"He Tried to Rape Me" A Gay Afghan in a Refugee Camp

The Taliban have been hunting for gay people in Afghanistan after taking over the country (Photo: Rahmat Gul/AP)

 

He tried to rape me.” A gay Afghan man held in a refugee camp reveals how abuse of LGBT people stuck there is destroying lives – as criticism against Western governments mounts

By Patrick Strudwick

INews~UK

 

“The man had been following me and watching me for days, making sexual comments when I was alone,” says Binyamin. “And then, three weeks ago, I walked into the corridor to check that no one was there and went to the bathroom to take a shower.”

As soon as Binyamin was undressed, he heard knocking on the shower cubicle door. He thought perhaps it was his roommate, so he put his clothes back on to go and check.

“When I opened the door, the guy who’d been watching me was standing behind it. He pushed me back in. I said, ‘Leave me alone’.” Binyamin tried to push him off, but the man was huge. “He grabbed me and twisted my arm. He tried to rape me.”

Binyamin (not his real name) is 19, gay, and has been held in a refugee camp since October, after fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan last year. He is thin and pale — unable to eat or sleep — and looks closer to 16. Due to the immediate danger facing him and other LGBT people in the camp, I cannot disclose its location, or even the country it is in. But homosexuality is illegal there, too.

Binyamin managed to break free of the man and ran towards the main bathroom door, but his attacker had locked it. By chance, the lock wasn’t secure, so Binyamin was able to force the door open. He got away that time.

But as we talk through an interpreter on a WhatsApp call in the early hours of the morning, the untold story of what has happened to the few LGBT people who were able to escape Afghanistan – but who still haven’t been offered safe passage to a Western country – floods out. They escaped their country only to be locked up with their countrymen, enough of whom have brought anti-LGBT attitudes with them to make a life for Binyamin and others unmanageable.

“They don’t consider us human,” he says, “but as slaves or sexual objects.” Violence and verbal abuse of LGBT people are rife, according to those in the camp, and the charity looking after them. As well to the homophobic and transphobic taunts, Binyamin and his friends are accused of being sex workers, as if to justify sexual violence.

Despite the man not succeeding in raping Binyamin, gossip spread throughout the camp that he had, and his victim was seen running away naked, making him even more of a target. “People’s words are more deadly than snake bites,” he says. Witnessing his friends being abused only increases his anxiety.

“We are getting threatened and bullied every day,” he says, “so we are all staying in our rooms.” They don’t leave, they don’t go out for a walk – but that doesn’t mean they’re safe. The rooms have no locks, so although Binyamin escaped his attempted rapist, he can’t sleep, instead laying in bed wondering when the next attack will come.

“The only thing I can do to feel a bit safer at night is, there’s a small fridge in my room, so I put it behind the door to make it a little more secure,” he says. “But it’s not enough to prevent someone coming in.”

Since the fall of Kabul last August, the Taliban have been killing LGBT people, with reports of them being forced out of their homes, dismembering them, or if found guilty of homosexuality, subjecting them to the practice known as “wall-toppling”, in which they are buried under rubble.

Binyamin and others were promised a route out, a pathway to safety away from the torture and murder of his community. The Aman Project, one of the key charities focused on sexual and gender minorities in Afghanistan, helped him and a few dozen others escape. “At first, when the Aman organization took me from Afghanistan, I felt free,” says Binyamin. “But soon I realized that being gay is a crime here.”

The LGBT refugees were placed in the camp – constructed specially to house Afghans escaping the Taliban – thinking it would only be for a few weeks. They have been there for nine months. They’re prevented from leaving for any reason, and cannot leave the country until a Western nation agrees to accept them onto a resettlement scheme that enables them to live and work without persecution.

Taliban fighters stand guard near the venue of an open-air rally in a field on the outskirts of Kabul on October 3, 2021, as the Taliban supporters and senior figures held their first mass rally in a show of strength as they consolidate their rule of Afghanistan. 

(Photo by Hoshang Hashimi / AFP) (Photo by HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP via Getty Images) - 10078655

Taliban fighters stand guard near an open-air rally on the outskirts of Kabul (Photo: Hoshang Hashimi/Getty)

Canada has allowed some in. Britain has so far only accepted about 50 Afghans on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, according to charities on the ground. When i approached the Home Office, they declined to provide an exact number.

Until more are granted safe passage to another country, they wait in their rooms, month after month, subjected to harassment, violence, and sexual violence: caged targets for abuse.

“LGBT refugees can be very high risk because many are noticeably gender-nonconforming,” Tess Berry-Hart, a volunteer for the Aman Project, tells i. “It’s quite easy for people to tell [they’re LGBT] and then word spreads.” But because homosexuality is illegal, there is no authority to inform; nowhere for them to turn for protection.

“We can’t defend ourselves,” says Binyamin, adding that if they were to complain, they would be disbelieved or blamed. After the attempted rape, he begged the camp to move him to a different floor, but he could not tell them why for fear of alerting them to the fact that he is gay.

Another gay man in the camp, whom we’ll call Mehdi, disclosed to The Aman Project what happened to him there, who forwarded his account to i. “One boy attacked me and beat me,” he says. “I didn’t even say anything to him. I am not comfortable. I am not feeling safe. I am in trouble. My mental state is not good – every moment I feel the guy is near to me and can attack me.”

Some of the LGBT people in the camp are now on suicide watch. Depression has become another threat to Binyamin’s safety. The Aman Project has organized a gay Afghan psychologist living in Britain – the same man who interprets during our interview – to talk on the phone with him regularly.

“I could kill myself at any moment,” says Binyamin.

For everyone in the camp, conditions are bleak. “It’s getting worse day by day,” he says, explaining that the camp has run out of basic supplies. “We don’t have medical care now. Before we had medical care, so we could have treatment.”

Although there are some paramedics in the camp for emergencies, he says, anything else isn’t treated. Painkillers are no longer being distributed, so if you have dental problems like toothache, for example, nothing can be done.

“We are not receiving hygiene kits now,” he says. “People are getting food poisoning.”

Taliban fighters escort veiled women marching during a pro-Taliban rally outside the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021. (Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP) (Photo by AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images)

Being gay in Afghanistan brings a serious risk of torture and murder under the Taliban (Photo: Aamir Qureshi/AFP)

 

 

The day we talk, last Thursday, 10 of his fellow LGBT refugees were finally flown to Canada – one of whom was Mehdi, the man who had been beaten. After arriving, he supplied another quote to i through the Aman Project: “I am very happy now, but I had too much stress, and I am crying for the bad days, now I am gone from it. I think it was the hardest year of my life.” Another who arrived says: “I can breathe, like a bird in freedom.”

Binyamin was supposed to be on that flight. At the last minute, however, he tested positive for Covid and so has to await news of another flight out. LGBT people left behind in the camp are now even more vulnerable, according to Berry-Hart, because their support network – people who might come to their physical or psychological aid – is dwindling.

The best-case scenario for LGBT people in the camp is a place on a resettlement scheme, but even that means they may never see their families again. Binyamin’s family doesn’t know he is gay, nor why their teenage son left the country. Missing them, not knowing how many years it might be before they are reunited – if ever – means that even an escape to the West will be tainted with sadness, he says.

I ask how he feels about the prospect of a new life in a country where you can live safely and freely as a gay person. His answer makes the interpreter pause to compose himself.

“I don’t know, because I have never been anywhere where I could be myself without any fear,” he says. “I have no idea what it’s like to be gay and wear whatever I want or walk wherever I want. I am excited, but I don’t know what it will feel like.”

Before the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, it was hard to be LGBT in Afghanistan, but Binyamin could at least meet up with friends, have some semblance of a life, and survive. But on 15 August 2021, as the US withdrew and President Ghani was overthrown, that all changed. LGBT people who weren’t rounded up or killed went into hiding if they could.

Binyamin talks of a trans friend of his back home. “She was arrested by Taliban,” he says. “The last time I contacted her, the Taliban had imprisoned her and shaved her head. I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t know if she is alive or dead.” Many more of his friends have been arrested.

Towards the end of the call, he pleads for Western countries to help LGBT people. “Please do something to prioritize LGBT people to end our suffering. It’s a little bit easier for [heterosexuals] in the camp who were in the military or government because they’re not being bullied by others,” he says. The countries they’re being held in do not criminalize them. “But LGBT people who left Afghanistan are now having the same experience inside the camp.” The aim, he says, is to move them to safety without further harm but “it’s not possible to do without safe routes”.

According to Berry-Hart, “The big problem is there aren’t enough safe routes available and there specifically aren’t enough for LGBT Afghans.” The UK government “agreed to accept 50 or so back in October, and then a few of them went in April this year, so it’s a very small number”. 

Many of resettlement schemes from Western countries demand that LGBT people supply evidence that they are in danger. It isn’t enough to simply be LGBT. And before Britain even decides whether to grant someone a place on the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), LGBT people must be referred by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

But this itself has become another impenetrable barrier for LGBT people, according to Berry-Hart, “because they get hundreds of cases, and in some countries, the UNHCR is either not operating or has really limited capacity to assist”. An Afghan lesbian Berry-Hart is trying to help, who managed to escape to Tajikistan, “is having immense trouble registering with the UNHCR, even though she’s very young, at risk of trafficking, and her girlfriend has already been deported”.

When approached by i, the UNHCR did not respond to the allegation that it doesn’t have capacity. Instead, a spokesperson said: “UNHCR has long resettled Afghan refugees at risk from first countries of asylum to a variety of resettlement countries based on individual needs and circumstances… Resettlement quotas from governments around the world can currently only include a tiny proportion of refugees worldwide (less than 1 percent).”

A bottleneck has therefore emerged in third countries where LGBT people are either kept indefinitely in unsafe refugee camps or who have fled there on their own but are now trapped.

“It’s not enough just to leave Afghanistan, because then they’re kept in surrounding countries where they may have a visa, but it’ll expire, or they cross [the border] illegally and they could get found by police and deported, trafficked, or otherwise exploited,” says Berry-Hart.

The UK government hailed its resettlement scheme as a “safe, legal and secure way” into Britain “for the most vulnerable” and aimed to help 20,000 people over several years, but only 6,500 were allowed in during this first year. It took more than seven months for the first LGBT arrivals to receive the paperwork they needed to be able to work. The interpreter and psychologist who helps Binyamin had to decline several job offers because his work permit hadn’t been processed.

In March, two dozen charities including the Red Cross, Oxfam, and the Refugee Council, wrote to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, telling her: “We are gravely concerned that as it currently stands, the ACRS offers little or no capacity for those most at risk in Afghanistan to come to the UK in a safe and secure manner.”

Yet last week, Amanda Solloway MP, a minister for equalities, told a Pink News event, “I’m extremely proud of our work with civil society organizations to help successfully resettle LGBT Afghan refugees, which is such a great achievement.” She was promptly heckled by Peter Tatchell for refusing to help more.

A Home Office spokesperson told i: “The UK has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it and through the new Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, up to 20,000 people in need will be welcomed to the UK. The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme will prioritize those who have assisted the UK efforts in Afghanistan and stood up for values such as democracy, women’s rights, and freedom of speech, as well as vulnerable people, including women and girls and members of minority groups who are at risk.”

Binyamin’s message to politicians in Britain, Europe, and North America, however, is simple: “Get us out as soon as possible.”