“He tried to rape me.” A gay Afghan man held in a refugee camp reveals how abuse of LGBT people stuck there is destroying lives – as criticism against Western governments mounts
Binyamin and others were promised a route out, a pathway to safety away from the torture and murder of his community. The, one of the key charities focused on sexual and gender minorities in Afghanistan, helped him and a few dozen others escape. “At first, when the Aman organisation took me from Afghanistan, I felt free,” says Binyamin. “But soon I realised that being gay is a crime here.”
“LGBT refugees can be very high risk because many are noticeably gender-nonconforming,” Tess Berry-Hart, a volunteer for the Aman Project, tells. “It’s quite easy for people to tell [they’re LGBT] and then word spreads.” But because homosexuality is illegal, there is no authority to inform; nowhere for them to turn for protection.
Some of the LGBT people in the camp are now on suicide watch. Depression has become another threat to Binyamin’s safety. The Aman Project has organised a gay Afghan psychologist living in Britain – the same man who interprets during our interview – to talk on the phone with him regularly.For everyone in the camp, conditions are bleak. “It’s getting worse day by day,” he says, explaining that the camp has run out of basic supplies. “We don’t have medical care now.
Binyamin was supposed to be on that flight. At the last minute, however, he tested positive for Covid and so has to await news of another flight out. LGBT people left behind in the camp are now even more vulnerable, according to Berry-Hart, because their support network – people who might come to their physical or psychological aid – is dwindling.
“I don’t know, because I have never been anywhere where I could be myself without any fear,” he says. “I have no idea what it’s like to be gay and wear whatever I want or walk wherever I want. I am excited, but I don’t know what it will feel like.” Towards the end of the call, he pleads for Western countries to help LGBT people. “Please do something to prioritise LGBT people to end our suffering. It’s a little bit easier for [heterosexuals] in the camp who were in the military or government, because they’re not being bullied by others,” he says. The countries they’re being held in do not criminalise them. “But LGBT people who left Afghanistan are now having the same experience inside the camp.
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