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What was Italy's Immigration Debate in 2018 about?
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The mistreatment of LGBT+ refugees who try to escape their homeland because of their sexuality

Unfortunately, there are still countries that punish members of the LGBTQ+ because of their sexuality. Italian refugees who identify as LGBTQ+, immigration is seen as a way to escape persecution and be accepted for their sexuality.
Gay Rights

Context

Many irregular immigrants are homosexuals running away from detention and torture. They should be considered refugees, but immigration committees have dubious ways of demonstrating someone's homosexuality. Moreover, many LGBTI immigrants know that if they come out of the closet they will lose the support of their native community, so they choose to be clandestines.

The Argument

The LGBTI community still suffers from discrimination and violence even in the European Union. The current version of the Refugee Convention grants the status of a refugee to every LGBTI person fleeing from a country in which his/her sexual orientation would be punished by law, but many Gay Rights associations denounced the methods used by committees to confirm the asylum seekers' homosexuality. These methods would include invasive questions about the first coming-out, stereotyped parameters of manliness/femininity and the forced vision of pornographic videos (to see the asylum seeker's physical reactions). Those who don't pass these "tests" are forced to choose between living clandestinely and going back to their homeland, where they would be imprisoned or killed. Also, the mere act of coming out of the closet is really difficult for some people. Many of them are still ashamed of what they are or are afraid of losing the support of their compatriots. Others fear that they will have to face racism in the Italian gay community.

Counter arguments

Those who reject this Argument claim that, if homosexual refugees lived their life with discretion they wouldn't suffer any problem in their homeland. Also, some people believe that even if the "phallometric" exams are a clear violation of articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, they're still a necessary evil, because someone could pretend to be a homosexual just to get a refugee status.

Proponents

Premises

Many homosexual refugees are having a hard time trying to prove their sexual identity

Rejecting the premises

It can be our government's problem

References

This page was last edited on Thursday, 4 Jun 2020 at 21:46 UTC

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