HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) - Reflections on a new test for sexuality-based asylum claims in Britain

Wessels, Janna

doi:10.1093/ijrl/ees057

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This judgment was therefore an important advancement concerning SOGI asylum in the UK, since it was no longer possible to deny asylum merely alleging that claimants would not be at risk of persecution if they returned to their countries of origin and concealed their sexual orientation. However, this judgment did not end the use of the discretion requirement completely (Weßels, 2013) 16 .…”

Section: The United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the decision makers find that applicants would conceal their sexual orientation, two situations are possible: if the reason to conceal is due to a well-founded fear of persecution, they should be granted international protection; however, if the reason is due to 'social or family pressures', they are not at real risk of persecution and should not be granted asylum. This test therefore still allows to deny asylum in some cases, depending on the hypothesis created by decision-makers: it is very difficult to know, and to distinguish, the reason(s) why applicants would conceal their sexual orientation if returned to their countries of origin (see Weßels, 2013).…”

Section: The United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The British and South African approaches to asylum based on sexual orientation and gender identity

Andrade

2020

REMHU, Rev. Interdiscip. Mobil. Hum.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the 1980’s it has been possible to claim asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in some countries. Most studies on this topic focus on countries in the Global North. Therefore, there is still a lack of research that comparatively analyses the Global North with the Global South. The aim of this article is then to analyse and compare the approaches of two countries that grant refugee status on the basis of sexuality and gender identity, one in the Global North (the United Kingdom) and one in the Global South (South Africa).

show abstract

Section: The United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

The British and South African approaches to asylum based on sexual orientation and gender identity

Andrade

2020

REMHU, Rev. Interdiscip. Mobil. Hum.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…2 This ruling set an important new precedent for considering a life free of persecution as one lived openly on a par with heterosexuals and straight couples. Yet, it also set up a slippery-slope distinction between openness and discreetness by privileging the significance of visibility and "outness," creating pressure to refuse queer asylum claims on the basis of disbelieving the sincerity of the applicant's sexual orientation (Jansen and Spijkerboer, 2011;Wessels, 2012;Giametta, 2014Giametta, , 2017. One must therefore not only be deemed credible and one's sexual orientation-or gender identity-beyond question, but must also establish that she or he is a "practicing homosexual" (or transgender) who "lives openly"-or at least aspires to do so-for the purposes of protection under the obligations of the refugee convention.…”

Section: Fleeing Exilementioning

confidence: 99%

Confessions of an ambivalent country expert: Queer refugeeism in the UK and the political economy of (im)mobility in and out of Trinidad and Tobago

McNeal

2019

Anthropological Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper considers queer refugeeism from Trinidad and Tobago to the UK in relation to the political economy of (im)mobility in and out of the Caribbean. Gay rights have been embraced by liberal democracies as the newest form of human rights, what has been called "homonationalism." Mirroring other double-binds of liberal inclusion, I show how queer asylum-seekers get caught betwixt and between two globallystratified homonationalisms while confronting the realpolitik of European asylum law not only as queer refugees but also in terms of transnational social mobility otherwise unavailable to them. The British asylum system therefore materializes as a bordering operation that more often than not denies lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) asylum-seekers their rights under the sign of their humanitarian protection. I consider whether homonationalisms everywhere-as assemblages of human rights discourse-should be thought of as "post-political" projects, a concept critical to growing bodies of political theory and cultural critique. This is because humanitarianism touts "rights" as universal and moral, therefore transcending the political. However, as a result of their practical effects, I show how the institutional practices deemed postpolitical in the case at hand should be understood as attempts to deflect and defuse the

show abstract

“…Although the ruling has been praised for effectively rejecting the 'reasonably tolerable' test, the positive interpretation of the Court's ruling has been challenged by Wessels (2012), as the author contends, the problematic reasoning of the new test proposed by the Court can indeed very easily lead to misinterpretations. Wessels notes that the test constructs two different categories of gay people, those who live an 'openly gay life' and those who voluntarily or naturally choose to live 'discreetly'.…”

Section: Protecting the Nation From Non-assimilable Queers: The Orienmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the UK's leading barristers in LGBTI asylum, Chelvan (2010, 57), also enthusiastically welcomed the decision, asserting that it 'marked a phenomenal day, not just for LGBTI asylum law, but also for asylum law, LGBTI rights, and British justice!'. Although there seemed to be a consensus around the positive role the SC judgment had played, bringing a promise of promoting fairer treatment for queer asylum seekers, years after the judgment, studies have continued to show very poor improvements, with injustices still perceived to be undermining the rights of queer refugees (Gray 2010;Wessels 2012;Bachmann 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Homonationalist/Orientalist Negotiations: The UK Approach to Queer Asylum Claims

Heimer

2019

Sexuality & Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

By bringing together the theoretical lenses of homonationalism and orientalism, this paper is intended to help the understanding of how tensions were negotiated between representations of the UK as a protector of LGBTI rights and its policies on (queer) asylum. Through a discourse analysis of the Supreme Court decision on HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (2010) and subsequent sexuality-based asylum tribunal decisions, I unveil the discursive work performed by these interventions. I argue that the judgment put forward homonationalist/orientalist discourses representing non-Western societies as homophobic, fundamentalist, traditional and backwards, while Western countries were repositioned as their mirror: secular, progressive and modern-founded on the principles of sexual liberation and tolerance. Whilst such representations are not a novelty, I contend that this homonationalist/orientalist framing was instrumental in performing a double work of simultaneous inclusion/exclusion, whereby the narrative of the UK as a homonational benevolent state could be regenerated. It addressed a longstanding controversial element of the UK asylum policy on sexuality-based claims by asserting that the UK would no longer require queer asylum seekers to go back to their countries and 'repress' their sexuality. However, whilst the decision presumably includes sexual others who fit into a predetermined Western homonormative narrative, at the same time, it projects 'repression' onto racialised queer bodies, thus effectively recreating a reasoning to legitimately exclude them from the refugee entitlement. Although nearly a decade has passed since this seminal ruling, its Othering effects have endured and continue to embed asylum decisions in dangerously harmful ways. This is illustrated by the ways in which some queer asylum seekers have their cases overturned based on arguments that depict them as sexually repressed, discreet and family oriented, as opposed to Western 'liberated gays'-marked by specific norms of visibility, individualism and consumption practices.

show abstract

HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) - Reflections on a new test for sexuality-based asylum claims in Britain

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

The British and South African approaches to asylum based on sexual orientation and gender identity

The British and South African approaches to asylum based on sexual orientation and gender identity

Confessions of an ambivalent country expert: Queer refugeeism in the UK and the political economy of (im)mobility in and out of Trinidad and Tobago

Homonationalist/Orientalist Negotiations: The UK Approach to Queer Asylum Claims

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About