Canada: a place of comfort for LGBTQ2S+ refugees

Paul Canary Kanyamu says life felt like “hell on earth” before escaping violence and taking refuge in Canada about two months ago.

“I was beaten, I was pushed into a ditch, my leg was broken and I was brutally beaten countless times,” recalls the 26-year-old, Ugandan-born and gay, in an interview about his years spent in East Africa before his arrival in Vancouver.

“I was brutally attacked by my own parents and the community. They threatened to kill me by poisoning. It was a really sad time.”

Despite how difficult it is to tell their story, the human rights activist and other LGBTQ2S+ refugees say they want Canadians to learn more about how brutally persecuted the community is around the world.

Earlier this year, Uganda became the latest country to pass an anti-gay law that made it a crime to identify as gay and imposed harsh penalties, including the death penalty in some cases.

The CEO of Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian government-funded group that helps LGBTQ2S+ people escape state-sponsored violence, says at least 70 countries criminalize same-sex intimacy.

“There is certainly a constant number of LGBTQ2S+ people resettling in Canada, despite the fact that there are now more displaced persons than ever before,” says Kimahli Powell.

Powell says the number of LGBTQ2S+ refugees has grown as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that a total of 110 million people around the world have been displaced by war, persecution and human rights violations.

Powell says Canada doesn’t collect data on how many LGBTQ2S+ refugees settle in the country each year, but it should. He says they face unique challenges that the country needs to do more about.

“When you arrive in Canada, for example, they also face people from the same country persecuting them. That’s a really unsafe environment for people to be in,” he says.

In Canada, statistics show reports of hate crimes targeting transgender and agender people have also increased and experts say the number of attacks against that community and LBGTQ people is higher than what has been reported to police.

But for Kanyamu, the challenges he faces in Canada cannot be compared to the violence he has faced in Uganda.

But the refugee camp was worse than he expected and he says he was there regularly, despite his pleas with the police.

“The community was very hostile. Some people get killed. Some people get raped. They don’t like LGBTQ2S+ people because they believe we are agents of the devil, we are the ones causing COVID-19, we are the ones causing famine, and all that sort of thing,” he says.

After Kanyamu lived in the camp for about five years, the Kenyan president condemned a Supreme Court ruling that sided with an LGBTQ2S+ rights group and it became clear to him that he had to leave.

He connected with another friend who introduced him to a Canadian LGBTQ2S+ organization called Reaching Out Assisting Refugees and was privately sponsored by a family in British Columbia.

Since his arrival in April, Kanyamu says his life has changed.

“I love Canada,” he says.

Kanyamu says he and his partner have found safety in Vancouver’s LGBTQ2S+ community. They are resting, looking for work and Kanyamu wants to get an education in social work.

Rustam, a 23-year-old bisexual man from northern Afghanistan, also says Canada has become a land of opportunity for him since he arrived in Calgary just over a year ago.

He did not want to be identified by his full name due to security concerns for his family in Afghanistan.

A report released last year by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International states that LGBTQ2S+ people in Afghanistan face serious threats to their safety and lives, especially since the Taliban took over in 2021.

Rustam says he left the country to study in Turkey a few years before the Taliban takeover, but his visa expired and he was unable to return home as the violence escalated.

“I started applying in many countries, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and some European countries,” he says during a telephone interview from his home in Calgary.

“Fortunately I (heard) it back from Canada.”

When he arrived, he got a big shock.

“I was surprised that everyone is free to be whatever they want,” he says.

“Had I been in Afghanistan, I might not have survived.”

Around the same time Rustam arrived in Canada, Yevheniia Kotenko and her partner were evacuated from Ukraine after Russia launched a full-scale invasion.

Kotenko, who uses an alias because her whole family doesn’t know she’s pansexual and married a woman, says she didn’t arrive in Canada as a refugee, but under a special government program that expedited immigration for Ukrainians fleeing the war.

While it is not a crime to be a member of the LGBTQ2S+ community in Ukraine, same-sex marriage is still not allowed. Kotenko says that’s why she and her partner were so happy to get married three months after they arrived.

“There are definitely some things I miss about Ukraine, but I feel like Canada is just the perfect place to live,” she says.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 21, 2023