After the autumn of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, the UK authorities made a promise to absorb those that had helped UK forces in the course of the warfare, and people most weak to persecution.
But lots of the most at-risk, together with “thousands” of LGBT+ Afghans, had been left behind, based on Nemat Sadat, the manager director of LGBT+ charity Roshaniya.
Speaking to the Sky News Daily podcast with Niall Paterson, Sadat, who left Afghanistan in 2013 after hostility to his sexuality, mentioned that “there’s really no future left for LGBT+ people in Afghanistan”.
Homosexuality is at present unlawful below Afghanistan’s Islamic regulation, and transgender persons are not recognised by the state. The punishment for being homosexual is the dying penalty.
“It’s the probably the worst place to be an LGBT+ person. And under the Taliban rule, under Sharia law, the Taliban are continuing to entrap LGBT+ people. Once they find an LGBT+ person, they torture them,” Sadat continued.
“And they tell us, if you want this torture to end, you have to basically present us with your entire network of LGBT+ people, give us their names, give us their contact information so we can track and find them.”
One homosexual man nonetheless in Afghanistan is 23-year-old Arseen. We’ve modified his identify to guard his id.
He advised the Sky News Daily: “I’m escaping from my own family right now because my uncles, they are religious leaders, they beat me.”
He described how, regardless of Afghanistan being hostile to the LGBT+ neighborhood earlier than, not less than he might proceed along with his life. Now, Arseen lives in hiding, after dropping his work after which college placement, for concern of being outed. “I’m losing my hope for my future. The Taliban, they destroyed every chance [of one].”
Both Arseen and Sadat accuse the UK authorities of not doing sufficient to help and defend LGBT+ Afghans.
One of the schemes designed to assist resettle Afghans within the UK following the Taliban takeover is the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme. Among the scheme’s precedence teams are LGBT+ folks.
The Sky News Daily requested the Home Office, which runs the scheme, for a response. It directed Sky News to the Foreign Office.
An FCDO spokesperson mentioned: “The UK was one of the first countries since the fall of Kabul to facilitate a safe relocation route for at-risk LGBT+ Afghans. Many are already in the UK, while some have been relocated to other safe countries or are undergoing processing in third countries for relocation to the UK. We will continue to do all we can to help at-risk LGBT+ Afghans.”
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