IHRP Continues to Expand LGBT Rights Database

May 29, 2014 - This Spring, the IHRP added three new reports to its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Discrimination Database.   The reports provide extensive information on discrimination against LBGT persons in Cyprus, Slovenia and Poland.  The reports were researched and compiled by volunteer law students, under the leadership of upper-year J.D. students, Faye Yao and Alana Pasut.

Through this project, which was in its seventh year, students provide country-conditions research memos to assist refugee lawyers advancing claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity persecution.  The database currently documents discrimination in 37 countries, including countries from every continent.

A 2010 SOGI report, Guatemala: Country Report for Use in Refugee Claims Based on Persecution Relating to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is now included in the United States Department of Homeland Securities' library for asylum adjudication officers. The inclusion of the Guatemala report in the US Citizenship and Immigration Services library illustrates the tremendous impact that volunteer students are having on the actual determination of refugee cases.