'You don't look like a lesbian' - UK judge tells asylum seekers
Published: 2013 April 05 23:30:54 (5256 Views)
Lesbian asylum seekers in UK are being asked 'inappropriate and insensitive' questions such as 'do you use sex toys?' and whether they attend Pride marches to prove they are homosexual.
One woman was told 'you don't look like a lesbian' while another was asked which clubs she went to by tribunal judges, research shows.
Homosexual women from socially conservative countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and Jamaica were asked about their experiences of applying for asylum by researchers at the University of Southampton.
'I thought I was quite unshockable just in terms of how dehumanising and criminalising the whole asylum process is,' researcher Claire Bennett – who has worked in refugee camps in Afghanistan and Cambodia - told the Independent. 'I was wrong.'
Many of the women complained that much of the questioning seemed to presume they led the same kind of homosexual lifestyles as someone might in the west.
Judges also made stereotypical assumptions of what constitutes a typical homosexual lifestyle.
A Jamaican woman was told by an immigration judge that he did not believe she was homosexual because 'you don't look like a lesbian'. Another lesbian from Pakistan was asked in court 'If you are a lesbian you go to clubs – which ones?'
Her credibility as a lesbian was also questioned because she had not attended a Pride march. 'All lesbians go to Pride' she was told.
- Metro
One woman was told 'you don't look like a lesbian' while another was asked which clubs she went to by tribunal judges, research shows.
Homosexual women from socially conservative countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and Jamaica were asked about their experiences of applying for asylum by researchers at the University of Southampton.
'I thought I was quite unshockable just in terms of how dehumanising and criminalising the whole asylum process is,' researcher Claire Bennett – who has worked in refugee camps in Afghanistan and Cambodia - told the Independent. 'I was wrong.'
Many of the women complained that much of the questioning seemed to presume they led the same kind of homosexual lifestyles as someone might in the west.
Judges also made stereotypical assumptions of what constitutes a typical homosexual lifestyle.
A Jamaican woman was told by an immigration judge that he did not believe she was homosexual because 'you don't look like a lesbian'. Another lesbian from Pakistan was asked in court 'If you are a lesbian you go to clubs – which ones?'
Her credibility as a lesbian was also questioned because she had not attended a Pride march. 'All lesbians go to Pride' she was told.
- Metro
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