Archive for the ‘LGBT refugees’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 2, 2012
Reading through ORAM’s new guide on assisting LGBTI refugees, asylees, and asylum seekers I found a code of conduct to focus on when assisting these people. It seems that this list of principles would also be highly useful in assisting any person or group of refugees or asylees, and therefore worth posting here:.
◊ Demonstrate Kindness, Patience, and Sensitivity: Maintain a kind and patient attitude towards refugees, asylees, and asylum seekers. Remain sensitive to the fact that most of them are continuing to heal from psychological and physical scars left by traumatic experiences.
◊ Be Aware of Power Disparities: Do not assume an equal footing between you and the refugee, asylee, or asylum seeker. Act consciously to put yourself in the refugee’s situation before making a request of this individual.
◊ Understand Your Friendship from the Refugee’s Perspective: Remember that with scant resources in their new country, refugees are particularly vulnerable and may feel obligated to say or do things that they otherwise would not in order to secure your continued friendship and support.
◊ Avoid Conflicts of Interest: Avert situations pitting your interests (including financial ones) against those of the refugee.
◊ Respect Differing Cultures, Religions, and Beliefs: Demonstrate respect for differing cultural and religious backgrounds and practices. Do not proselytize or attempt to convert the refugee to your own religious, cultural, or political beliefs, even if you believe you are acting in the refugee’s best interest.
◊ Support Autonomy: Support the refugee’s ability to make independent decisions. Affirm that refugees bring much to [their new community and friends] and to their new country.
◊ Value Refugees’ Contributions: Remember that refugees are defined not by their needs, but by the contributions they do and will make to their new communities.
◊ Communicate Honestly: Always communicate honestly, even when doing so is difficult.
◊ Demonstrate Accountability: Fulfill all commitments once they are agreed to.
◊ Protect the Refugee from Discrimination: Identify discrimination against the refugee, whether based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion, nationality, or any other grounds. Stand up for the refugee.
◊ Respect Interpersonal Boundaries: Respect the refugee’s right to personal privacy. Refrain from becoming physically or romantically intimate with the refugee…
◊ Safeguard Confidentiality: Keep [confidential] all potentially sensitive or private information about the refugee…unless otherwise instructed by the refugee being helped. Confidentiality extends to the personal history, medical status, financial arrangements, and other dimensions of the refugee’s life. Maintaining confidentiality is particularly important for asylum seekers and for refugees awaiting resettlement, as they have not yet secured or reached a place of safety. Read more here
Posted in best practices, LGBT refugees, ORAM | Tagged: asylees, asylum, code of conduct, lgbti, ORAM, personal boundaries, power disparities, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 29, 2012
ORAM (the Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration) has released the first ever guide for American LGBT and accepting communities on welcoming people fleeing persecution in their home countries, according to a recent email announcement from ORAM.
…Rainbow Bridges, a 48-page guide developed in a pilot project to resettle LGBT refugees in San Francisco, offers practical step-by-step guidance on welcoming new refugees, ensuring their mental and physical wellbeing, and helping them find support in their new communities. It includes sample forms, a suggested code of conduct, and outlines the avenues for refugees to receive housing, employment, and federal assistance…
…ORAM estimates the US receives about 2,000 refugees a year who are fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, representing 6% of all refugees in America. Unlike other refugees, those who are LGBT or intersex often undergo the integration process alone, facing exclusion from the religious and immigrant communities that form the safety net for most newly arrived refugees and asylees. Rainbow Bridges will help U.S. LGBT, faith-based, and welcoming communities support these refugees as they build new lives in the United States…
…About ORAM
The Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) is the only organization focused exclusively on helping vulnerable LGBTI refugees worldwide find safety and rebuild their lives in welcoming communities. ORAM increases global support for refugees and asylum seekers through advocacy and education, as well as technical assistance to people and groups interested in working with refugees, asylees, and asylum seekers…
The report notes that resettlement agencies, “are unaccustomed to the isolation and challenges LGBTI refugees face and are unfamiliar with their unique needs. Many [resettlement agencies] lack the training and resources needed to effectively serve this vulnerable group. Perhaps most importantly, no [resettlement agency] has the resources or capacity to successfully integrate an individual without support from family or community.” This is an important point when you stop to think of all the other refugees resettled without support from family or community, e.g. the 3000+ Sudanese “Lost Boys” refugees.
Posted in best practices, LGBT refugees, ORAM, San Francisco | Tagged: bisexual, gay, lesbian, lgbt, lgbti, ORAM, Organization for Refuge Asylum & Migration, refugees, resettlement, transgendered | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 26, 2012
In 2010, about 3,500 lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) refugees were resettled in the U.S. – including about 125 in Pennsylvania – and about 1,000 LGBT asylum seekers are also entering the country.Most LGBT people who come here as refugees or seeking asylum don’t identify as LGBT, making sensitive resettlement services trickier to apply. In Philadelphia the Nationalities Service Center is resettling some of these refugees. An article in the Philadelphia Daily News explains:
…refugees classified as lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) [are being] resettled in Philadelphia by the Nationalities Service Center, the city’s largest refugee-resettlement agency…
…Until recent years, LGBT refugees in the U.S. were more likely to identify their persecution as ethnic, religious or political, said Juliane Ramic, the NSC’s director of social services.
On Dec. 6, President Obama issued a presidential memorandum directing the first-ever U.S. government strategy dedicated to combating human-rights abuses against LGBT people abroad. On the same day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in Geneva about the need to protect LGBT people. “In many ways, they are an invisible minority,” she said. “They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed.”
The NSC in Philadelphia, along with representatives from the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, conducted training to help ensure that refugee-resettlement agencies and other service providers understand the vulnerabilities of LGBT refugees and asylees before, during and after resettlement.
Because most LGBT people who come here as refugees or seeking asylum don’t identify as LGBT, reliable statistics on their numbers are hard to come by. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not identify or track LGBT refugees, and information on sexual orientation or gender identity rarely is reflected in refugees’ files, according to the Heartland Alliance.
In 2010, about 3,500 LGBT refugees were resettled in the U.S. – including about 125 in Pennsylvania – and about 1,000 LGBT asylum seekers entered the country, the Heartland Alliance estimates… Read more here
Posted in Heartland Alliance, LGBT refugees, Nationalities Service Center, Obama administration, Philadelphia | Tagged: gay, glbt, lesbian, lgbt, lgbti, Nationalities Service Center, Philadelphia, refugees, resettlement, transgendered | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 1, 2011
A 30-year-old gay Ugandan refugee named Daniel, displaced specifically due to anti-LGBTI persecution, is one of the first refugees resettled to the US in recognition of that fact. U.S.-based evangelical movements assisted in Daniel’s persecution in Uganda. An article in the Contra Costa Times has the story:
OAKLAND — Being gay in Uganda was never easy for gospel singer Daniel Dyson, but the anti-gay hysteria that erupted in the African nation two years ago forced him to flee.
Prominent Christian pastors had launched a political movement to eliminate homosexuality in the country. They employed professed ex-gays to reveal the names, whereabouts and other identifying details of gay residents in Kampala, the capital city. Dyson was on the list…
...Dyson, who landed in the Bay Area in the spring, is among the first refugees the United States has invited to live in California specifically because of anti-gay persecution abroad. The nonprofit groups that helped him move here — Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay and the San Francisco-based Organization for Refuge Asylum and Migration — are among the first in the country to take sexual orientation into account in the way they integrate refugees into a new community, aware that the ethnic communities and extended families most refugees rely on for support won’t necessarily accommodate them…
…”They were saying that we were destroying African culture, so I went to the media houses, trying to educate people that gay people, we are African people, we are here,” he said.
He had been involved in low-profile lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activism for more than five years, but the barrage of venom grew in 2009. On his way back from a radio station that spring, armed men kidnapped and brutally assaulted Dyson, he said, leaving injuries from which he is still recovering. He fled across the Kenyan border several days later…
…Uganda is debating whether to imprison gays and execute those with “aggravated homosexuality” offenses. The lawmaker who proposed the bill and other Ugandan anti-gay activists have close ties to U.S.-based evangelical movements, though many American pastors have since distanced themselves from the bill and its proponents.
As more countries threaten to penalize homosexuality with jail or death, the United States and United Nations are breaking down some of the institutional barriers that prevent many gays, lesbians and transgender people from seeking refuge. Most of those awarded refugee status belong to a political, ethnic or religious groups and are in danger in their homeland and have no place to live safely. LGBT status also can be considered a social class in countries where gays and lesbians have a well-founded fear of persecution.
“It hasn’t been a legal obstacle in a long time, but there have been enormous systemic obstacles,” said Neil Grungras, director of the nonprofit Organization for Refuge Asylum and Migration. “Few people, extremely few people, said this is the reason I’m being persecuted. We’re trying to make the system more open, less blocked.”…
…”I don’t know what it’s like for him every day. He carries a lot of pain around. Those scars just never really go away,” Grungras said… Read more here
Posted in LGBT refugees, ORAM, San Francisco, Ugandan | Tagged: evangelical, gay, glbt, intersexed, Jewish Family and Children's Services of the East Bay, lesbian, lgbt, lgbti, Neil Grungras, ORAM, Organization for Refuge Asylum and Migration, persecution, refugees, resettlement, transexual, Uganda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 16, 2011
The ORR is giving the Heartland Alliance agency in Chicago a $250,000 grant to create a training and technical assistance center that will support US resettlement agencies that resettle LGBT refugees. A Windy City Times article has more information:
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a division of ACF, has awarded a $250,000 contract to the Heartland Alliance of Chicago to create this training and technical assistance center, according to a press release from the alliance…
…The focus of this initiative will be to provide:
—Resource and capacity development in key resettlement locations;
—Sensitivity training to network staff, including overview of key issue regarding newly arriving LGBT refugees;
—Technical assistance in service delivery; and
—Development of best practices and orientation materials for refugee service providers across the country.
“As many of these refugees left their homelands specifically because of persecution related to their LGBT status, it is particularly incumbent on us to provide a safe and welcoming environment,” [ACF Acting Assistant Secretary David A.] Hansell added.
“The current resettlement network has limited understanding of the LGBT community,” said ORR Director Eskinder Negash. “In addition, no information exists in the context of available resource materials specifically for LGBT refugees. The need for these services is critical to ensure their successful resettlement in the U.S… Read more here
It’s obvious that the State Department’s and ORR’s national network of private resettlement agencies are often anything but sensitive to LGBTI refugees, as seen in Houston last year. Regular incidents include fundamental violation of human rights, with government partners who then act to protect the agencies from any real accountability. The problem I have with this grant is that the Heartland Alliance agency in Chicago has somewhat of a checkered history itself when it comes to basic violations of refugee clients’ most basic needs and rights – as I saw for myself beginning in 2001.
Posted in Chicago, funding, Heartland Alliance, LGBT refugees, ORR | Tagged: bisexual, Chicago, gay, heartland alliance, human rights, LBBTI, lesbian, lgbt, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, training and technical assistance, transgendered | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 4, 2011
ORAM (Organization for Refuge Asylum & Migration) has began a pilot refugee resettlement program out of their Bay Area office, according to the blog LezGet Real: A Gay Girl’s View of the World (Note: 6-15-11 – this blog turns out to have been written by a male). Currently ORAM is reaching out to the local community to ask for assistance with housing for a gay Ugandan refugee.
Melanie Nathan – Jan 12-2011 – SAN FRANCISCO - ORAM, the first migration organization focusing exclusively on refugees fleeing sexual and gender-based violence worldwide, has began a pilot resettlement program out of their Bay Area office. This service will add to the new network spanning national, ethnic, religious, racial and gender divides, as ORAM provides clients with free legal representation and conducts advocacy and education on their behalf.
Today the group – an imperative resource for LGBT refugees, is reaching out to the Bay Area for help, with an urgent call to for housing for a Gay Ugandan Refugee. The young man (approximately late 20’s-30’s) has fled Uganda and is being legally directed to San Francisco, where he will receive assistance from ORAM and some financial support from the US Government. He will be seeking employment as soon as he arrives. He will have a stipend and medical coverage – the most difficult to arrange is a place to stay…. Read more here
For more information about ORAM click here. Here is a posting from August about an article on ORAM.
Posted in LGBT refugees, Oakland, ORAM, San Francisco, sexual and gender-based violence - refugees fleeing | Tagged: Bay Area, gay refugees, gay Ugandan refugee, gender-based violence, glbt refugees, lgbt, LGBT refugees, lgbti refugees, ORAM, Organization for Refuge Asylum & Migration, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement program, refugees, sexual and gender-based violence, Uganda, Ugandan refugees | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 29, 2011
An article in the New York Times covers the subject of LGBTI’s applying for asylum in the US. Apparently applicants must pass a “gay social visibility” test in order for authorities to grant them asylum. U.S. authorities consider non-gender-bending LGBTIs’s as not at risk in their home countries.
…Amid international outcry over news of the Czech Republic’s testing the veracity of claims of purportedly gay asylum seekers by attaching genital cuffs to monitor their arousal while they watched pornography, some gay refugees and their advocates in New York are complaining that they can be penalized for not outwardly expressing their sexuality. While asylum-seekers and rights groups here expressed relief that use of the so-called erotic lie detector is impossible to imagine in the United States, some lamented in recent interviews that here too, homosexuals seeking asylum may risk being dismissed as not being gay enough.
The very notion of “gay enough,” of course, or proving one’s sexuality through appearance, dress and demeanor, can be offensive…
…“Judges and immigration officials are adding a new hurdle in gay asylum cases that an applicant’s homosexuality must be socially visible,” said Lori Adams, a lawyer at Human Rights First, a nonprofit group, who advises people seeking asylum based on sexuality. “The rationale is that if you don’t look obviously gay, you can go home and hide your sexuality and don’t need to be worried about being persecuted.”… Read more here
Posted in asylees, LGBT refugees | Tagged: asylees, asylum, bisexual, gay, lesbian, lgbt, lgbti | 3 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on August 28, 2010
The Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration (ORAM) is a group based in San Francisco that is working to help LGBTI refugees who are fleeing persecution in their home countries. The Bay Area Reporter has an article detailing the work of the organization.
A little known agency founded two years ago in San Francisco is helping to shine a spotlight on the plight of LGBT refugees around the globe who are fleeing persecution in their home countries.
The Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration, called ORAM for short, is the brainchild of Neil Grungras, an openly gay lawyer who specializes in immigration and refuge law whose career has included stints with the State Department and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Since founding ORAM in 2008, Grungras has devoted himself full time to growing the nonprofit. He oversees its program in Turkey for LGBT Iranians seeking to immigrate to Western countries and lobbies United Nations officials in Geneva about the needs of LGBT asylum seekers and refugees from around the globe.
“No one had touched on the issues of LGBT refugees, period, from a legal perspective. No one had confronted the reason why the international system does not protect LGBT refugees,” said Grungras…
Unlike more established groups that advocate on behalf of LGBT people within their home countries, such at Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, ORAM is focused on what happens once an LGBT person crosses the border to a foreign country.
“People constantly ask us to comment about the situation of gays in various countries but that is not what we do. We help people who have actually left the places where they have been persecuted and help them get refugee status and some legal protection and get settled in a new country,” said Grungras. “We don’t make it our business to focus on persecution in the country of origin. We are a humanitarian organization who helps people who have left their country. Of course we know what is going on, but our mission is to help our brothers and sisters reach safety.”…
…”Who ORAM works with is the 95 percent of LGBTs who haven’t been able to get anywhere. They have crossed the border to get out with their lives and that is where they are. But they are not looking to stay in those places,” said Grungras. “When they come to our hands, they are just beginning a very long road to find safe haven. Sometimes they won’t have it for a few years.” …
…This year ORAM has a budget of $650,000. As of June it had a caseload of 35 active clients, five of whom are now living in the United States. Two are in Texas, two in Arizona, and one is living in Florida.
It has three lawyers, including Grungras, working full-time on cases, and a handful of other staffers helping to process and coordinate its caseload.
This summer ORAM opened an office in downtown San Francisco and received $150,000 from the Arcus Foundation to survey numerous non-governmental organizations about their attitudes toward LGBT refugees and what services they offer such clients.
The agency has also launched an “Adopt-a-Refugee” program where it matches donors with one of its clients. Participants must donate $500 in order to be matched with a refugee, and ORAM will provide updates on the person’s immigration case.
The money donated is transferred directly to the adoptee, who can also opt to be in contact with their “adopter” and communicate directly via e-mail or social networking sites such as Facebook.
…Since many LGBT immigrants lack the support of family, the program is a way to help them create new support networks.
“LGBTs are often running away from their family, so to know there is an individual out there who cares enough to open their wallets and give a person money, that is really empowering to them,” said Grungras. here
I wrote to Mr. Grungras several months back, when we posted the case of the two gay Iraqi refugees that were neglected by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Houston, to ask him if it was normal for refugees who are resettled to the US based on their LGBTI status to be assigned to resettlement organizations who offer no services to LGBTI people. And in the Houston case, no services to these refugees who claimed to have been sexually assaulted.
Mr. Grungras said that only just beginning in April did it became possible for OPEs (Overseas Processing Entities) to show refugees’ persecution status in the WRAPS [computer] system. He said that before this the only information about refugees given to resettlement agencies was gender, age, nationality, and special medical issues.
That being the case I hope that LGBTI refugees will no longer be placed with gay-unfriendly groups such as Catholic and fundamentalist Christian resettlement groups.
Posted in Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Houston, Iraqi, LGBT refugees, ORAM | Tagged: asylum, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Houston, Iran, Iraqi refugees, LGBT refugees, Neil Grungras, OPE, ORAM, Organization for Refuge Asylum and Migration, overseas processing entity, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugees, resettlement, Turkey | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 14, 2010
Ugandan human rights-LGBTI rights advocate Valentine (Val) Kalende is visiting the US as a guest of the State Department to explore LGBTI issues in this country. Something tells me the State Department won’t be having her visit Catholic Charities in Houston.
One of Uganda’s most outspoken and prominent human rights activists, Ms. Valentine (Val) Kalende, is visiting the United States under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program to focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) advocacy. Ms. Kalende will have discussions with members of government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, faith groups, and the media, as well as with local and federal government officials. In turn, she will talk with U.S. interlocutors and broader audiences about the Ugandan human rights situation and challenges faced by members of the LGBT community.
As a human rights-LGBT rights advocate and Programs and Communications Manager of Freedom and Roam Uganda, Ms. Kalende has been deeply involved in opposition to a proposed “anti-homosexuality” law introduced in 2009 in the Ugandan parliament. The controversial law would sentence some LGBT people to life in prison or even death. A former journalist, Ms. Kalende has written a full accounting of the anti-homosexuality movement in her country. She has also raised awareness of how this legislation would impact all of Ugandan society. Ms. Kalende has been harassed, beaten, and arrested because of her advocacy work. She has been featured by U.S. and international news organizations as one of the most courageous human rights activists in Uganda. here
I think its ironic that the State Department condones mistreatment of LGBTI refugees by faith-based refugee services contractors, by virtue of doing nothing to penalize contractors who engage in this practice, yet on the other hand welcomes LGBTI activists here as honored guests.
Posted in Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, faith-based, Houston, LGBT refugees, State Department, USCCB | Tagged: catholic charities, faith-based, houston, International Visitor Leadership Program, lgbt, lgbti, refugees, resettlement, State Department, Uganda, Valentine (Val) Kalende | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 17, 2010
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Houston has dismissed an Iraqi refugee’s complaint of neglect and abuse without citing any substantive reason, here. This is one of the two young male refugees who reported that Catholic Charities of Houston treated them different than other Iraqi refugee refugees, including not giving them basic furnishings here, here, and here. The young men said Catholic Charities staff members told them they only had enough resources to help “families”.
The refugee whose complaint was dimiissed also reported to us that a Catholic Charities Houston employment specialist boasted to a female Iraqi refugee client that he put the young men in a place that befits them as gays — cleaning jobs (CC Houston placed one young man in a cleaning job, while referring the other to another cleaning job).
The complaint response letter stemmed from the “grievance process” that the State Refugee Coordinator, Caitriona Lyons (the former director of the refugee resettlement program at Caritas in Austin – like Catholic Charities of Houston a USCCB affiliate) advised the refugees to embark upon when we forwarded their complaints to her. This is now a standard trick played on refugees when they complain to state refugee coordinators (hello Thuan Nguyen in California, you know what you did, here), referring them to multiple other contracting agencies, while doing nothing. This is a way to push complaints down and out while not addressing the causes of the complaints nor holding anyone (resettlement friends and partners) accountable. Is this now part of the playbook of SCOOR’s (State Coordinators of Refugee Resettlement)?
I should point out that refugee resettlement agencies, and their partners and friends, have complained vigorously to the federal government about people applying for refugee resettlement and asylum and being rejected by the U.S. government with no reasons given. Yet look at how they treat refugees — its pure hypocrisy. The letter that Catholic Charities of Houston sent dismissing the complaint has not one reason, let alone any valid reason, for dismissing his complaints. This is a case in which a community leader even went to the men’s apartment and verified what was in it — not much (what the young men did have had mostly been pulled from the garbage).
In a related matter, the Iraqi refugee involved in filing this complaint tells us that a young Iraqi female refugee client of Catholic Charities of Houston who told the young men what the Catholic Charities employee said about them behind their backs has now vanished. Her family, whom she is quite close to, have reported the disappearance to police, who are investigating the matter.
Posted in beds, Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, faith-based, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, Houston, Iraqi, LGBT refugees, neglect, Texas, USCCB | Tagged: abuse, Caitriona Lyons, caritas, catholic charities, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Houston, employment, furnishings, furniture, gay, glbt, houston, Iraqi, jobs, lgbt, lgbti, neglect, refugee, refugees, resettlment, SCOOR, State Coordinators of Refugee Resettlement, Texas, Thuan Nguyen, TX, us catholic conference of bishops, USCCB | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
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