Ghanaian LGBTTQ* asylum-seekers find ally in MP

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This article was published 29/08/2017 (2972 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A group of LGBTTQ* men seeking asylum in Canada have found the ear of a human rights advocate — the MP for their area. Although they have no status in Canada until their refugee claims are determined, they deserve to be treated with the same respect as a constituent, Winnipeg Centre MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette said.

“Every human being has rights,” the Liberal MP said on Tuesday at his West End constituency office. That’s when seven men from Ghana presented him with a petition containing more than 5,200 signatures calling on the Government of Canada to urge Ghana to decriminalize homosexuality.

“I will table it in the House for you,” said the MP, who agreed to sit with the group on Tuesday afternoon. Most wore pink T-shirts that said “Ghana Pavilion” on the front and “LGBTQ rights now!” on the back. The shirts were worn outside Folklorama pavilions, where they collected signatures for their petition.

The group wants Ghana to repeal Section 104 of its criminal code outlawing “unnatural carnal knowledge” which makes same-sex activity a crime punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

“We ask the Government of Canada to use its diplomatic clout with the Government of Ghana to promote the respect for the human rights of all LGBTQ sexual minorities in Ghana,” the petition said.

The Ghanaian group’s spokesman, Sulemana Abdulai, said they chose to deliver the petition to Ouellette in person because the MP’s West End office was the closest to where they are being sheltered. On Monday, they mailed copies of their petition to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, other Winnipeg MPs and Manitoba Sen. Marilou McPhedran, who is also a Global College instructor with the University of Winnipeg.

McPhedran signed the petition outside a Folklorama pavilion she attended with students in the summer course she developed — Emerging Issues in Human Rights — that uses the city as its classroom.

Not everyone was supportive of the LGBTTQ* petitioners’ timing and the location. Some African pavilion organizers expressed disappointment that they used the cultural event as an opportunity to raise awareness of the discrimination in Ghana that they say forced them to flee.

“When you want to advance society, you have to sometimes push people,” Ouellette told the refugee claimants, who are waiting to appear before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

“They’re here and we have to hear what they have to say and they have very compelling stories,” the MP said in a brief interview.

“We have a duty as leaders in our community to uphold human rights — whether they’re here or elsewhere around the world,” Ouellette said.

“If people are here, we have to make sure they’re safe, and that we don’t put people in jeopardy.”

He knows his Liberal government has been criticized for the number of asylum seekers making irregular crossings into Canada this year but defended treating the arrivals with “basic human dignity” and hearing them out.

“I know some people have been very upset about Emerson and Quebec but, at the same time, when someone’s here, do you deny them basic justice?”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca