, and August 23, 2021, Human Rights Watch wrote letters to then-Justice Minister Busingye following up on these statements, requesting access to Gikondo and other transit centers in Rwanda, and asking about steps taken by the Rwanda authorities to remedy the abusive legal framework governing its National Rehabilitation Service. He has not responded.
