The Home Office knew Rwandan officials had discriminated against LGBTQ+ asylum seekers when it backed the country’s human rights record, openDemocracy can reveal.

In its supporting evidence for its Safety of Rwanda Bill, the government department admitted it was previously warned that LGBTQ+ people had been blocked from submitting asylum claims in the country.

The evidence, published last week, showed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the government of the difficulties LGBTQ+ asylum seekers face in Rwanda in March 2022.

MPs last night voted to back the bill, which would override a December Supreme Court verdict to declare that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers, by 320 votes to 276. It will now pass to the Lords, where peers are expected to make amendments that will be debated and voted on.

LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in Rwanda have previously been given immediate verbal rejections by officials responsible for registering applications, who said it “is not the place for them, or Rwanda does not deal with such issues”, according to evidence by the UNHCR submitted to the Home Office.

Responding to the findings, Robbie de Santos, the director of communications and external affairs at LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall, said: ‘This is further evidence that the UK government’s asylum policy is illegal, unworkable and fails to protect or consider the needs of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers.”

The evidence also shows the Rwandan government told the Home Office that it had received five asylum claims where sexuality formed the basis of an application between 2019 and 30 November 2023. It is not known how many claimants were given a verbal rejection before being able to apply.

One of those five asylum seekers, a transgender person, was granted refugee status in April 2022. In a separate witness statement to the Home Office in June 2022, the UNHCR also mentions a transgender person who had been granted refugee status in recent months “but placed by the Rwandan authorities in a camp which UNHCR considers entirely inappropriate for that person”. It is not clear if the two documents refer to the same person.

Of the other five, three were offered interviews but left the country before the interview took place and one person was refused, according to the Rwandan government.

The UNHCR also said in 2022 that Rwanda had allowed two LGBTQ+ individuals to have their cases heard but that “​​the sample is too small and too recent to draw any conclusions as to whether Rwandan practices toward LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers have altered”.

‘Abhorrently cruel’

The Home Office’s evidence paper also revealed that the department was warned in 2022 that LGBTQ+ people in Rwanda face torture and abuse because of their sexuality and gender.

Government officials said they were told by representatives of Rwanda’s LGBTQ+ community that an “LGBT person who gets arrested, is at risk […] of abuse/mistreatment (torture, beatings)”.

The representatives also said they had “heard testimonies” of LGBT+ people in prisons being “beaten by guards, paraded around prisons.”

Leila Zadeh, the executive director at Rainbow Migration, a charity supporting LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, told openDemocracy that the government’s own evidence made it clear that it was too dangerous to send people to Rwanda.

Zadeh said, “We have raised concerns about the safety of LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum if they are sent to Rwanda multiple times. It’s a country where LGBTQI+ people are subjected to discrimination, violence and abuse.

“It’s abhorrently cruel to send people who have come here to rebuild their lives in safety to a far-away place where they have no community and where their lives can be in danger.”

At least a dozen Rwandans whose sexuality formed part of the basis of their application have applied for asylum in the UK since 2015, according to statistics published by the Home Office. The true number may be higher as the Home Office does not give a figure for years where five or less people applied.

The documents released by the Home Office last week also raised concerns about asylum seekers’ access to legal representation and interpreters.

Rwanda does not provide legal aid to asylum seekers and they are not allowed to have a legal representative during interviews. Interpreters are also not provided even when the asylum seeker cannot speak one of three official languages, according to the UNHCR.

The UN agency told the Home Office in 2022 that asylum seekers are interviewed by a panel of ten Rwandan officials and are so brief that they have “no adequate opportunity to explain an asylum claim”.

Rwanda failed to give any reason for rejecting more than 100 asylum claims in 2022 according to evidence given by the agency.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Rwanda’s constitution includes a broad prohibition on discrimination and does not criminalise or discriminate against sexual orientation in law, policy or practice.

“Everyone considered for relocation will be screened and have access to legal advice. Caseworkers thoroughly assess the credibility of each claim on their individual merit and no relocations will be made if individuals are at risk.”