The UK Home Office has hinted that illegal boat migrants who claim to be transgender could avoid being sent to Rwanda for processing.
Migrants who illegally cross the English Channel by boat may be able to avoid being sent on a one way trip to Rwanda by claiming that they are transgender.
This is according to a recently published document by the UK’s Home Office, which also clarified that women and children will also be sent to Rwanda because the illegal migration deterrent scheme could not be limited to affecting only migrant men for gender equality reasons.
According to an “Equality Impact Statement” published by the Home Office on Wednesday, those who claim to be “transgender” — and especially those who claim to be “transgender women” — may be deemed ineligible to be sent to Rwanda under a new scheme aimed at discouraging would-be migrants from illegally crossing the English Channel.
“There is evidence of ill treatment of those who have undergone gender reassignment, as well as a general lack of societal acceptance of it in comparison with the UK where some report that they have faced discrimination and harassment,” the document reads.
“The [Country Policy and Information Notes’ on Rwanda provides examples of transgender women, who are likely to be more visible than others in this group, facing treatment such as arbitrary arrests and detention as well as degrading treatment which would be in contrary of Article 3 [human] rights,” it continued, referencing the European Convention on Human Rights’ prohibition of torture and other degrading treatment.
“These factors and any medical needs for people who are or who wish to undergo gender reassignment will be carefully considered as part of the case-by-case assessment when determining eligibility for relocation to Rwanda,” the document goes on to say.
“We would undertake a case-by-case risk assessment when determining eligibility for relocation,” the document then summarises. “No one will be relocated if it is unsafe or inappropriate.”
A dispensation for migrants who claim to be “transgender” is not the only thing revealed in Wednesday’s equality statement, with it also being indirectly announced that the Rwanda deportations will not just be limited to migrant men, as initially suggested.
Instead, both women and children boat migrants must also be sent to Rwanda as a result of laws mandating gender equality in the UK.
“This policy would apply to all regardless of sex, therefore we have not identified any direct discrimination on the basis of sex as a result of this policy,” the assessment reads, despite contradicting previous claims made about the Rwanda scheme.
However, while the paper notes that it will not be exclusively men being sent to Rwanda, men will make up the vast majority of those shipped off to the African state, as men make up the vast majority of people entering the country illegally.
“87 per cent of those arriving via small boat in 2020 were male,” the statement reads. “Therefore, this policy, which aims to deter people from undertaking such dangerous journeys, may indirectly have a greater impact on men.”
“However, we consider that any disadvantage is justified on the basis that it is a proportionate means of achieving the policy’s legitimate aim to deter people from making perilous journeys,” the document concludes.
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