SOGICA Project, ’30 recommendations for improving the lives of people claiming asylum on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI) in Italy’, 2020

SOGICA Project, ’30 recommendations for improving the lives of people claiming asylum on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI) in Italy’, University of Sussex, July 2020*

*For the Italian version of these recommendations, see here.

Abstract

It is now nearly forty years since the first SOGI asylum claims were recognised, and a great deal of progress has been made at a global and European level. There is increased awareness of SOGI persecution as well as examples of good policy and practice that should be publicised and replicated. However, alongside these, the SOGICA project found many areas where improvement is urgently needed, and we address these here. These recommendations largely reflect the views of almost 500 people, those who participated in the SOGICA project’s interviews, focus groups and online surveys.

These recommendations are written in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, among other things, has shown that at times of crisis inequalities between individuals and groups in society widen. This underlines the need for domestic legislation and policy to be based on international refugee and human rights standards, and not dependent on the good will of the government of the day. This will help ensure that in future global crises we really will be ‘all in it together’.

We are aware that some improvements to the Italian asylum system depends on the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) at EU level. However, here we focus on recommendations that can be implemented at national level, also in light of the substantial discretion left to EU Member States by relevant EU provisions on asylum procedures and reception.