20/06/2024 | Writer: Kaos GL
“In 2024, refugee LGBTI+s in Türkiye are being excluded from the workforce or condemned to exploitative working conditions in their workplaces. They become the focus of hate attacks on the streets but refrain from approaching law enforcement due to the culture of impunity and fear of deportation.”
Kaos GL Association marked World Refugee Day on June 20 with a statement available in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish. The full statement, prepared by the Kaos GL Refugee Rights Programme, is as follows:
“Today is June 20th, World Refugee Day. Across the world, right-wing populist political figures continue to produce anti-refugee and anti-LGBTI+ rhetoric. Countries are making their borders ‘impermeable’ to people by utilizing all the possibilities of biotechnology, thereby criminalizing refuge and migration to the point of denying the right to asylum.
In Türkiye, amidst the pandemic, economic crisis, earthquake disaster, and the challenging atmosphere of the elections, political figures, using all the tools of traditional and social media, have competed to present the existence of refugees and LGBTI+s to the public as ‘threats.’ Figures from all levels and political parties have instilled images of fear and hatred in the public’s mind by ‘demonizing’ refugees and LGBTI+s at every opportunity, reinforcing prejudice. This hate propaganda has found its place in public spaces, forcing refugee LGBTI+s, who experience two ‘demonized’ identities in one body, into an ‘unsafe’ life at workplaces, on the streets, and in homes.
In 2024, refugee LGBTI+s in Türkiye are being excluded from the workforce or condemned to exploitative working conditions in their workplaces. They become the focus of hate attacks on the streets but refrain from approaching law enforcement due to the culture of impunity and fear of deportation.
As the Kaos GL Refugee Rights Program, we reject a society of fear and hatred where only the ‘acceptable citizens’ are allowed to access human rights, distancing us from the cultural and emotional richness of living together. We emphasize that refugee LGBTI+s, wherever they may be – in Türkiye, Palestine, Beirut – must be recognized as subjects of human rights norms everywhere by all hegemons.
We know that every crisis period in human history also brings its own possibilities for solidarity and recognition. With this belief, we invite refugee LGBTI+s and all civil society actors to produce policies and act together to reclaim a society of Türkiye where refugee LGBTI+s, who are hidden in their homes and trapped in hunger, can walk fearlessly on the streets without hiding the colors of the rainbow.
Because there is room for everyone in the colors of the rainbow.”
Click to read the statement in Turkish, Arabic and Farsi.
Tags: human rights
