Being gay means being you are a criminal. There 400 million of these criminals, some may face death. These criminals are in countries, where LGBT is a crime. The crime is loving a same-sex partner. Tourists travel to those countries and some of these tourists love same sex partner and may become criminals.

For example, the Uganda’s government has vowed to bring back a bill that would punish homosexuality and the promotion of LGBTI issues with jail time.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who wished to pass a ‘Kill The Gays’ bill in 2014, has called on legislators to pass a new law. Homosexuality is already punishable by up to seven years.

The High Court nullified the Anti-Homosexuality Act after it found there was not enough members in parliament to consider it legal.

‘There is no bill on homosexuality. What we need is a new bill,’ Kadaga said, who wishes to ban ‘unnatural acts’ with longer prison terms. This would include gay men, lesbians and trans people.

Here is the current situation travelers should be aware of if they travel with a same sex partner.

AFRICA

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (logo above) condemns anti-LGBT violence, but it continues throughout the continent.

In Africa (the region of origin for many refugee claimants in Canada), cases of violence and stigma persist, despite the adoption of a resolution condemning violence against LBGT persons by all 54 member states of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights three years ago.

In Tanzania, the government threatened to publish the names of known LGBT people in early 2017.

In Egypt, the police used online dating applications to identify, arrest and detain LGBT people.

In Tunisia, Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya [until this month’s court ruling against anal exams], Lebanon, Turkmenistan, Uganda and Zambia, gay men are routinely forced to undergo anal examination as a means of gathering evidence for charges of same-sex conduct, despite the UN declaring it a form of torture.

The climate of homophobia—especially in the countries of Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Mauritania that retain the death penalty for same-sex conduct—makes social organizing all but impossible.

In 2016, police blocked Uganda’s fifth annual Pride Parade. (Photo courtesy of Facebook)

In Kampala, Uganda, the police raided a gay pride event in August 2016, taking 20 LGBT-identified individuals and human rights defenders into custody as a means of intimidation. The formal and informal persecution of LGBT persons remains unchallenged in most African countries, causing LGBT persons to not only hide their sexuality and gender expression, but flee to places like Canada when the situation becomes untenable.

WESTERN AND CENTRAL ASIA

In Western and Central Asia, many countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, the UAE, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India either actively enforce the death penalty for same-sex offences or still criminalize same-sex conduct.  In a stunning symbolic global statement in 2016, India voted against the UN General Assembly resolution extending marriage benefits to same-sex couples working for the UN.

Pakistan is still a hostile climate for LGBT persons who risk sanctions from their family, societal isolation, legal problems and ever-present violence.

Some countries in this region incorporate various interpretations of Shari’a law into their legal systems, which punishes homosexuality—and even positive opinions about same-sex intimacy— by death, severe beatings or brutal prison sentences. LGBT refugees are particularly vulnerable in Iraq, Syria and Yemen where internal wars have displaced approximately 11 million people, with a further 40 million in need of humanitarian assistance. In ISIS/ISIL-controlled areas, LGBT persons are assaulted or murdered in the name of “moral cleansing”. If internally displaced people are able to make it to safe camps, the security screening centres are known to be sites of serious abuse against LGBT persons.

CARIBBEAN

The Legal Network works closely with LGBT communities in the Caribbean and one of our Canadian partners in the Dignity Network is Rainbow Railroad. A significant number of refugees that the Rainbow Railroad assists come from the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, despite the landmark ruling in Belize striking down the criminalization of same-sex sexual acts in 2016, 10 other Anglo-Caribbean countries still refuse to follow suit.

Antigua’s first murder for 2018 was a homophobic attack that left a father dead. It is not rare to see graphic photos in the Antiguan press about another homophobia-related attack.

After the 2017 murder of Dexter Pottinger, the “face” of Pride Jamaica, his partner fled to Canada and was accepted as a refugee. (Photo courtesy of The Independent)

In 2017, Dexter Pottinger, the “face” of Pride Jamaica 2016, was murdered in his home and although his neighbours admitted hearing his multiple cries for help and seeing his stolen car being driven away, they did not call the police. Friends discovered Dexter’s body days later. This was the breaking point for Dexter’s same-sex partner, who has recently been accepted as a refugee to Canada and was interviewed for this submission.

In Trinidad and Tobago, a young man was shot after an alleged homosexual relationship with the country’s Chief Justice was made public; he is now seeking asylum in the UK.

In Barbados, a trans woman was savagely attacked and nearly killed by a former lodger wielding a meat cleaver and, despite knowing the perpetrator’s whereabouts, the police allowed him to remain free for two days before pressure from local groups forced them to apprehend him.

The official anti-discriminatory stance of some Anglo-Caribbean governments is countered by the personal statements of many political and religious leaders.

In response to the Belize ruling, Evangelical Bishop Charlesworth Browne said that if homosexuality is legalized in Antigua, the country will suffer from God’s wrath, just like Canada did during the 2016 Fort McMurray fires, which destroyed an entire town and forced 88,000 people to flee for their lives. In 2017, Prime Minister Gaston Browne responded to a comment on his public Facebook page saying, “Sir, you are behaving like an anti-man” (a homophobic slur). He would not apologize when called upon to do so by other politicians.