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A Public Policy to Allow 300 LGBTQI+ Afghans to Enter Canada as Government Assisted Refugees
MEMORANDUM TO:
The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and staff
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs and staff
The Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada and staff
Introduction
LGBTQI+ Afghans are facing state-directed homophobic, biphobic and transphobic violence on a widespread scale to the extent that Rainbow Railroad is urging the Government of Canada take additional measures in order to avoid loss of human life and further egregious human rights abuses. In this memorandum, we draw on our extensive work in the country since the end of August to provide a briefing on the security emergency facing LGBTQI+ Afghans, outline why this emergency requires immediate intervention, and provide a pathway forward.
Rainbow Railroad is urging the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to immediately use Section 25 under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) to allow Rainbow Railroad to directly refer up to 300 LGBTQI+ Afghans for resettlement in Canada as Government Assisted Refugees.
The urgent activation of a public policy under Section 25 for LGBTQI+ Afghans would be complementary and concurrent to the resettlement of LGBTQI+ Afghan refugees through the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Program (RRAP). This document outlines why both a commitment to a new public policy under Section 25, and increased and expedited RRAP resettlement is the best path forward.
Since the fall of Kabul, the Government of Canada has signalled that it intends to directly support LGBTQI+ Afghans as well as other minority communities. On August 13, 2021, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan released a statement announcing that Canada “will introduce a special program to focus on particularly vulnerable groups that are already welcomed to Canada through existing resettlement streams, including women leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, persecuted religious minorities, LGBTI individuals, and family members of previously resettled interpreters. The program will welcome governmentsupported and privately sponsored refugees, along with those sponsored by family already in Canada”.
Since the announcement of the special program, Rainbow Railroad has fielded over 800 requests for help from LGBTQI+ people. Among these 800, we have fully verified the identities of 300 individuals who are facing immediate risk, and who need to be resettled. Within these 300 are 45 individuals who have sought refuge in Pakistan and the UAE that Rainbow Railroad is currently supporting. The situation of these 45 individuals is highly precarious and they are ready to travel immediately. This is why the time to act is now.
To ensure the 300 people we have identified and verified as extremely high risk can be moved to safety in Canada as soon as possible, this memorandum proposes a clear path forward on creating the new “special program,” for immediate implementation. Rainbow Railroad stands ready to work with the Government of Canada to deliver this program as the referring partner.
About Rainbow Railroad
In the spirit of and in homage to the Underground Railroad, the mission of Rainbow Railroad is to help LGBTQI+ people as they seek safe haven from state directed violence, murder, or persecution. Rainbow Railroad receives roughly 4,000 requests annually from people in nearly 70 countries where their sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or sex characteristics are criminalized.
Since our founding in 2006, Rainbow Railroad has helped more than 1,800 people relocate from 38 countries. These individuals have settled in 11 countries, including Canada, that provide safe harbour for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers.
The Security Emergency Facing LGBTQI+ Afghans
LGBTQI+ Afghans are facing a unique and dire threat under the Taliban, and at the hands of other militant groups operating within Afghanistan, such as ISIS-K. Rainbow Railroad is in direct communication with hundreds of individuals in Afghanistan who are living in constant fear for their lives. These individuals face insurmountable barriers to fleeing, are unable to access typical programs of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and many are not eligible for private sponsorship to Canada.
Most of Rainbow Railroad’s clients are in hiding and will put their lives at extreme risk if they attempt to flee to a neighbouring country without a clear plan of passage to a safe third country that upholds LGBTQI+ equality. Many are terrified that even if they escape Afghanistan to a neighbouring country such as Pakistan, without onward travel to a country like Canada secured, they will (A) face similarly dire circumstances given Pakistan’s criminalization of LGBTQI+ persons, (B) be at continued risk of tracking or threats by fellow Afghans or Taliban in Pakistan and (C) face refoulement.
Employees of Rainbow Railroad have conducted in-depth interviews with LGBTQI+ Afghans living underground in Pakistan. Interviewees live in constant fear of being returned to Afghanistan and again hunted down in Kabul. Some noted that in the process of fleeing, they were outed to their families or directly to the Taliban, and that they feared if they were to be sent back, they would be tortured or killed on arrival. Rainbow Railroad possesses ample documentation of LGBTQI+ persons who have been violently attacked and targeted by the Taliban.
The following are direct quotations from LGBTQI+ Afghans which demonstrate the direness of the security emergency:
“Under the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia Law, homosexuality is strictly prohibited and the Taliban has explicitly announced their intention to actively seek and exterminate members of the LGBTQ community. Gay people like me are sentenced to death by such methods as stoning or being buried alive under rubble. In the past month, Taliban forces have dismembered and shot dead people they discovered to be gay.”
“My friend called to inform me that the government surrendered to the Taliban. When the Taliban came, target killing started suddenly. My friend got killed, because the Taliban knew he was LGBT. They also knew I was a friend of his. I [escaped] to my grandfather’s house with my boyfriend and stayed there for 20 days. One day I was in the house, someone knocked on the door and I realized it was Taliban and we both ran away from the house from the rooftop. The Taliban started firing at us.”
“When I moved to Mazar, I met a guy as well. He seemed like a nice person, we had sex twice and got into a relationship. After the Taliban took over, he joined them. He then contacted me. He sent me pictures of him with Taliban and said ‘you’re gay’. I was so scared I said ‘no I am not gay’.”
Many informants also noted that LGBTQI+ people face multiple threat dimensions under Taliban rule due to their additional status as human rights defenders or their alignment with U.S. based or supported organizations.
LGBTQI+ Afghans who have fled to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates are facing continued threats to their safety and risk of refoulement. Pakistan and UAE both continue to criminalize same sex intimacy. Under the law in both countries, punishments include the death penalty.1 The rights of LGBTQI+ individuals are not protected legally, and communities of reception of LGBTQI+ Afghans are violent. The US Department of State Human Rights Report on Pakistan noted that violence and discrimination persists against LGBTQI+ people with impunity, as police generally refused to take action.2
Afghan nationals who have fled to Pakistan or the UAE cannot wait for the process of private sponsorship under the RRAP, even if the program was expedited under special circumstances. Individuals are at high risk of refoulement; if this took place, these individuals would face execution.
Rainbow Railroad’s Response to the Crisis in Afghanistan
Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August of 2021, Rainbow Railroad has received approximately 800 requests for help. Rainbow Railroad works to verify each case individually and assess the level of risk an individual is facing. Among the total of 800 cases, we have to date fully verified 300 people and deemed them at a heightened risk of experiencing immediate and life-threatening violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. We are calling on the Government of Canada to resettle these 300 people through Ministerial direction. 45 of these 300 people are LGBTQI+ Afghans in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates facing imminent danger - these individuals could be processed for resettlement to Canada immediately.
Rainbow Railroad has already undertaken significant engagement in Afghanistan due to the extreme and widespread nature of the threats facing LGBTQI+ people in the country. Here are some of our activities to date:
• We have sounded the alarm in Canadian and international media about the widespread nature of the human rights abuses facing LGBTQI+ people in Afghanistan.
• We worked directly with the U.K. Government to evacuate 29 people from Afghanistan into the U.K. via Pakistan We anticipate being able to evacuate another 30+ people through this partnership in the coming months.
• We worked with human rights defenders in the region and global organizations to resettle 17 LGBTQI+ Afghans in Ireland in September 2021.
1 https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/pakistan/ and https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/united-arabemirates/
2 https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/pakistan/