In Belgium, a growth in sexuality-based asylum claims

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Source: de Standard

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By Yves Delepeleire

Czech Republic was criticized last year when the European baking asylum seekers who claimed to be gay to heterosexual porn were watching while they were connected to a machine that measured blood flow to the penis. The 'fallometrische tests "were then not used.

The idea is - thankfully - never occurred in Belgium. But here, the asylum authorities is difficult to prove whether an applicant is gay. Asylum seekers who fear to be persecuted or discriminated against for their sexual orientation can be refugees. In recent years there are more such striking asylum seekers with gender-related persecution motifs, from 116 in 2006 to 362 in 2009.

But how do you check that? Unlike political opinion sexual orientation is entirely within the private sphere. Only the right questions, it is possible to distinguish liars gay asylum seekers. Just as the apron.

Asks the General Commissariat for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRA) now advice to gay clubs.

"The Commissioner is doing a good job in an immensely difficult task. But there is still some lacking in the interviews," says Jan Beddeleem. He is director of the association WISH. As a confidant of asylum seekers who claim to be gay, he often experienced interviews.

"Thus, the interrogators lack anthropological knowledge about what it is as gay in a certain culture to grow, such as the Masai in Kenya. It is also often assumed that everyone already has deployed as gay as he is in Belgium. "

"For example, asylum seekers are more often expected to know what gay bars in their town or in which article of the Criminal Code states that homosexuality is punishable. As if you know any gay. Not those who can answer factual questions, the Commissioner shall not contribute to the credibility of his story. But we feel that such questions are not the crux of the matter," says Beddeleem.

"On the other hand some applicants are not asked how sexual contacts. However, many can explain. How do you start having sex with men in rural Kenya? How did you all this time to the community hidden? For non-gay people is very hard to be creative to respond. That you get like this. Questions about the sexual act itself again out of the question. They are discriminatory because they are not heterosexuals be asked."

Also, vocabulary, accents, gestures and expressions do much. "In the gay environment in Kinshasa kipopo speak often, a code language that descends from Togolese miners in order to group lines. To argue regularly in the gay environment in Kinshasa to stop, but do not know those words, falls through the basket."

"I sat in an interview with someone from Tanzania. He said: "I do not think I'm gay. Daarmee He meant only that he had not had anal sex, not that he was not on men. It would be good if the Commissioner who teaches sensibilities."