AFRICA: 'Sexual refugees' struggle to access asylum

As a gay man living in Tanzania, Cassim Mustapha could have faced imprisonment, but prosecutions under the country's Sexual Offences Act are rare, and the bigger threat came from his own community. After one of his neighbours attacked him with an axe leaving a deep wound in his head, Mustapha fled and applied for asylum in Malawi, the first country he reached. Persecution relating to an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity is increasingly recognized by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and in refugee law as grounds for claiming asylum. Most such claims are based on the 1951 Refugee Convention's definition of a refugee as someone having a well-founded fear of persecution because of 'membership of a particular social group'. However, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals fail to gain asylum on this basis.