opinion & features

It didn’t make national headlines, but last March Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced a rare partnership with Canada’s queer community: a pilot project to help refugees persecuted for their sexual orientation find safe haven here. Through the project, Citizenship and Immigration Canada is to work with the Rainbow Refugee Committee to share the cost of sponsoring gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual refugees come to Canada. 
The department is providing $100,000 in assistance to cover three months of income support for the refugees upon their arrival in Canada.  The Rainbow committee has to provide orientation services, accommodation, food and other basic needs. As Helen Kennedy, executive director of EGALE Canada, the country’s largest LGBT human rights organization has noted: “These funds are a welcome first step in response to the crisis facing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people around the globe, at a time when 77 countries continue to criminalize homosexuality and five prescribe the death penalty. The Rainbow Refugee Committee provides critical support to asylum seekers fleeing homophobic and transphobic persecution in their countries of origin.”

Being gay or lesbian is harshly treated in many parts of the world, with long prison terms and social disgrace. In seven countries -- Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Nigeria -- being queer can also bring the death penalty.  In the Americas, 13 of the 15 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) members still criminalize homosexuality, where penalties range from hard labour to life imprisonment.

As part of the agreement with Ottawa, the Rainbow committee must reach out to other groups to facilitate sponsorship applications and arrangements. “Encouraging private sponsors to come forward is vital to refugees in need of protection and to the future of the private sponsorship program,” Kennedy says.

Although Canada’s GLBT community has now achieved most of its goals, the situation beyond our borders continues to be seriously troubling, especially in some Islamic countries and in some of the strongly homophobic extreme Christian countries in Africa. In Iran, gay men have been routinely hanged in public, while that country’s somewhat loopy president declared once that homosexuals do not exist in his country.

One person with a keen interest in Canada helping provide safe haven for GLBT refugees is University of Ottawa Professor Nicole LaViolette, who teaches public international law, international humanitarian law, conflicts of laws and family law. Her research and publications are devoted mainly to international human rights, international humanitarian law, and the rights of refugees. She is also interested in lesbian and gay legal issues, international feminist theory and transnational family law 

She tells OutWords she’d like to see groups of gay and lesbian Canadians taking advantage of the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program announced by the government. Under this program, a group of five can apply to sponsor a refugee. They choose a candidate and offer to financially support him or her for a year. They can also work with resettlement agencies in their city to offer support and friendship.

“If you are not sure who to sponsor, the government can help find a persecuted gay or lesbian person,” she says. “The UN Commission for Refugees also has a large data base. In Ottawa, we are working with international refugee organizations to pinpoint clients who may need help to settle here and avoid persecution.”

She says ideally sponsored refugees will be those facing real danger in their own countries. Ease of settlement in Canada will also be a factor, so language issues and work experience are also factors. She says one group in Manitoba has already worked with an Iranian man who had fled to Turkey — a temporary refuge for many gay Iranians facing persecution.

She says it likely takes $15,000 to 20,000 to support a GLBT refugee for a year, but money isn’t a big problem if five or 10 people get together, since Canada is affluent.  “It isn’t the money we lack but the will to act,” she says. “Jews did a lot of organizing to help persecuted Jews move out of Russia and there’s no reason the GLBT community here can’t do a lot to help their persecuted brothers and sisters escape to Canada. “We are privileged and have won our battles here, but can’t just sit by while this persecution goes on.”

She is working with an Ottawa group on a trial sponsorship project with a group of others who are providing money and social support. She thinks if the trial project is successful others across Canada can save many GLBT lives by imitating them.

Last year, David Pepper visited Winnipeg. Ottawa-based Pepper launched the North Star Triangle Project to encourage groups of five to sponsor refugees who’ve had to flee their country because of their homosexuality. “Winnipeg’s an immigrant city,” says Pepper, who grew up in Brandon and chose Winnipeg to start spreading his message across Canada. “It has a proud record of settlement,” he says. “It’s going to be home to the museum for human rights. Where better to start than here, symbolically?”

Pepper took a year off from his civilian position with the Ottawa police to get the word out about the plight of gays and lesbians without a safe country to call home. “I don’t want to raise money, I want to raise awareness,” he said. He’s taken to heart Kenney call to the GLBT community to sponsor refugees. Pepper’s group of five is sponsoring a gay woman from Colombia. 

Winnipegger Mark Rabnett and a group of five have already started the process to sponsor a young gay man from Iran who took refuge in Turkey. They chose a young, educated man who is willing to learn English, has a lot of determination and could live a long and productive life in Canada. 

He’s currently staying in a small city in Turkey, and is not allowed to work or leave the area.

“There are many, many countries with severe legal restrictions on homosexuality,” says Rabnett. “There are seven countries where it is a capital crime, Iran being one of them. Unlike ordinary refugees, they’re often threatened by their own families. They can’t get any support. Their own families may seek to harm them,” he said.

 You can find out more about the program by checking Egale at: egale.ca  or by phone to Egale at : 1-416-964-7887. The Rainbow Refugee Action Network is at  rainbowrefugeecanada.wordpress.com. The Rainbow group is a Vancouver based community group that supports and advocates with and for asylum seekers who fear persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status.  It helps asylum seekers get through the application and settlement process. The Rainbow Refugee Committee (RRC) has launched Rainbow Refugee Action Network (RANN) to create links and collaborations with others who share these goals.

– Peter Carlyle-Gordge is a Winnipeg-based freelance writer.