NQIfFM, Submission to the Call for Input by the UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity on ‘Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in relation to forced displacement’, 2025

Subject Area

Gender Identity
Human Rights
LGBT+
Refugee/Asylum
Sexual Orientation/Sexuality

Source

Academic

Type

Other

Location

Canada | Europe | Iran | Turkey | United Kingdom

Year Published

2025

Summary

NQIfFM submission to the Call for Input by the UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity on ‘Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in relation to forced displacement’, 2025

1.         This submission is based on research from the project ‘Negotiating Queer Identities Following Forced Migration (NQIfFM): A Comparative Study of Iranian Queer Refugees Living in Turkey, the UK, and Canada’, carried out at the University of Sussex, UK.

2.         This submission has been prepared by Moira Dustin, Nuno Ferreira, Kamran Matin, Mehran Rezaei-Toroghi and Isabel Soloaga.

3.         Between 2022 and 2024, 57 interviews were conducted with queer Iranian individuals and supporters on their experiences with asylum and migration. The research explores their challenges in Turkey as a transit country, and in Canada and the UK as host countries. Participants also identify necessary changes to improve the social, psychological, and legal experiences of SOGIESC asylum applicants and migrants.

4.         The project employs a critical postcolonial framework, sensitive to the significant role and agency of non-Western actors, and an innovative methodology that combined semi-structured life history interviews and poetry workshops. This approach provides deep insights into how queer Iranians’ experiences of seeking international protection and resettlement are shaped by intersecting factors such as gender, sexuality, religion, class, age, ‘race’, and ethnicity.

In our response, we have focused on the questions relating to drivers of forced displacement of LGBT people (Q. 2), discrimination and violence in host countries (Q. 7), support systems (Q 12), and Refugee Status Determination (RSD) (Q. 13). Evidence for these answers comes from the data collected during fieldwork, which will be explored and discussed in a range of forthcoming publications (available on https://iranqueerefugee.net/outputs/ in due course). Participants’ descriptions follow their self-identification.