At Rainbow Migration we are deeply concerned by the Prime Minister’s stating that the UK is asking other countries to host ‘return hubs’ for people seeking asylum, announced on his visit to Albania.  

We welcome the Albanian Prime Minister’s firm rejection of the UK’s request, and we are relieved that Albania will not become part of a policy that displaces people seeking safety. However, we remain alarmed that the UK government is actively seeking other countries to accept people who have fled persecution. 

At the General Election, people across the UK clearly rejected the previous government’s cruel plan to send people seeking safety here to Rwanda, and sending people looking to rebuild their lives in the UK to another country thousands of miles away where people had no connections. For LGBTQI+ people, it would have meant being sent to a country where LGBTQI+ people are subjected to discrimination, violence and abuse. 

We are concerned that, by announcing this in Albania, the government may be considering reviving a Rwanda plan for another country that can be unsafe for LGBTQI+ people. 

The US State Department’s 2023 country report on Albania found that societal discrimination against the LGBTQI+ community to be common, that LGBTQI+ people face problems accessing education, and that hate speech and discriminatory language targeting LGBTQI+ people were a problem in media, online, and from politicians. Pink Embassy, an Albanian NGO that supports LGBTQI+ people, has highlighted the prevalence of “corrective rape”, forcing LGBTQI+ people into heterosexual relationships or acts. 

We have supported LGBTQI+ people from Albania to seek asylum the UK, with success. By granting asylum to LGBTIQ+ people, the government acknowledges that Albania is a country where LGBTQI+ people can face life-threatening situations. 

Hamez, a gay man who recently fled to the UK from Albania, spoke about his experience in Albania: ‘My family were pressuring me to get married, and when my parents found out that I was gay, my father chased me out of the house with an axe. I had brought shame on my family, and my father began to be physically abusive. I was hiding in the mountains, trying to find a way to escape my village. It is common for people to get beaten up or killed in my country if someone is found out to be gay.” 

The Home Office considers Albania, India and Georgia as ‘safe’ countries, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This designation risks people from those countries being prevented from claiming asylum without any individualised assessment of the risk of persecution they would face. While inadmissibility provisions have not been commenced, we believe that if the government were to do so this would lead to significant breaches of international law, including the Refugee Convention, the Human Rights Convention, and the Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. 

We are also increasingly concerned by the harmful rhetoric being used by this government around migration. It stigmatises people who come to the UK looking for protection, including LGBTQI+ people fleeing persecution, and fosters an environment of fear and exclusion rather than compassion and community. 

We urge the government to reconsider any plans for offshoring people seeking asylum, and particularly any consideration for countries such as Albania, where there are clear safety issues for LGBTQI+ people and other minority communities.