Migration, mobility and marginalisation have consequences for Sexual and Gender Minorities according to studies.
People engage in, execute activities, associate, move or voice their needs to seek fulfilment. This fulfilment could be escape from persecution, desire to seek greener pastures, desire to be part of communities, brevity, valour, recognition, daring or curiosity and self preservation. These are private interests which constitute the subjective filters or basis for negotiating how one can enjoy public spaces. This negotiation comes as narration; commodification; labour or skills which enable one to engage in problem posing or solving; and coping with challenges.
"As a strategy to avoid discrimination, violence and economic marginalisation or persecution, sexual and gender non-conforming people often turn to migration as a route to achieve independence and build social capital. Recent studies by the IDS Sexuality, Poverty and Law programme demonstrate that while migration can provide liberation from some experiences of marginalisation and an ability to contribute economically towards family households, for many it leads to a precarious existence. To ensure these groups are not ‘left behind’ in development, policymakers and aid programming must recognise and address marginalisation of these groups as part of overall strategies to reduce risks of migratStudies undertaken by the IDS Sexuality, Poverty and Law (SPL) programme in 15 countries demonstrate that the effects of social, economic and political marginalisation can ‘force’ people to move either within their country or overseas. People can also choose to migrate for strategic reasons in order to counteract existing marginalisation, by moving to more accepting locations where they can economically contribute to families remotely and express their identities freely.Traditionally, there is a greater likelihood of movement from smaller towns or rural communities to urban contexts. This is primarily due to greater financial prospects being available in urban as opposed to rural contexts as labour tends to flow naturally from low-wage regions to high-wage areas. For many, migration might necessitate a move as economic migrants, refugees or asylum seekers to more tolerant countries where opportunities for a safe, authentic and economically productive life are more possible. An increasing number of countries are now considering persecution of homosexuality as a ground for seeking asylum, although there is now a body of documented cases highlighting how the process can be onerous, inappropriately intrusive for applicants and has low rates of succession.
In some countries, activists operating in nascent lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisations can find themselves forced to leave their countries as a result of their campaigning. Establishing a life within a new environment allows individuals to cast aside some of the social expectations and surveillance that characterises the lives of gender and sexual nonconforming individuals, although rigid gender norms may still impact on their lives.
The choice to migrate entails balancing the risk of discrimination at home with the potential loss of established social networks. For many, the loss of existing networks at ‘home’ can be offset by the formation and growth of fresh networks amongst their peers following migration to another city or country. These can allow them fresh opportunities to access resources and build social capital amongst other sexual and gender non-conforming individuals. That said, moving away from one’s family or community inevitably involves some loss of status and informal assistance that others would take for granted in making their way in the world.
Policy recommendations
Whilst migration has challenges for everyone who attempts it, there are particular measures that would assist in ensuring it has a positive impact on economic and social prosperity of sexual and gender minority communities:
• International organisations should become more sensitive to the reality that all international development activity affects those with non-normative sexual and gender identities and reflect this in their approach in designing, assigning resources and measuring the effectiveness of all aid programming.
• International donors should introduce mechanisms to support ‘underground’ forms of LGBTI activism, even when this is with young organisations that might represent a small element of financial risk or where measurements of success are harder to quantify.
• Same-sex relations should be decriminalised as a step towards securing the social, political and economic rights of gender and sexual non-conforming individuals and shifting public and familial attitudes.
• Development programmes should not aim to discourage migration or sex work (and other forms of livelihood strategies), but instead work to resolve the multiple barriers faced by gender and sexual minorities, alongside offering diverse skills training, language and employment options.
• Invest in research that helps to provide a greater understanding of the particular experiences of gender and sexual minorities living in rural contexts, as current evidence around exclusion is dominated by that undertaken in urban contexts. In addition, policymakers should make recommendations for improvements that can mitigate the push-and-pull factors that encourage migration.
• Support strategies to simplify the process of obtaining identification papers for people from gender and sexual minorities (such as sex workers) who need to migrate regularly.
• Invest further in increasing population research studies around social mobility and migration of gender and sexual non-conforming individuals.
• Encourage and fund time for LGBTI organisations to form strong alliances with the rest of the international SOGIE (sexual orientation and gender identity and expression) community (especially regional partnerships), so that when individuals migrate to another country there is a network available to support them in the transition and the possibility of joint campaigning around common issues."
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