British Officials Not Tracking Gay Asylum Claims

Officials in the UK say that they are not tracking cases in which asylum seekers say they are gay and wish to reside in Britain in order to escape persecution, reported British newspaper the Guardian on May 1.

The failure to track such cases stands in stark contrast to a vow by the British government that GLBTS fleeing bias-driven threats to their life and liberty would not be sent back to their home nations, where they would face danger.

"The lack of statistics means the government does not know whether gay and lesbian asylum seekers are still being deported to countries where they may face imprisonment, torture or execution," reported the Guardian. "It is also unable to say whether new rules, brought in after a Supreme Court ruling that marked an end to Britain refusing asylum to gay men and lesbians on the grounds they could hide their sexuality by living discreetly, are being breached."

Headline-generating tales of heightened homophobia in places such as Iran, Malawi, and Uganda helped convince the court that gays faced deteriorating social conditions and increasing threats to their safety, the article said.

In Uganda, one lawmaker--David Bahati, who has links with anti-gay American evangelicals--has proposed making the nation's anti-gay laws even tougher, with death a prescribed penalty for gays who have repeated sexual encounters with same-gender partners. The bill would also punish heterosexuals who know about gays for not reporting them to the police.

The arrest and imprisonment of a same-sex Malawi couple brought international attention to that country. Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were placed under arrest for having celebrated an engagement party, and then, after months of detainment in prison, were sentenced to the maximum penalty of fourteen years' hard labor under Malawi's decency laws. The case attracted the media spotlight and the couple was pardoned, but Monjeza left Chimbalanga in the wake of the traumatic events.

Iran's gay and lesbian population has come under increasing attack since that nation was taken over by theocratic extremists in 1979. Human rights watchdogs say that between 3,000 and 4,000 gays have been put to death under Islamic anti-gay Sharia law in the last three decades. The situation has become so desperate that an "underground railway" has been established to help sexual minorities flee Iran and make their way to Turkey or to Canada.

Iran "is a notorious homophobic country where lesbians and gays routinely face torture, violence and even execution," according to a spokesperson for American GLBT advocacy group Immigration Equality. "It is among the most dangerous countries on the globe for lesbian and gay people."

With that in mind, the British court said that gays fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation should be allowed to remain in Britain, and the British government instructed the UK Border Agency to ensure that cases dealing with GLBT asylum seekers should be "flagged and recorded."

But that's not happening, the Guardian reported, even though the directive was issued half a year ago.

The article noted that the U.S. State Department has recently produced a new Human Rights Report, and that Britain was not well reflected upon by claims from UK GLBT advocacy group Stonewall.

"Stonewall claimed that, by 'fast tracking' these more complex cases and denying them quickly, UKBA staff did not give applicants time to talk openly about their sexual orientation," the report said.

"The campaign group found that, in the period between 2005-2009 almost all gay and lesbian asylum seeker claims were initially refused, compared with a 76% refusal rate among all asylum seekers, and were more likely to be fast tracked, which meant applicants and their lawyers had much less time to prepare an appeal," the Guardian reported.

"Lesbian and gay asylum support groups said that the lack of centrally held official figures means they are unable to track whether any progress is being made," the newspaper added.

"This makes it impossible to say anything at all about LGBT claims because we don't know whether they are granting asylum," said the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group's Erin Power. "What worries us are people who were refused prior to the Supreme Court decision. In these cases, we know the countries they are being sent back to are dangerous. If they are picked up as failed asylum seekers, no one is checking whether they were told to be discreet. We've no idea how many people there are."

Moreover, immigration officials are harder to convince now than they used to be when they hear that an asylum seeker is gay or lesbian, Power said.

Heavy Burden of Proof

Such allegations have also been made in the United States, where, according to GLBT immigration advocates, a gay claimant's not being flamboyant enough can work against him.

Gay asylum seekers already face a tough burden of proof. They must convince immigration judges not only that they genuinely are gay, but also that they face peril if they return to their homelands. Unfortunately, immigration judges are as apt as anyone else to harbor stereotyped ideas of what constitutes "gay," and men who fail to dress and act in ways that match those preconceived notions may be dismissed as lying about their sexual orientation in order to gain entry to the United States.

But gays--like straights--express themselves across a range of personal affect and demeanor. A "macho" man might be just as sexually and romantically attracted to persons of the same gender as a "nellie," or overtly effeminate, man.

Because only an individual knows for sure what his or her own sexual orientation is, officials placed the position of determining a person's sexuality through objective means have sometimes resorted to methods that are seen as degrading and invasive. Czech officials made headlines for subjecting gay asylum seekers to a kind of gay "gay lie detector test" in which the applicant's genitals were monitored while he viewed erotic material designed to appeal to homosexuals. If the applicant did not respond physically, the result counted against him.

The test drew criticism from the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency, which reported that the phallometric test might not lead to "sufficiently clear conclusions" upon which to deny an applicant's claim. Moreover, "since this procedure touches upon a most intimate part of an individual's private life," the report cautioned, the test could be in contravention to European Convention on Human Rights guidelines.

Czech officials claimed that only a few asylum claimants had been subjected to the test, and those who had consented to it in writing.

Britain does not subject claimants to such invasive tests, but it standards of proof are nonetheless inadequate, according to immigration equality advocates.

"We are aware of cases where the Home Office and the courts have refused people asylum on the basis which we know now to be wrong," Steve Symonds, who works with the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, told the publication.

"The sensible thing to do would be to review cases of removal," Symonds added. "When you get to a point where you have to put someone on a plane for removal, you should get their file out and make sure there's nothing of concern. They should check they have not claimed on the grounds of being gay, because they know that there was an important decision in the court which may be relevant."

But such fact checking is difficult when no statistics are being gathered for the purpose. Adding to the difficulty are institutional layers of bureaucracy and expense.

"The information requested in the questions is not recorded centrally by the UK Border Agency and can only be obtained through examination of individual case records at a disproportionate cost," Immigration Minister Damian Green admitted to Parliament recently, the article said.

"The UK Border Agency does not currently record separate statistics on the grounds on which individuals claim asylum," a spokesperson for the agency told the media. "We are, however, reviewing how data on sexual orientation cases can be recorded more effectively and whether any resulting data can be published."