Asylum seekers and refugees

The international setting provides an important context for LGBT people’s rights in the UK because many of the rights they enjoy have come about because of judgments made in the European Court of Human Rights or through human rights advances globally for LGBT people (de Jong, 2003). Since 2007, the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), a campaigning organisation for LGBT people’s rights worldwide, has published an annual report – State Sponsored Homophobia – which identifies the international legal situation for LGBT people. The struggle for social equality has gained momentum by the collaboration of advocates from diverse countries globally and not only those in Western nations. A group of experts met in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2007 to draw up a universal guide to human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity. The Yogyakarta Principles outline 29 fundamental freedoms including the right to found a family, the right to social protection measures and the right to seek asylum (International Service for Human Rights, 2007). Globally, there are unequal protections for LGBT people in United Nations (UN) member states despite the existence of a UN resolution which recognised that sexual orientation should be a status that is protected from discrimination. This resolution was recently overturned by a UN General Assembly meeting that voted to remove sexual orientation and gender identity from a resolution on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in 2010. Around the world, people face discrimination, violence, rape, imprisonment, torture or execution because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity by the state or people acting on behalf of the state, from their own communities or their families (de Gruchy and Fish, 2004).