As the Afghanistan response enters its third year, research suggests that the risks to LGBTQI+ persons posed by the Taliban regime continue largely unabated while the availability of pathways to safety for LGBTQI+ Afghans is stagnating. More broadly, the humanitarian situation facing LGBTQI+ Afghans is gradually shifting from a complex emergency to a protracted situation. At this stage, given the lack of a clear endgame for the crisis due to the seeming durability of Taliban governance, there is a pressing need to bring together intervening organizations to assess the humanitarian response to-date, the current state of play, and determine next steps from a coordinated perspective.
To that end, ILGA ASIA and Rainbow Railroad co-hosted a Strategic Convening on Afghanistan LGBTQI+ Human Rights and Humanitarian Response on 5-6 July 2023. This hybrid convening gathered stakeholders from Afghan-led organizations and LGBTQI+ organizations from the US, UK, Germany, Pakistan and Thailand. The agenda was organized around a set of thematic areas and structured through a set of focused discussion questions geared toward aligning on a strategic direction for the response.
The conclusions and recommendations emerging from this convening have been published in a report entitled “Strategic Convening on Afghanistan: LGBTQI+ Human Rights & Humanitarian Response”. The full report can be accessed below, and is also available for download here.