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UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’
Author(s) -
Pincock Kate
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/disa.12447
Subject(s) - refugee , scholarship , framing (construction) , political science , human rights , agency (philosophy) , kenya , internally displaced person , corporate governance , transgender , sociology , gender studies , criminology , law , social science , business , engineering , structural engineering , finance
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.