No One to Bear Witness: Country Information and LGBTQ Asylum Seekers

Douglas McDonald-Norman

doi:10.7202/1043066ar

No One to Bear Witness: Country Information and LGBTQ Asylum Seekers

Authors

Douglas McDonald-Norman Independent

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7202/1043066ar

Keywords:

LGBTQ refugees, asylum seekers, refugee status determination, country information, credibility assessments, intersectionality, MD India CG, case study

Abstract

This article examines the use of country information in determining claims for refugee status based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Limitations to country information remove diverse individual experiences from the “historical record” and obstruct marginalized individuals’ ability to prove their claims for protection. Discrimination and marginalization may be echoed and perpetuated within country information itself, which privileges certain voices over others. MD (same-sex-oriented males: risk) India CG [2014], the United Kingdom’s current “country guidance” decision on claims for protection by same-sex oriented men from India, is examined in light of these themes.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Douglas McDonald-Norman, Independent

Douglas McDonald-Norman is research assistant to the Hon. Dyson Heydon, QC (former justice of the High Court of Australia) and a former solicitor with Craddock Murray Neumann Lawyers. The author may be contacted at douglas. mcdonald7190@gmail.com

cover of Refuge general issue 33 no. 2 2017

Downloads

(limited-accessibility).PDF

Published

2017-11-03

How to Cite

McDonald-Norman, D. (2017). No One to Bear Witness: Country Information and LGBTQ Asylum Seekers. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 33(2), 88–100. https://doi.org/10.7202/1043066ar

Download Citation

Issue

Vol. 33 No. 2 (2017): General Issue

Section

Articles

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Refuge authors retain the copyright over their work, and license it to the general public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows for non-commercial use, reproduction and adaption of the material in any medium or format, with proper attribution. For general information on Creative Commons licences, visit the Creative Commons site. For the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, review the human readable summary.