Canada's Response to Mexico's Mistreatment of Sexual Minorities & People Living with HIV Veronica Zaretski - University of Toronto
go to original July 16, 2016

'Unsafe' and on the Margins: Canada's Response to Mexico's Mistreatment of Sexual Minorities and People Living with HIV

A report from the University of Toronto’s international human rights program (IHRP) investigates abuses of human rights faced by people affected by HIV and sexual minorities in Mexico.

Authored by IHRP staff lawyer Kristin Marshall and Maia Rotman, JD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, the report asks that Mexico be removed from Canada’s refugee ‘safe’ list to protect sexual minorities. Failure to do so could place Canada in violation of its international legal obligation, the report says.

“Canada and the United States are complicit, whether purposefully or not, in the increasing precariousness of LGBTQ lives in Mexico,” says Rotman.

Since 2013 Mexico has been a Designated Country of Origin (DCO), or a “safe” country, for the purpose of refugee-claim determination in Canada, but the report found that the designation poses challenges for people seeking protection in Canada, particularly persecuted members of the LGBTI community and people living with HIV.

“Instead of moving towards the World Health Organization’s 2030 target of eradicating HIV, the disease is increasing among some marginalized populations in Mexico highlighted in our report,” Marshall says.

“Access to healthcare simply is not universal in Mexico – widespread discrimination and barriers exist which can compromise lives.

Canada and the United States can and must do more to insist on and assist with mechanisms that truly respect human rights, real infrastructure that brings those accountable for human rights abuses against LGBTI and other vulnerable populations in Mexico to justice.”

Samer Muscati, director of the IHRP, agrees. “While Mexico has undertaken significant reforms to combat discrimination and human rights violations, people living with HIV, sexual minorities and other vulnerable Mexicans still have little protection when their rights are violated,” he says in a media release.

“Mexico’s failure to investigate and hold perpetrators accountable for violent crimes against marginalized populations is completely at odds with Canada’s designation of the country as ‘safe’.”

Marshall also says that she was both surprised and disturbed by the treatment of migrants in Mexico, and especially those from the LGBTI community in particular.

Read the rest at University of Toronto

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