BASW Statement on Suella Braverman’s comments

Statement by the British Association of Social Workers (BASW UK) | October 2023
BASW Statement

The British Association of Social Workers strongly condemns the comments made by Home Secretary, Suella Braverman MP on 26 September 2023 which were that anti-gay discrimination is not a qualification for asylum. 

The Home Secretary said during her speech that “we now live in a completely different time” from when the Refugee Convention was signed and that “what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution in favour of something more akin to discrimination”.

Despite the Home Secretary’s view that persecution is being replaced with discrimination, there are 64 countries that have laws that criminalise homosexuality. While there has been progress and an extension of LGBT rights in many countries, there are a number of countries where legislators are proposing to jail those that identify as LGBT. For example, in Uganda you can be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of homosexuality. There have also been consistent reports of persecution of gay people in some countries including murder.

The Home Secretary’s comments fail to recognise that gay people are not given equal rights throughout the world. In many countries, LGBT people will have to hide their true selves or face violence and oppression towards themselves and their families. This also applies to many under 18s who will publicly or privately identify as gay and are at risk. Social workers work with unaccompanied young people and many of these will come from countries where being gay is a criminal offence.

BASW believes that the Home Secretary is scapegoating asylum seekers who have been persecuted to distract from the failures of the Home Office to address the backlog of asylum cases. The Government is putting the blame on desperate, scared people fleeing persecution instead of taking action such as speeding up the asylum process and creating safe routes.

In other speeches that took place at Conservative Party conference last week, the Prime Minister as well as other ministers sought to fuel their 'war on woke' by making divisive statements about members of the Trans community. Trans people are valued members of our communities and their needs, as well as the needs of other minority communities, should never be the subject of cheap political rhetoric.