Tschalaer, ‘The Effects of COVID-19 on Queer Asylum Claimants in Germany’, 2020
- Category: Other
- Source: Academic
- Subject: Sexual Orientation/Sexuality, Gender Identity, Refugee/Asylum, LGBT+
- Place: Germany
- Year: 2020
- File: Queer asylum and COVID_EN_FINAL
- URL: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/policybristol/briefings-and-reports-pdfs/2020-briefings-and-reports-pdfs/Queer%20asylum%20and%20COVID_EN_FINAL.pdf
Mengia Tschalaer, ‘The Effects of COVID-19 on Queer Asylum Claimants in Germany’, Policy Briefing 87, University of Bristol, June 2020
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic clearly reveals the vulnerability of LGBTQI+ persons seeking asylum and refuge within the Common European Asylum System and as applied in Germany. The German government recognizes that the call to “stay home and save lives” potentially puts at risk vulnerable groups (i.e. women, children, elderly etc.) and increases isolation. However, people seeking asylum find themselves in cramped accommodation with less access to community and with increased instances of violence and trauma. In most federal states, legal services offered by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) have been temporarily suspended. A particularly vulnerable group within the category of asylum claimants in Germany are lesbian, gay, bi- and transsexual, gender non-binary and intersex people seeking asylum who often experience loneliness and abuse in reception and accommodation camps due to homo/trans-phobia. The continuing pandemic substantially exacerbates the social isolation they were already facing and poses specific challenges in regard to accommodation, healthcare, access to community, trauma and isolation, and (sexual) violence.