A legal victory for M*, a client of Fenix Humanitarian Legal Aid

This week, we received an uplifting message from Fenix Humanitarian Legal Aid, an organisation we have supported since SolidariTee was first set up.

M* a client of Fenix's, who they have been supporting closely for many months, has finally been granted refugee status after a years-long legal struggle.

M is a queer person who was initially rejected when he applied for asylum. M has past experiences of persecution and abuse that make this rejection very unjust. Unfortunately, this is all too common for queer people.

When he first applied for asylum, M did not speak about his queer identity or the experiences in the country he had to leave which were related to this. This is also very common amongst LGBTIA+ asylum seekers, for very valid reasons.When they connected following his rejection, he later expressed to the Fenix team that he hadn’t felt safe to speak about being queer within his asylum interview the first time.

There are many reasons why a person like M wouldn’t be able to share experiences relating to their sexuality or gender identity during an asylum interview, which is often an interrogation-style barrage of questions.

Often, if a person faced persecution, abuse, or risks to their life as a result of these aspects of their identity, they may have never been able to speak freely about who they are before. 

Other people may carry the weight of shame, stigma, or impacts of trauma that leave them physically unable to recount what has happened to them. 

Hostility or harmful questioning, including questions that imply being queer is a choice, compound these challenges. 

Fortunately, M has been able to participate in in-depth sessions with the Fenix team over a number of months. Fenix are particularly specialised in supporting clients with marginalised sexual and gender identities, both from a legal perspective as well as a mental health and social one. They offer peer-led support through group and individual sessions, helping to rebuild peoples’ sense of mental safety and identity.

Fenix were able to support M to submit a second subsequent application for asylum, following four previous rejections. This is only possible when a person is able to add substantially new elements to their claim.

With support from the Fenix team, M had both the words and the coping strategies to speak about his queer identity, and the connection between this and the persecution he had endured, even in the face of hostile and disbelieving questioning from asylum authorities.

Yesterday, we learnt that M had received refugee status, and would be able to remain in Greece where he is settled.

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In the same day as M visited the offices to celebrate with the team, Fenix had also reached a group of more than 60 people inside Lesvos’ refugee camp, all of whom were from Sudan, to provide them with bespoke, small-group sessions about their rights and about what would happen now that they had arrived to Greece.

It’s impossible to separate the horrors that we are witnessing in Sudan, and in so many other places around the world where the world’s richest nations have turned away, with the experiences of people seeking safety across borders. Making these links is a big part of our education activities. You can read our post about the atrocities committed in Sudan in the past days HERE.

Our partners continue to support Sudanese people reaching Europe's borders, but they are an incredibly small minority of the 14 million people displaced within and outside Sudan. We continue to call on global leaders and multilateral organisations to prioritise Sudan within all diplomatic and international funding efforts.

 *name changed for privacy