20/04/2022
Rainbow Migration, which supports LGBTQIA asylum seekers and refugees, has joined with many other refugee organisations to oppose the UK government’s plans to send refugees to the African state of Rwanda if they attempt to enter the United Kingdom illegally. Pink News reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has indicated that any one arriving illegally in the UK after January 1st will be immediately taken to Rwanda where they will be encouraged to settle. Sonia Lenegan of Rainbow Migration noted that Rwanda is generally considered to be a homophobic territory even though samesex relations are not technically illegal. Human Rights Watch International last year published a report in which it noted “Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference”. Rainbow Migration is encouraging people to write to their MPs to ask them to oppose the government’s proposals.
