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Believe it or not

International asylum conference on credibility assessment in SOGIESC cases

20 September 2024
Pakhuis de Zwijger Amsterdam, and online

This webpage contains the conference information, speeches, discussions and video presentations (purple links). Clicking on the purple links in the Program will bring you to the online speeches, discussions and video presentations. Associated Powerpoints are available via the red links.

Believe it or not

This conference brought together practitioners, activists, LGBTQI+ people who have sought asylum, policy makers, academics, and NGOs. We hope to find solutions to the issues which are commonly experienced within the credibility assessment of SOGIESC asylum claims and to update and improve UNHCR 2012 Guidelines on International Protection No. 9: Claims to Refugee Status Based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity.

According to the Summary Conclusions of UNHCR’s 2021 Global Roundtable on LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers there is a need to urgently revise the UNHCR 2012 Guidelines No. 9. However, to date the Guidelines remain unchanged. Credibility assessment of LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers is still often based on stereotypical assumptions and expectations of universal characteristics or life experiences among all LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers, such as ‘emotional journeys’, shame, and other negative feelings about themselves.

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Program

Program

Opening and welcome/Keynote speech/Speakers

Opening & Welcome:
• Domenica Ghidei (chair)
• Astrid Oosenbrug (chair COC Netherlands) (4:00)
• Sabine Jansen (coordinator Striking Sirens Coalition) (11:49)

Keynote speech:
-Nuno Ferreira, Professor of Law, University of Sussex (19:33)

Speakers:
-Brian from Uganda (1:02:50)
-Adriana Rojas, UNHCR (1:27:15)

Round 1
Paper presentations
1. Queer (in)visibilities
•Asta Sofie Stage Jarlner & Maya Ellen Hertz: Trans enough for protection? Experimenting with credibility in refugee status determination.
•Samuel Ballin:Non-binary gender and the refugee convention
•Irene Manganini: The credibility of gender identity claims: in need for a research agenda

Paper presentations
2. Proving SOGIESC

Chair: Claire Fletcher
• Roos Geurts and Louisa Bergsma: Is your love life a credible story? Profoundness in the Dutch LGB+ procedure
Powerpoint

• Annelie Neumann: Heteronormativity of the European border regime
Powerpoint

• Diego Garcia Rodriguez: Challenging homosecularism: Faith, spirituality and LGBTIQ+ asylum in the UK
Powerpoint

Paper presentations
3. Challenging stereotypes I
• Simone Lugtmeijer: A study of intersex inclusivity within the Dutch asylum chain
• Alex Powell: Sexuality through the kaleidoscope: Cultural translation and transnational sexual diversities
• Alexandra Andersson: Tasked with determining believability: Insights to asylum caseworkers’ experience of SOGIESC asylum assessment

Workshops 1
•Alexandra Politidis Palm & Elias Tissandier-Nasom: Credibility assessment in children’s SOGIESC asylum claims

Alexandra Politidis Palm: Credibility assesment of an inner process: The application of credibility criterias, lost child and youth perspectives and the road forward

Elias Tissandier-Nasom: Credibility assessment in children’s SOGIESC asylum claims

•Sharalyn Jordan: Reflections on Canada’s  Guideline on SOGIESC refugees & lessons learned from LGBTQI-led community based research and advocacy

Plenary discussion I

with Striking Sirens Coalition:
• Aino Gröndahl
• Andrea Vige Grønningsӕter
• Claire Fletcher
• Sabine Jansen
• Sophia Zisakou

Round 2
Paper presentations
4. Challenging stereotypes II
• Million Kassa Bekele: Queer enough for the Netherlands? The role of stereotypes in queer asylum decisions and its outcome
• Ifigeneia Intzipeoglou: Beyond Stereotypes: Dismantling rape mythology in LGBT+ refugee asylum claims
• Davide Tomaselli: Opening up possibilities for SOGIESC asylum seekers: (In)credible stories between judicial biases and European sexual imaginaries
• Raawiyah Rifath: Credibility assessments and trauma-informed methods

Paper presentations
5. Means of proof
Chair: Karen Geertsema
• Jess Walmsley: The ‘cycle of rejection’: How has the digitisation of the UK asylum system
impacted LGBTQ+ asylum seekers?
• Hedayat Selim: Eliciting and evaluating asylum claims based on sexual orientation: Findings from Finland
• Iene Maveau: Afghan gay men: assessment of the need for international protection
• Pip McKnight: Between a rock and a hard place: expectations of performance and participation in SOGIESC asylum claims in the UK

Paper presentations
6. Towards a more inclusive assessment

Chair: Alexandra Politidis Palm
• Leens van Kessel: Preventing stereotyping in credibility assessments with SOGIESC asylum claimants: a toolbox for decision-makers
Powerpoint

• Noam Falk: Closing Gaps: Using intersectionality to ensure narrative justice for SOGIESC asylum
claims
Powerpoint

• Abby Field: Re-envisioning terminology for a more Inclusive credibility assessment
Powerpoint

• Sophia Weiser and Marty Huber: Community against the machine
Powerpoint

Workshops 2 
• Willemijn van Kempen: Worlds apart: A stumbling credibility assessment in a trans asylum claim
• Aadarsh Gangwar & Evgeny Shtorn: Self-organising and knowledge exchange among LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers and rights’ advocates

Plenary discussion II
• Nuno Ferreira
• Adriana Rojas
• Aino Gröndahl
• Andrea Vige Grønningsӕter
• Sabine Jansen

Full Program

Download the full program below, including abstracts and biographies of the contributors.

Conference program

About the organizers

This conference is organized by the Striking Sirens Coalition, a group of practitioners and academics in the field of SOGIESC (sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics) asylum law in Europe, from Greece (Sophia Zisakou, University of Lund), the Netherlands (Sabine Jansen, COC Netherlands), Norway (Andrea Vige Grønningsӕter, University of Oslo), Sweden (Aino Gröndahl, RFSL) and the United Kingdom (Claire Fletcher, Solent University, Rainbow Migration).