The lack of employment is not the only factor that can make life difficult in the central African country. As a result of Home Office worries, members of Rwanda’s sole LGBT-friendly church have been subjected to verbal and physical violence.
Rwanda is a highly populated nation of 13 million people, and its main city, Kigali, brims with life and vitality.
With a monthly street cleaning requirement and a prohibition on single-use plastics, several regions of the nation are pure and lovely.
The East African nation is already preparing for the arrival of the first set of asylum seekers forcibly deported from the United Kingdom on Tuesday.
Prince Charles is rumored to have privately condemned the UK government’s plans to transfer illegal immigrants to Rwanda as “appalling” over the weekend. However, the Rwandan government feels well-prepared for the eventuality.
When the plan was announced in April, Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, stated that the asylum seekers will be provided with “human capital investments” such as language classes, skills training, and education and that once they are granted refugee status, they will also be able to seek employment.
Gilbert, 29, a refugee from neighboring Burundi, has struggled to find employment in a nation with a 16.5% unemployment rate.
“As an immigrant seeking employment, people do not trust you,”
“Because they do not trust you because you do not share their nationality, it is really difficult to find work.
He has established a market stall in Kigali, but he claims that it is impossible to make a profit selling to other poor people, therefore he is battling to survive.
39-year-old Sanaa Almerdas’s life has been remarkably different. She fled the violence in Yemen to five different countries before settling in Rwanda and founding a cafe with her husband. She mentioned feeling secure in this location.
“I can walk alone and choose my attire. People here are incredibly nice, we didn’t feel like strangers here. Certainly, it is a safe country. It is clean, and the people are kind.”
However, the British government has highlighted concerns about Rwanda.
In April, in response to a question regarding the country’s human rights record, Foreign Office minister Vicky Ford stated: “We are concerned about the restrictions on political opposition, civil society, and media freedom, and we communicate these concerns to the Rwandan government regularly.
While a Home Office document from this year identified the mistreatment of LGBTQ citizens as more than an isolated incident, it was not widespread.
Rwanda does not have a law against homosexuality, but members of the country’s only LGBT-friendly church report a physical and verbal assault.
Patrick, a member of the choir, claims that she has been attacked because of her appearance.
She stated, “I had an issue when my buddies beat me up, and I reported it to the local authorities. They asked me, ‘Given who you are and how you appear, aren’t you ashamed to report this?'”
She also stated that, as an LGBT person in the country, she experiences terror.
She continued, “One of the reasons I do not feel safe is because I am unemployed and wander the streets aimlessly.”
But if I had a job and something to do, I would feel more comfortable, and people would respect me if I met them.
In its most recent country policy and information note on Rwanda, published last month, the Home Office stated that there were reports of LGBT asylum seekers facing difficulties registering their claims, but that it was “not possible to verify, and the scale, extent, and frequency of this remains unclear.”
The statement said, “The Rwandan government has committed to treating each relocated individual and processing their asylum application by the Refugee Convention, Rwandan immigration legislation, and international and Rwandan norms at all times.”
