Many thousands of refugees have been fleeing the volatile regions of Syria and into the West and elsewhere. They face terrible times, but perhaps the worst-off are the gay refugees who are being discriminated against
Coming to the Netherlands, which is the country of freedom and self-expression, and being bullied there as a gay person, it was completely crazy.” This reality of a European nation, that was the first to accept gay marriages, was told by a 20-year-old gay, Omar, to AFP. He had fled his homeland, Syria, to stay alive, like many other refugees heading towards the EU.
Omar is among more than 54,000 refugees who made it to the Netherlands in 2015, after crossing by boat to Greece and then flying to Holland in September on a fake Spanish passport. His situation is shared by several other hundred gays and trans-genders.
When, last year, the world saw a ‘sudden’ huge influx of migrants and refugees from Syria, Iran and Iraq, world organisations like the United Nations Human Rights Council and Amnesty lent their helping hands to the distraught people. While these organisations have been providing shelter, medical and psychological help to these people for the past many months, it was only last month that the thought of homosexuals’ safety crossed their minds.
Recently, AP came across Alaa Ammar, who had fled Syria to escape not just civil war but also the threat of persecution as a gay. Yet, when he arrived in the Netherlands last spring, he did not find the safe haven he craved. He and four other gay travellers had to face newly-arrived asylum-seekers at a migrant centre in the remote northern town of TerApel.
“After five minutes, they started looking. After 10 minutes, they started to talk. After one hour, they came to us”, said Ammar, a slender 28-year-old in tight jeans and with a diamond-like stud in each ear. “After three hours, they started fighting with us.”
According to the COC, an association working to defend gay rights, some gay refugees have had even worse experiences including being sexually abused. The Dutch daily, Algemeen Dagblad, reported some had their clothes set on fire or beds smeared with food and faeces.
Omar talked to AFP about his expectations and the reality he faced. “I had long dreamt of escaping discrimination in Syria, and drawn by exuberant images of the Gay Pride march in Amsterdam, I had hoped to find a new life in the Dutch city after fleeing war at home”, he said. But four months after arriving in the Netherlands, the 20-year-old was deeply shocked to find himself the victim of insults, taunts and intimidation from his fellow travelling companions.
“It was surprising that those people, after making a long journey, tiring journey, after they get there, they’re still capable of bullying and harassing me”, he said. “They threatened to kill me, they told me I was the shame of the refugees, they pushed me in the queue to get coffee”, he recalled. AP found out about scores of such cases in The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The agency also found that mostly they were abused by fellow refugees and sometimes security staff and translators.
Another group, Secret Garden, revealed two gay refugees tried to commit suicide. One man was so scared that he slept for a week in the woods surrounding the centre, Algemeen Dagblad said, before, like Omar, he found a place to stay with a welcoming Dutch host.
Between mid-October and the end of December, the COC said it received 14 complaints of mistreatment or abuse of gay refugees, compared to usually one or two every few months. Most gays refuse to lodge official complaints or to speak out publicly, fearing reprisals or not knowing whom to turn to. From August 1 to December 31, 2015, the lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany recorded 95 cases of abuses against homosexuals, including physical violence, sexual attacks and threats, AFP reported.
After receiving complaints by 20 refugees, who said they felt threatened in the shelters they were put up in, Germany opened its first shelter for gay migrants in Nuremberg.
The lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (lesben-und Schwulenverband in Deutschland, or lSVD) identified 95 cases of violence against lGBT refugees between August and December 2015, mostly in asylum shelters. Since September 2015, Berlin has classified these refugees as a social group in need of special treatment and protection with regards to housing, therapy, and so forth, akin to pregnant women, unaccompanied children, and the disabled.
The new lGBTQ-only shelter run by Schwulenberatung Berlin will house 120 asylum seekers in 29 one-to-four-bedroom apartments. Some flats will have their own kitchens, but the building will also have a cafeteria where refugees who aren’t yet receiving welfare payments can get meals.
Amid these separate refugee shelters coming up for homosexuals, the question remains that how much longer time is it to take to bring smiles to other thousands of homosexual refugees who are still undergoing pain and torture in the country.