by Pastor Judy Hanlon - LGBT Asylum Support Task Force
We are supporting nine asylum seekers to the tune of about $4,000 per month. We have exhausted all grants and simply do fundraisers, from spaghetti suppers to yard sales, from “cocktails for cash” amid our wealthier supporters to letters of desperate appeals!
“Reading it [my story] again makes me feel a little bit sad,” Juan said, “but hopefully this would help somebody in my same conditions or people in El Salvador.”
In his native El Salvador, Juan survived endless abuse, rape and torture for being gay. After death threats from police, he fled to the U.S., where he found his salvation. Read his compelling story -- in his own words.
LGBT Africans flock to South Africa because of its pro-gay policies, but end up trapped in lengthy asylum procedures and face inhumane homophobic treatment.
As a teenager, the gay man and his sister fled Burundi where his family, part of the persecuted Tutsi minority, were massacred. It took 11 years to win sanctuary in the United Kingdom.
