President of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees Dr. Sommer receives the Lesbian and Gay Association for talks in Nuremberg

On the afternoon of October 1st, representatives of the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD) met with the management of the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in Nuremberg to exchange views on various topics concerning the treatment of queer refugees. BAMF President Dr. Hans-Eckhard Sommer had invited the LSVD to the headquarters of the German asylum authority in Nuremberg. The meeting was preceded in the morning by an exchange between the association and specialist departments of the Federal Office.

ECJ declares preclusion periods for filing follow-up asylum applications as inadmissible

Asylmagazin publishes again an issue with focus on LGBTIQ++

In its issue 7-8/2021, the asylum magazine Asylmagazin has once again examined a “Thematic focus: sexual and gender identity as a reason for fleeing” and published, among other things, three articles on this topic. In the first article, the author Petra Sußner explains  the strong influence of heteronormativity on the legal practice and develops an alternative, interdisciplinary approach to deal with LGBTIQ++ cases. In the second article, the authors Philipp Braun, Patrick Dörr and Alva Träbert describe cases in which the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (LSVD) discovered “Outings of queer asylum seekers by trusted lawyers of the Foreign Office”. In the third, the same three authors finally present the so-called “discretion requirement” and “How the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the courts continue to undermine the Supreme Court’s guideline”.

New Explanatory Videos Answer Asylum System Related Questions

LGBTIQ+ individuals who apply for asylum in Germany or who are planning to do so, find themselves facing an entire spectrum of challenges. On the one hand there is the asylum application process and the legal allocation of the persecution they have experienced; on the other hand there are housing questions as well as issues related to the protection from violence at housing facilities. As early as 2017, the Germany-wide LSVD project Queer Refugees Deutschland developed a guideline covering these issues, which provides well-founded answers to these questions. On the website, it is currently available in nine languages. In collaboration with the LGBTIQ+ consulting office Rosa Strippe in Bochum, this guideline has now been used as the basis for the development of explanatory videos to provide the most barrier-free access to this information possible.

Four “Queer Refugees Deutschland” refugee activists in a debate with judges and attorneys

The asylum applications of lesbian, queer and bi-sexual refugees repeatedly pose particular challenges for government agencies in Germany; most especially the Federal Migration and Refugee Agency (BAMF). Many of the BAMF notifications are seized by the courts. Given this situation, the Catholic social “Akademie Franz Hitze Haus” invited the LSVD and four refugee activists to discuss issues related to homosexuality and bisexuality in the asylum process  with judges and attorneys.  The event was hosted as an online seminar of March 16, 2021 in close cooperation with the Catholic Office, the Commission of German Bishops and the Caritas organization.

Hostility and violence targeting the LGBTIQ+ Community in shelters for refugees: protection concept study of the German federal states uncovers massive deficiencies

An article entitled “Sofern besonderer Bedarf identifiziert wurde” (“If special needs have been identified”) recently published in the science magazine “Freiburger Zeitschrift für Geschlechterstudien” uncovers massive deficiencies affiliated to the protection of LGBTIQ+ refugees in the violence protection concepts of Germany’s federal states. Authors Alva Träbert and Patrick Dörr compared the states’ violence protection concepts that were available in March 2019 with the measures identified as “minimum standards” for the protection of LGBTIQ+ refugees on the federal level. First and foremost, it is striking that of the 16 states in charge of housing refugees, only nine even have such a concept for their state-run shelters.  Not even a third of the measures described in the “minimum standards” for the protection of LGBTIQ+ refugees can be found – on average – in these concepts.