SAFETY AND ASYLUM FOR OUR LGBTQ+ FAMILY IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND SYRIA

Since our founding in 2000, Rainbow World Fund's mission has been to promote peace, unity, and hope by leading the LGBTQ+ movement in participating in humanitarian relief efforts. Today is no different, and many of our LGBTQ +brothers and sisters abroad are in desperate need of our help.

RWF commonly funds organizations promoting LGBTQ+ visibility and acceptance in their home countries. But in many countries in and near the Middle East, acceptance is non-existent, and visibility can bring public outings, rejection by family, loss of housing or employment, arrest, attack, rape, torture, and execution.

RWF provides emergency grants and services to LGBTQ+ citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria at imminent risk in their homelands. Refugees are moved to safe housing, often in nearby countries, and supported with grants for food, basic needs, and medical care while their asylum claims are processed.  Hundreds have been evacuated safely and relocated to Canada, Europe, and the U.S.

This year, our goal is to help at least 300 of our brothers and sisters reach safety and a new home. Asylum programs in host countries provide housing, stipends, health care, language lessons, education, job placement, and child care. Refugees become permanent residents and embark on a path towards citizenship.

Help LGBTQ+ people in these countries find hope, reach safety, and live with dignity. Please donate today!

Help LGBTQ+ people in these countries find hope, safety, and dignity. Please donation today!

LGBTQ+ Rights in the Middle East

LGBTQ+ People generally have limited or highly restrictive rights in most parts of the Middle East and are open to hostility in others. Sex between men is illegal in 9 of the 18 countries that make up the region. It is punishable by death in five of these 18 countries. The rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ citizens are strongly influenced by the prevailing cultural traditions and religious mores of people living in the region – particularly Islam.

All same-sex activity is legal in Bahrain, Cyprus, Northern Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.

Male same-sex activity is illegal and punishable by imprisonment in Kuwait, Egypt, Oman, and Syria. It is also punishable by death in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. In Yemen and the Gaza Strip, the punishment might differ between death and imprisonment depending on the act committed.

Several Middle Eastern countries have received strong international criticism for persecuting homosexual and transgender people by sentencing them to death, life in prison, fines, torture, beatings, vigilante attacks, vigilante executions, honor killings, forced psychiatric treatments, forced anal examinations, forced hormone injections, chemical castration, floggings, and deportation.

The Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 after the previous government collapsed. Under their rule, LGBT recognition is against Islamic (sharīʿa) law and homosexuals are to be punished by death. Unlike the previous republic government, the Taliban's state have openly, either directly or indirectly killed LGBTQ members.