UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya

The Limits of 'Protection

Bibliographic Data

ID4745801
AuthorsK Pincock (0000-0002-8263-7720, Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre University of Oxford United Kingdom, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume45
Issue4
Pages844-864
Publication date2021-10-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDisasters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0361-3666 • E-ISSN: 1467-7717
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/disa.12447
PMID32441384
OpenAlexW3027582887
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited30

This paper problematises the framing and implementation of protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) refugees in Kenya by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Despite increased international attention being paid to them, the extant literature focuses on asylum-seeking at Western borders; there is a dearth of scholarship on LGBTI refugees' experiences in first countries of asylum in the Global South. Building on essential humanitarian governance literature, the paper suggests that how protection is framed by UNHCR, and practical restrictions on the implementation of protection in Kenya, leave LGBTI refugees unsafe. Yet, their own attempts to secure protection, often drawing on the same human rights discourse that UNHCR utilises in its guidance, renders them even less 'protectable' by UNHCR and Kenyan activists. This paper argues for a more critical and contextualised approach to 'protection' as a form of humanitarian assistance, given its place within the broader dynamics of global refugee governance

Agency (philosophy · Business · Corporate governance · Criminology · Framing (construction · Human rights · Internally displaced person · Kenya · Political science · Refugee · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Transgender · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Engineering · Gender Studies · Human Rights and Development · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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