Citation: 2021 RLLR 36
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: March 9, 2021
Panel: J. Eberhard
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Charlotte Suzanne Cass
Country: Jordan
RPD Number: TB8-32072
Associated RPD Number(s):
ATIP Number: A-2022-00978
ATIP Pages: 000001-000011
REASONS FOR DECISION
[1] This claim has been decided without a hearing, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Chairperson’s Instructions Governing the Streaming of Less Complex Claims at the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) and paragraph 170(f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act [IRPA or the Act].1
[2] The claimant, XXXX XXXX , whose name at birth was XXXX XXXX2 claims to be a citizen of Jordan and is claiming refugee protection pursuant to Sections 96 and 97(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
DETERMINATION
[3] I find that you are a Convention refugee because you have established that you face a serious possibility of persecution in Jordan, as a member of a particular social group, namely trans woman.
[4] In deciding your claim, I have considered and applied the Chairperson’s Guidelines on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression [the “SOGIE Guidelines”], which were released on May 1, 2017 as well as the Guidelines on women fearing gender-related persecution.3
ALLEGATIONS
[5] The details of your claim are set out at length in your Basis of Claim (BOC) form dated November 23, 2018 and amended on December 22, 2020 and 18 January 2021, respectively.4
[6] In short, throughout your life you have experienced difference painfully, and almost entirely without support from your family or home community. Others who have failed to see and appreciate you have made fun of and endangered you, so that you have had to live in fear and under constant threat of humiliation, discrimination, and violence.
[7] Specifically, in addition to your family’s unwillingness to accept you, your religious, social and military communities in Jordan reinforced the “wrongness” of who you were, including by teaching intolerance, threatening you, sexually assaulting you and, in your family’s case, trying to marry you off to a woman at a time when you identified as a gay man. You finally left the workforce in Jordan because you could no longer bear the mistreatment, discrimination and harassment you experienced based on others’ perceptions of who you were and their related conclusions about your worth.
[8] You survived discrimination, erasure and violence in part because of successful romantic partnerships you formed with three men who could see, appreciate and value you. While the relationships were secret, they were yours until your partners were sent back to Iraq. In one case, you believe your homophobic parents are the persons who reported your then partner to Jordanian authorities, causing him to be deported.
[9] At the time of these relationships, you identified as a gay man and others perceived you this way, because of the way you “look, speak, walk and even carry your bag,” to use your own words.5 Nowhere was safe for you; not state offices, not the streets, not police, not conservative religious communities, where the common belief is that all gay persons deserve to “burn in hell,” again to use your own description This belief has real consequences in Jordan, including risk to your very life in the event your sexuality (or the truth of your intimate relationships) was discovered, confirmed and became publicly known.
[10] Since 2016, you have enjoyed the security of a trusting, loving relationship with your partner.6 Yet, it too had to remain secret in Jordan, so that you could both remain relatively safe, and to prevent your partner’s deportation from Jordan to his country of nationality, Iraq, a real possibility as your past experiences taught you.
[11] Following painful rebukes from several family members who saw the two of your together in public and judged your relationship, the situation grew more dangerous for your both when your partner’s sister’s husband came uninvited to your apartment in XXXX 2018. Finding you and your partner together there, he assaulted you and threatened your safety. He also took your cell phones, which contained compromising information and images about your lives and relationship, and he threatened to use this information to have you detained and your partner deported.
[12] After this incident, your partner immediately registered with UNHCR7 in Jordan, citing these threats. And you responded by also trying to protect your safety, including by taking steps to leave Jordan. You fled the country without delay, traveling to Canada in XXXX 2018. However, you returned to Jordan two weeks later at your partner’s request, to help him because he was suffering in hiding. Specifically, at the time he was living alone in a boiler room, where he was hungry and terrified of discovery and deportation to Iraq.
[13] When you returned to Jordan to help your partner, you told no one except your niece’s husband, who you had come to trust. While you were in the country, your partner would come to see you at night only when he felt it was relatively safe to do so. You returned to Canada from Jordan in XXXX 2018 and sought refugee protection without delay.
[14] In the intervening months, which became two years, you have found support in the LGBTQI community here, and you have come to identify yourself as a trans woman, something that was “impossible” before, including because of your own assimilation of some of the cultural limitations of Jordanian society. Until he safely arrived in Canada in XXXX 2020, as a resettled UNHCR refugee, you continued throughout this time to fear for your partner’s safety. You have remained joyfully together since your reunion now a year ago.
[15] During this time, you have also taken steps to gather medical and psychological support from professionals who can and have begun to help you become increasingly more physiologically aligned with your true self, including by using hormones that promote “feminine” features. And, you have sought and received psychological treatment and care to tend your past and ongoing suffering, including as caused by the delay in having your claim decided.
[16] Since you have been here in Canada together with your partner, your dream of living in “safety and dignity…able to express yourself’ without fear of harm, united in love and peace has moved closer to reality. Together, again to use your own words, you now “feel human for the first time in (y)our lives [and] it feels safe and normal to live here as a couple…[in a] beautiful life.”
[17] Your claim against Jordan is based on the fear of persecution you will face if you return, including by the state and others who have already threatened and harmed you. And, with the possibility of return to Jordan, you have continued to fear losing the “beautiful life” you have begun to build here in Canada together with your beloved partner.
ANALYSIS
Identity
[18] You have established your identity as a national of Jordan on a balance of probabilities by your disclosure of relevant documents including a copy of your passport.8
[19] I note you’ve also provided several additional identity documents including your original driver’s license and national identity card from Jordan. Copies of these and other identity documents, including your birth certificate from Jordan are in evidence.9
[20] For record keeping purposes, your name as given at birth, which also presently appears on your identity documents, is included on this decision as an AKA or an “also known as.” In amending the IRB’s institutional record of your name, I am applying Operational Bulletin Number 7 and reading it together with the Chairperson’s Guideline on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression (the “SOGIE Guidelines”).10
[21] In particular, I rely on Section 4 of the Guidelines which directs the use of appropriate language in hearings and decisions and states:
All persons in proceedings before the IRB have a responsibility to be respectful toward other participants. Part of this responsibility includes the use of appropriate language by all participants. Appropriate language is defined as language that reflects that person’s self identification and avoids negative connotations. Individuals should be addressed and referred to by their chosen name, terminology and pronouns. [emphasis added]
Credibility
[22] I find you to be a very credible witness and I believe what you’ve alleged in support of your claim.
[23] Your account of why you fear persecution in Jordan is set out in an open, direct, straightforward and clear manner, and there are no relevant inconsistencies between your BOC account, including amendments, and the other evidence before me.
[24] In particular, I accept as fully reasonable and satisfactory your explanation for why you returned to Jordan after only two weeks in Canada after you first fled in XXXX 2018. You explained that you returned to assist your beloved partner who was suffering and living in immense fear, including of deportation to Iraq, having been threatened, assaulted and having had his phone with compromising information stolen. In your particular circumstances, this makes sense and is otherwise consistent with your account. In making this finding, I have considered that when you returned to Jordan, or reavailed, you remained in virtual hiding and your presence in Jordan was known only to your niece’s husband.
[25] While you did not testify at a hearing, your “voice” was clear in your Basis of Claim form and the other many personal documents you presented to corroborate your claim. In particular, I note the shift in your self-identification as between your initial BOC and your later BOC Amendments from gay man to trans woman.11 Given the cultural context in Jordan, and your own personal experiences, it is entirely reasonable that you only appreciated the option of exploring your gender identity after you began to reside in Canada and grew more comfortable with the relative safety here, especially noting the supportive LGBTQI community of which you have become a part.12
[26] Over the course of more than two years, you provided substantial personal documentation to corroborate all aspects of your claim, in fact, there are twelve exhibits before me, most of which are your personal documents.13 In sum, the documents corroborate your account of your life in Jordan, including your education and employment there, most notably your early studies at an Islamic religious school.14
[27] I have also carefully reviewed the many medical reports in evidence, including those that demonstrate your continuing efforts to harmonize your inner self with your physiological body.15 There are several documents that indicate your efforts to see an endocrinologist, and later ones that show you had such appointments.16 Other letters by professionals including psychiatrists and psychologists also contain information that is consistent with what you have set out about your ongoing efforts, and indeed the struggles you have faced, to live authentically.
[28] Notably, some of these reports were submitted in support of an application to have you designated as a Vulnerable Person, including because of the impact on your well-being of the realities you have faced before you arrived into Canada and the delay here in having your claim decided. As the member who ultimately assessed and decided your claim, I want to acknowledge this delay and express my deep regret for it, especially because of its impact on you.
[29] The many support letters in evidence are also of particular note not only because they contain details about your life and risks you face in Jordan, but also because they are personal letters written by persons with direct personal knowledge of you, including past partners and your niece’s husband, who is a trusted family member and friend.17
[30] Your lawyer in Jordan has also submitted a letter on your behalf, which is consistent with your account of his advice to you, which essentially was to leave Jordan for your safety.18 Specifically, his letter clearly corroborates your account of having been assaulted and threatened together with your partner in Jordan, which was the precipitating cause of your flight in XXXX 2018. It also provides insight into your inability, in your circumstances, to access state authorities and your ongoing risk of detention and prison by Jordanian authorities, including because of your family members’ continuing “pursuit” of you both.
[31] For all of these reasons, I accept the evidence that you’ve presented both documentary and testamentary, and I find it to be credible.
Nexus, subjective fear
[32] A person who seeks protection as a Convention refugee has to establish both that she is afraid of persecution in her home country based on a nexus ground, and that there is an objective basis for that fear, including as reflected in the country condition evidence.
[33] In your case, the primary Convention ground is particular social group of which you are a member as a Jordanian trans woman. I also note that at the time you fled Jordan and initially made your claim in Canada, you self-identified as, and were perceived by others to be, a gay man. This is another basis for your membership in a particular social group, also because of the treatment in Jordan members of the LGBTQI community.
[34] I find that your decisions and actions in leaving Jordan and claiming refugee protection in Canada as soon as possible are consistent with having a subjective fear of persecution. I note you left Jordan nearly immediately after you were assaulted and threatened when your relationship with your partner was discovered and confirmed by family members. Again, I have considered the context and circumstances that caused you to flee, those that caused you to return to Jordan in virtual hiding, and the situation that culminated in your final return to Canada, within months, to claim for refugee protection without further delay.
Objective basis
[35] The country condition documents in the National Documentation Package (NDP) for Jordan dated 18 December 2020,19 as well as the documents disclosed by counsel20 are also consistent with your allegations that there is a serious possibility you will face persecution as a trans woman (including one who formerly identified and was perceived in Jordan as a gay man) if you return.21
[36] In particular, NDP item 6.1 by Outright Action International entitled “Jordan. Activism and Resilience: LGBTQ Progress in The Middle East and North Africa: Case Studies From Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia,” reports that Jordanian authorities use morality and public decency laws to target LGBTQ persons. Trans women face specific risks under Penal Code Article 30722 which can impose a prison sentence of up to six months on “any man disguised as a woman who enters into a place reserved or restricted for the use of women.”23
[37] Generally, Jordanian law does not explicitly recognize or protect transgender people and violence and discrimination against LBBT people is pervasive in both public and private spheres, including employment.24 This is consistent with your explanation for why you could no longer bear the discrimination you faced in the course of your employment in Jordan.
[38] Moreover, as counsel’s country condition packages indicate, the Jordanian Parliament in 2018 passed a law criminalizing gender-affirming surgeries (“sex reassignment”) for trans persons. Article 22 of the Medical Liability law targets medical service providers, stating that anyone who performs a gender affirming surgery “shall be imprisoned for a period of not less than three years and not more than ten years with temporary penal labour.”25
[39] Moreover, the very fact that there is little information in the NDP (one report) about the situation for sexual minorities is also consistent with the kind of repression that is at the core of your own personal experience of living in Jordan.26
[40] Based on the totality of evidence before me, both personal and objective, I find your fear of persecution in Jordan is well-founded and you face a serious possibility of persecution in Jordan if you return because of your membership in a particular social group as a trans woman. In making these findings, I have also considered your past self-identification and perception by others in Jordan as a gay man.
State protection
[41] There is a presumption that states can protect their own citizens except when they are completely broken down, which is not the case in Jordan. To rebut this presumption of state protection, a claimant has to provide “clear and convincing” evidence of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect its citizens.
[42] Again, with respect to the country condition documents in evidence, I find that you are precariously situated as a trans woman in Jordan. You are not free or permitted to be who you are, to express yourself as you choose, to dress as you prefer, to call yourself by your chosen name or to love who you love. And, you face risks at every level, from your family, to your community (religious and otherwise) to your state. In practice, these intersecting pieces of your life mean you face the realities of discrimination, mistreatment, exclusion and even violence, whether in employment, healthcare, walking down a street or greeting a family member.
[43] I find state authorities will not adequately protect you in Jordan. Indeed, they may be the, or among the, agents responsible for persecuting you for being who you are, including through the misuse of morality laws, and the penal code.
[44] For all of these reasons, following the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision of Ward,27 having regard to your own personal experience and the experiences of others similarly situated to you, I find you have presented sufficient clear and convincing evidence to rebut the presumption that adequate state protection is available to you in Jordan, on a balance of probabilities.
Internal flight alternative
[45] I have also considered whether an internal flight alternative exists for you in Jordan. Generally speaking, internal relocation is not an option if a person has to conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity in a proposed new location.28 This principle is expressed in the SOGIE Guidelines. Anywhere you go in Jordan, you would face the same situation as you have described in your account, fearing the state, your community, particularly conservative religious men, and your family members. I therefore find you face a serious possibility of persecution throughout Jordan, and there is no internal flight alternative available to you.
CONCLUSION
[46] For all of these reasons, I find you have established you face a serious possibility of persecution in Jordan on a Convention ground. I therefore find that you are a Convention refugee and I accept your claim.
[47] I wish you all the best, especially as you settle into a newfound sense of security and joy in your life here.
(signed) J. Eberhard
9 March 2021
1 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27, as amended, sections 96, 97(1)(a) and 97(1)(b).
2 The claimant’s identity documents continue to reflect the claimant’s birth and present legal name. However, her chosen name, and the name by which is now known, is XXXX XXXX
3 Proceedings Before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Involving Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression Guideline [SOGIE Guidelines],Guidelines issued by the Chairperson pursuant to
paragraph 159(1)(h) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRB, Ottawa, May 1, 2017 and Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-related Persecution: Update [Gender Guidelines], Guidelines Issued by the Chairperson pursuant to Section 65(3) of the Immigration Act, IRB, Ottawa, November 25, 1996, as continued in effect by the Chairperson on June 28, 2002, under the authority found in section 159(1)(h) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act;
4 Exhibit 2—Basis of Claim (BOC) form and BOC Amendments signed 22 December 2020 and disclosed under
cover dated 18 January 2021 (which incorporates 8 January 2021 changes).
5 Exhibit 2—Basis of Claim (BOC) and later Amendments in December 2020 and January 2021.
6 Please note, I have referred to your partner as such rather by name throughout this decision to protect your privacy.
7 The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNCHR).
8 Exhibit 1.
9 Exhibit 4.
10 Proceedings Before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Involving Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression Guideline [SOGIE Guidelines], Guidelines issued by the Chairperson pursuant to paragraph 159(1)(h) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRB, Ottawa, May 1, 2017.
11 Exhibits 2 and 2.1.
12 Exhibit 4.
13 Exhibits 4-6; 8-12.
14 Exhibit 4.
15 Exhibits 5, 8, 9, 10, 12.
16 Exhibits 5, 8, 9, 10,12.
17 Exhibit 4.
18 Exhibit 4.
19 Exhibit 3, National Documentation Package for Jordan (NDP) 18 December 2020.
20 Exhibits 6 and 12, and as referenced in applications.
21 Exhibits 6, 12 and Vulnerable Person (VP) application dated 18 January 2021.
22 Exhibit 3, NDP, item 6.1 at pp. 9-10.
23 Exhibit 3, NDP, item 6.1 at p. 10.
24 Exhibit 3, NDP, item 6.1 at pp. 10-11.
25 Exhibit 12, Country Condition documents dated 18 January 2021, specifically Planet Transgender, “Jordan’ s Parliament Passes a New Law Related to Transgender People,” (December 16, 2018), pp. 15-20.
26 Exhibit 3, NDP, item 6.1.
27 Canada (Attorney General) v. Ward, (1993) 2 S.C.R. 689.
28 The SOGIE Guidelines [Chairperson’s Guidelines 9] confirms that “a claimant cannot be expected to conceal their SOGIE as a way to avoid persecution.”