Rainbow Railroad - Submission to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration Study on Immigration Measures for the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Background: Founded in 2006, Rainbow Railroad is a Canadian charity with a mandate to help persecuted LGBTQ individuals get to safety. We respond to urgent requests for help from individuals who face persecution and have experienced physical and sexual violence or credible threats of violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. The individuals we assist cannot avail themselves of the protection of their governments and/or police due to the criminalization of homosexuality or systemic and acute persecution of homosexuals and gender nonconforming individuals in their country or region. Through a network of volunteers, diaspora, and local contacts, Rainbow Railroad confirms the veracity of the requests we receive and provides information and connections to help individuals get to safety. When funding permits, we provide pre-travel support, airfare and short-term post-travel support to help individuals travel to a safer location. Additionally, Rainbow Railroad has helped LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers located in hostile countries of first asylum resettle to Canada through a pilot project on private sponsorship. Since January 2015, Rainbow Railroad has received 450 requests for help from individuals in over 70 countries. This submission is informed by these requests for help, our discussions with partner organizations on the ground in high-risk countries, and our experience assisting LGBTQ individuals to get to safety. We look forward to contributing to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration’s ongoing dialogue on Immigration Measures for the Protection of Vulnerable Groups and to developing solutions to assist LGBTQ individuals who face violence and persecution in countries where the state sponsors this homophobic persecution. Criminalization and a culture of persecution with impunity According to the 2016 ILGA Report on State Sponsored Homophobia1, same-sex sexual acts are illegal in 72 states (37% of UN states) and you can be put to death in 13 regions, just for loving who you love. Through our casework we have heard time and time again that in countries where homosexuality is criminalized, or public discourse favours the criminalization of homosexuality, a culture of persecution with impunity emerges. The individuals we hear from report that they are often not only at risk of being arrested, imprisoned, or punished by the state, they also face acute social persecution, and violence in their communities and families, blackmail, and sexual violence, but do not have access to protection from police or their governments because their sexual orientation is 1 http://ilga.org/what-we-do/state-sponsored-homophobia-report/ criminalized. This type of violence has been well documented by Human Rights Watch2, the UNHCR3 and other human rights organizations. Take Uganda as an example where in 2013 the Anti-Homosexuality Act was debated in their legislature. At the time, the country already had colonial era laws on the books criminalizing consensual sex between same-sex adults, but the new proposed legislation went further and had a more hateful tone. It created new crimes such as “aggravated homosexuality” for same-sex couples who live together, “promotion of homosexuality” and "aiding and abetting homosexuality". Each carried jail terms, and in earlier drafts of the bill, the death penalty was considered. While the law was considered unconstitutional and did not come into effect, the impact on the daily lives of LGBT people in the country was tremendous. According to a study4 published by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), reports of homophobic violence started pouring in as the act was being debated. SMUG detailed attempted lynching, mob violence, homes burned down, blackmail, lost jobs, evictions and suicides in addition to an increase in police arrests of gays and lesbians. SMUG estimated that incidents of homophobic violence increased by between 750% and 1900% over previous years. In the author’s view, violence in family homes and on the streets erupted because the new act gave individuals a sense that they could attack LGBTQ people with impunity. The findings of SMUG’s report are consistent with Rainbow Railroad’s case-work experience. We continue to see increases in requests for help and reports of homophobic violence in countries where homosexuality is criminalized. Furthermore, we see increases in the number and severity of requests for help during periods where public debate is hostile towards the LGBTQ community or favours further criminalization of homosexuality. Homophobic violence and displaced persons In our experience, LGBTQ individuals fleeing homophobic violence face risks and challenges that other asylum seekers do not. While many refugees and asylum seekers flee to countries of first asylum in communities or with their families, persecuted LGBTQ individuals are often fleeing persecution from their community and family. These additional risk factors can make the process of travelling to a neighbouring country, registering with the competent refugee agency, and waiting to be resettled particularly difficult or particularly dangerous for persecuted LGBTQ individuals. Persecuted but cannot leave their home country Rainbow Railroad has worked with a number of individuals who are victims of violence, or receive serious and credible threats of violence or murder, but cannot leave their country to seek asylum due to the nature of their circumstances. 2https://www.hrw.org/publications?topic[0]=9691 3https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/62590/lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-and-intersex-lgbti-persons 4https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/uganda-anti-gay-law-rise-attacks Many trans-identified individuals face particular challenges when they need to leave their home country to seek asylum. Rainbow Railroad has worked with trans individuals who received credible threats of murder but could not leave their home country because the sex identified on their official identification documents no longer reflects their gender identity. These individuals were forced into the margins, living in hiding from their families, and were unable to work, find housing, or the necessary medical attention. They continue to face death threats and some have had family members hire kidnappers to assist with their assassination. Additionally, in other regions where women cannot freely travel unless accompanied by men, we have received requests for help from lesbians who are being held captive, are victims of violence and sexual violence, and cannot leave their home country to claim asylum. These women cannot travel alone without the assistance or support of the men in their family, who are often the very individuals persecuting them. For these individuals, travelling to a country of first asylum and waiting to be resettled is not a possibility and the requirement that they leave their home country in order to qualify to be resettled to Canada effectively eliminates this possibility for them. Homophobia in neighbouring countries of first asylum Rainbow Railroad frequently receives requests for help from individuals in regions where neighbouring countries are just as homophobic as their home country. As with most refugees and asylum seekers, waiting to be resettled out of a country of first asylum can be difficult. For LGBTQ individuals, the prospect of waiting as an asylum seeker in a homophobic country for several years before possibly being resettled is a very dangerous course of action. One asylum seeker has described the prospect of seeing asylum in a neighbouring country as “jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire”. Often individuals cannot be employed in the official economy and housing and meeting basic needs are challenging. Compounding these challenges, many LGBTQ individuals report incidents of homophobic violence in refugee camps or group housing. We even received pleas for help from individuals in refugee camps who are being pursued by kidnappers hired by their families to bring them home to face more violence. In countries where homosexuality is criminalized or homophobia is widely accepted, life waiting as an asylum seeker can be extremely dangerous. It should be noted that the UNHCR has made progress in increasing access to protection for LGBTQ asylum seekers in many regions and actively works with Rainbow Railroad on a number of cases where it is the competent refugee authority. However, there are still a number of countries UNHCR is not the competent authority for refugee claims. And when the very governments that criminalize homosexuality are responsible for determining refugee status, the situation is very dangerous for LGBTQ asylum seekers. Rainbow Railroad has worked with one individual who fled Nigeria following an arrest for homosexuality only to move from country to country as local competent authorities would not accept his asylum claim based on his sexual orientation because their governments criminalized homosexuality. While a Sponsorship Agreement Holder has stepped forward to sponsor him for resettlement, the inability to obtain refugee status and his inability to find a host country to provide him with temporary asylum make resettlement next to impossible for him. Administrative Delays In regions where UNHCR has long wait times before a Refugee Status Determination meeting or before resettlement referrals, LGBTQ individuals