Gleckman-Krut, ‘Protecting LGBTI asylum seekers’, 2021

Miriam Gleckman-Krut, ‘Protecting LGBTI asylum seekers: a short history of South Africa’s global leadership’, Network for Migration Matters (NMM), 11 March 2021

Abstract

Section 3(b) of South Africa’s Refugees Act [1] provides explicit protection to people seeking refuge from persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI). While other major asylum-recipient countries provide for asylum on this basis, South Africa’s explicit legal protection is globally exceptional. Section 3(b) emphasizes the country’s commitment to protect gender and sexual minorities, and in principle streamlines administrative processes for state officials who adjudicate asylum cases based on SOGI.

In this entry I explore some of the socio-political conditions that made possible South Africa’s leading role on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) asylum seeker rights. I do so to highlight South Africa’s global leadership in this area of asylum law, and to frame how readers understand shortcomings in the Refugees Act’s contemporary application. [2] For broader context I refer readers to the following thought leaders on sexualities, gender, and movement in South Africa: Zethu Matebeni, B Camminga, Guillain Koko, Ingrid Palmary, Surya Monro, Deborah Posel, John Marnell, Mark Gevisser, and Victor Mdluli Chikalogwe.

I write this abridged legal history as a descendant of a Jewish South African, who was designated white by the Apartheid state. My mother emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1980, and then to the United States in 1991. I grew up in the US. My family’s migration history contextualizes my intellectual interests in violence and statehood, and my academic training in gender and sexualities studies frames my approach. My dissertation analyzes how South African officials and lawyers apply the 3(b) section of the Refugees Act.