JULY 13, 2019: Munich rainbow refugees attending the Gay Pride parade also known as Christopher Street Day (CSD) in Munich, Germany.
The Kenyan government is standing in the way of LGBTQ+ refugees seeking asylum in countries that are offering it, according to reporting from The Toronto Star.
“It’s not a right as far as the Government of Kenya is concerned,” said Kenyan refugee commissioner John Burugu, when questioned about the lag in processing LGBTQ+ asylum cases.
Related:
He said the criteria for refugee status include persecution and genocide, but not what he called “those letters,” referring to the LGBTQ+ acronym.
Global perspectives delivered right to your inbox
Our newsletter bridges borders to bring you LGBTQ+ news from around the world.
“It is wrong. Please [keep] those skeletons in your cupboard,” he added.
Kenya has become a “choke point” for LGBTQ+ refugee claims, according to Devon Matthews, program head for Rainbow Railroad, a Toronto-based international resettlement organization.
LGBTQ+ refugees “most at risk” from across East Africa are fleeing into Kenya “and are finding themselves entirely stuck within the refugee-processing structure,” she said.
Many arrive at the notorious Kakuma refugee camp, which houses nearly 300,000 refugees from across East Africa. LGBTQ+ people are regularly subjected to harassment, beatings, and in some cases death, from fellow refugees and homophobic locals.
Multiple reports from the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration and the United Nation Refugee Agency in Kenya have documented human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people at the camp.
That violence and the Kenyan government’s refusal to process asylum claims are forcing refugees to flee once again. Hundreds have made the 250-mile journey to the much smaller Gorom camp in South Sudan, an East African country mired in armed conflict, hoping for better luck resettling to a Western country.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission says 450 LGBTQ+ refugees have trekked to South Sudan since January alone. Of them, 28 were resettled before that country, too, barred registration for asylum claims based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Kenya’s clampdown on LGBTQ+ refugees comes amid conservative lawmakers’ efforts to push them out of the country.
Kenya MP Mohammed Ali is sponsoring legislation that seeks to deport any refugees or asylum seekers who commit same-sex acts or advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.
“If you want homosexuals, get them visas and take them to your countries,” he said at an anti-gay rally in Mombasa last year.
He called LGBTQ+ identity “a Western import,” but numerous tribes in pre-colonial Africa had instances of homosexuality, both in their rituals and social relationships.
These days, “gross indecency” between males in Kenya is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, though the law is rarely, if ever, enforced.
Kenya’s restrictions are adding to the chaos caused by their neighbors’ anti-LGBTQ+ crusades. Rainbow Railroad says they received 1,400 requests for help from Uganda last year after the government enacted its “Kill the Gays” law, which criminalizes identifying as LGBTQ+ and imposes the death penalty for certain acts.
“Every time someone is arrested or beaten, or publicly shamed or outed, it causes a ripple effect where everyone in that person’s circle or community is also put into an extremely defensive state and in a place of fear,” said program head Matthews.
“It’s the state-sanctioned witch-hunt that causes community-level violence and religious violence as well to crop up,” she said.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
