Health risks among migrants with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity or expression
Citation: Yarwood V, Checchi F, Lau K, et Al. LGBTQI+ migrants: a systematic review and conceptual framework of health, safety and wellbeing during migration. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022;19(2):869.
Language: Abstract and full-text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: The authors reported that they received no external funding for this review.
What is this? Migrant individuals with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity or expression (SOGIE) including LGBTQI are often at additional risk of abuse, discrimination or reduced access to services.
In this review, the authors searched for studies on health risks among SOGIE migrants during transit. They included studies among refugees, asylum seekers and forced migrants but did not include studies focused on voluntary migrants. They restricted their searches to articles published in English after 1 January 2000 but do not report when the search was done, although the article was submitted to the journal in January 2022. They included 20 studies.
What was found: This review identified five themes associated with health and well-being of SOGIE forced migrants: daily exposure to discrimination, harassment, and violence; coping social support and resilience; access to services; mental health; and physical and sexual health.
SOGIE forced migrants experienced regular discrimination, harassment and violence due to their social identity. Many studies indicated feelings of isolation and loneliness due to the individual’s SOGIE status.
Digital access to social supports, new contacts, and learning about asylum procedures and available services were mitigating factors.
SOGIE migrants had variable access to health services and many were refused treatment, faced discrimination by medical staff or organizations, lacked access to specific care (ex. STI and HIV testing) and struggled to get to services that were physically far away.
Several studies found that participants engaged in survival sex work during their migration journey, which increased their exposure to STIs, HIV and sexual violence.
Poor mental health, anxiety, depression and PTSD amongst SOGIE forced migrants was also identified.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that discrimination and abuse are common amongst SOGIE groups, which significantly impacts their health and safety and they concluded that SOGIE migrants would benefit from greater legal protection.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of gender/sex and personal characteristics associated with discrimination.
This summary was prepared by Lamis Abululoob, edited by Claire Allen, Sydney Johnson and finalized by Mike Clarke.