OBSTACLES QUEER ASYLUM APPLICATION

OBSTACLES IN QUEER ASYLUM APPLICATION

The present study presents the first comparative research ever undertaken on the way in which LGBTI asylum claims are examined across Europe.

Each year, thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people apply for asylum in EU Member States. As the above example illustrates, asylum decisions may be based on problematic notions, and correcting these misguided notions requires paying explicit attention to the LGBTI aspects of the asylum applications concerned. Yet, little is known about the different ways in which the asylum applications of LGBTI people are dealt with in the different EU Member States

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has issued several reports on Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the EU Member States.2 One of the conclusions of the FRA’s social report is:  “There is a significant lack of both academic research and unofficial NGO data regarding homophobia, transphobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity in many Member States and at the EU level. (...)

 The data gap analysis shows that there is a profound lack of quantitative and qualitative research and statistics on all the thematic areas covered in this report.” According to this report, asylum is one of the issues which “appear to be profoundly under-researched in all EU Member States.

Present study seeks to help in closing this gap by providing a more extensive and qualitative research with data from lawyers, governments, academics and NGO’s, by describing policy and practice concerning LGBTI asylum seekers. 
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In this way, European practice in examining LGBTI asylum applications which is (a) in full accordance with international and European law, and (b) harmonised. The attention to LGBTI human rights has developed significantly in recent years. 

This is illustrated by the fact that the first comprehensive report on homophobia in the EU Member States was published as recently as 2008. On a global level, the Yogyakarta Principles, on the application of existing international human rights standards to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, were drafted in 2007. 

In 2006, 54 Member states presented a joint statement to the Human Rights Council (HRC), addressing violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This was preceded by an earlier attempt led by Brazil to pass a resolution at the Commission on Human Rights in 2003. In 2008, France and the Netherlands took the initiative for a joint statement at the UN General Assembly, which was supported by 66 States. In March 2011, support for a resolution.

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But the  saddest  part is that some European migration authorities do not put these agendas into consideration. Lgbti Asylum seekers  are argued that they would be able to reside safely in their persecuted  mother land if they  concealed their homosexual identity .