The New Egyptian Asylum Law and the fate of LGBTIQ+ Refugees in Egypt
Posted: 16 May, 2025 Filed under: Rehim Baharu Elala | Tags: asylum seekers, civil war, debauchery, deportation, detention, Egypt, equality before the law, gender identity, homophobic nature, human rights, LGBTIQ community, LGBTQ refugees, Memorandum of Understanding, non-discrimination, refugee population, rights to privacy, same sex relationship, sexual orientation, torture, voluntary repatriation Leave a comment
Author: Rehim Baharu Elala
Human rights attorney and women’s rights advocate
The refugee population in Egypt has significantly increased following the eruption of the Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in mid-April 2023. Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers account for 68.7% of the total refugee population in Egypt[1]. Amid this crisis the Egyptian Government enacted a new asylum law in December 2024 without meaningful consultations with the refugee community, human rights organisations and other key stakeholders including UNHCR.
UNHCR was conducting the registration of asylum seekers and Refugee Status Determination (RSD) to offer protection on behalf of the government on the basis of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 1954. The MoU delegates a set of defined responsibilities to UNHCR including but not limited to registration, documentation, refugee status determination (RSD), resettlement (RST), voluntary repatriation, and support for vulnerable individuals, while the Egyptian Government retains the role of the issuance of residence permits for refugees[2]. Despite the backlogs in processing asylum applications, UNHCR Egypt has been the largest and most productive RSD mandate operation globally. The Egyptian government wants to take over the task without indicating a viable transition plan to establish an asylum management system in line with its international and regional undertakings.
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