Citation: 2019 RLLR 156
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: November 4, 2019
Panel: M. Gayda
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Nicholas Woodward
Country: Bahamas
RPD Number: TB8-27227
Associated RPD Number(s): N/A
ATIP Number: A-2022-00978
ATIP Pages: 000106-000110
DECISION
[1] MEMBER: Okay, we are on the record and I am ready to give you my decision. I am going to accept your claim. This is the refugee protection decision for the claimant XXXX XXXX XXXX, the File Number is TB8-27227.
[2] You are claiming refugee pursuant to Sections 96 and 97 (1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I have considered your testimony and the other evidence in the claim as well as guidelines 4 and 9.
[3] Guideline 4 deals with gender related claims and guideline relates to proceedings before the Immigration and Refugee Board involving sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. After considering all of the above I am ready to give you my decision.
[4] I find that you are a Convention refugee. You have established on a balance of probabilities a serious possibility of persecution on a Convention ground, the nexus being your membership in a particular social group, namely a bisexual woman.
[5] Your allegations are set out in your Basis of Claim Form. In summary, you allege that you are a citizen of the Bahamas and you fear harm at the hands of society due to your sexual orientation.
[6] You have on a balance of probabilities established your personal and national identity through your testimony and the provision of your Bahamian passport to Immigration Refugee Citizenship Canada when you made your refugee claim at an inland office.
[7] A certified true copy of your passport is before me in Exhibit 1.
[8] I find that you have established on a balance of probabilities that you are a bisexual woman and you have a subjective fear of persecution based up on this.
[9] You gave clear and convincing testimony about who you are and how you came to the realization that you were attracted to girls and then women, your past same sex relationships as well as your heterosexual relationships and your fear that others in the Bahamian community discovering your sexual orientation including some people close to you such as family members and ex-abusive male partners and the fear of having to keep your true self hidden in order to avoid physical aggression and verbal taunts and harassment from such people as well as the Bahamian community at large if you were to return to Bahamas.
[10] Your testimony was detailed and spontaneous about your life including your male and female relationships and your attempt to get documents to assist in corroborating your allegations.
[11] You also provided credible testimony about your family but your family suspecting you of being a lesbian as they thought something, I should say suspected something about your girlfriend at one point who was dressed in a more masculine manner with one uncle aggressively saying homophobic things such as keep your sissy friends outside on the streets.
[12] You testified that you felt you had nowhere to go and that those who were supposed to support you as your family did not do so and that society wouldn’t be on your side either if you were to be true self.
[13] Further, your testimony was generally consistent with your Basis of Claim Form and also supported by two letters from the Bahamas and the writer’s identity documents were also provided along with those letters.
[14] One is from a fellow co-worker who was also a bisexual to whom you disclosed your sexual orientation as a bisexual in the past and another letter was from a past woman you would had a brief sexual relationship within Bahamas.
[15] You also provided me when asked at the hearing with your phone to look at your text history of your conversations with the woman that you have been having, such text history showed since XXXX of 2019 up to the present day and this is someone you were interested in and you have met a few times but with whom you have not yet been physically intimate with.
[16] You also showed me your dating profile on the online dating website MeetMe that showed your orientation as bisexual.
[17] You provided me access to these items without hesitation and they assist in corroborating your sexual orientation.
[18] I find that minor inconsistencies in your testimony are not material and do not go to the core of your claim that you presently and for the foreseeable future identify as a bisexual woman and you fear discrimination, threats and other harms if you were openly who you are if you return to the Bahamas.
[19] Moving to the subjective basis of your claim. You had previously travelled to the USA over the years on several occasions. You explained that you had aunts, uncles, and cousins there and would usually stay with them and these trips were often for special celebrations such as birthdays, to do shopping and also to give you a chance to clear your head and have some relaxation.
[20] The trips were generally all of short duration of a few days to a maximum of just over one month. I asked if you had ever thought of making an asylum claim in the USA and you indicated that you had not known that such a thing is possible at the times of these trips.
[21] You had testified similar to your Basis of Claim Form that you only learned of making a refugee claim on the basis of your sexual orientation in Canada when you were visiting Canada for what you thought would be a short trip and when you met friends who were LGBT friendly of a friend you were staying within Canada after which point you started to look into the process of making a refugee claim here in Canada.
[22] You candidly acknowledged in your testimony that if you had known about the process while visiting the USA you don’t think you would have claimed there at that point as you believe the USA to be unsafe in terms of racial violence.
[23] I accept that you are subjectively fearful of returning to the Bahamas and that you have reasonably explained why you did not previously claim asylum while visiting the USA.
[24] I find therefore that you have well-founded subjective fear of persecution.
[25] Moving to the objective basis of you claim, the objective country reports and the articles and reports found in the National Documentation Package at Exhibit 3 and in counsel’s country conditions evidence found at Exhibit 5 are consistent with your evidence about what you have experienced.
[26] In Exhibit 3, I refer specifically to Item 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3; those documents indicate that the LGBTQ population in Bahamas face widespread discrimination, harassment, and at time violence from community members and that LGBT persons are usually fearful of being open about their sexual orientation.
[27] In summary, I find that you have established on a balance of probabilities that you have well founded fear of persecution in the Bahamas as a bisexual woman.
[28] State protection, based on your personal circumstances as well as the objective country documentation I have just briefly outlined, I find that you have rebutted the presumption of State protection, adequate State protection is not available to you in the Bahamas as a bisexual woman.
[29] You testified that you did not think the police would care in assisting someone seen as a lesbian or bisexual and that the police similar to many in the community in the Bahamas are homophobic.
[30] Although homosexuality was decriminalized in the Bahamas in 1991, LGBT persons face widespread stigmatization and discrimination as homophobia is permeated throughout cultural attitudes and expressed in religion, music and other expressions, that is a quote from Item 6.1 in the NDP.
[31] According to many sources in the National Documentation Package for example Item 2.3, Freedom in the World Report of 2018, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is not prohibited by law and LGBT people report discrimination in employment and housing.
[32] The law in Bahamas does not provide protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
[33] The objective country reports indicate that significant stigma against homosexuality persists in the Bahamas and that this is widespread and often results in psychological and physical violence without adequate protection from the authorities.
[34] Items again 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 of the National Documentation Package report that police in the Bahamas did not take threats and crimes against the LGBT community seriously and often ridiculed LGBT persons who came to them for help.
[35] We are turning now to the issue of internal flight alternative. On a balance of probabilities, I find that there is no viable internal flight alternative for you in the Bahamas.
[36] The objective evidence before me indicates that homophobia and the resulting violence and discrimination experienced by people on the LGBT spectrum are common problems throughout the country and therefore there is no part of the country where you could live safely and openly as a bisexual woman.
[37] In conclusion, based on the totality of the evidence I find you to be a Convention refugee and I accept your claim. All the best, we are concluded.
CLAIMANT: Thank you.
MEMBER: You are welcome.———- REASONS CONCLUDED ———-