12/5/20
By Karla Rader Barber with Sarah Towle
Day 11 of 16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence Against Women The Official 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign
#16days #OrangeTheWorld #generationalequality #RatifyILO190
Sarah Towle is a London-based US expatriate author who has been sharing her journey from outrage to activism one tale of humanity and heroism at a time on Medium. She joined the Witness at the Border vigil in Brownsville/Matamoros and shares here information on Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers.
Today, the world is witness to a global refugee crisis bigger than anything history has ever experienced. Hundreds of thousands are on the run from war, natural disasters, abusive husbands, and the brutal violence of impunity that has risen as traditional state authorities have given way to transnational organized crime.
Among those on the run, women and girls are particularly vulnerable.
All along the now heavily trodden migratory trail that stretches the Americas from Ecuador, through the jungles of Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, across the Central American nations of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and throughout Mexico, there exists a black market network of robbers and smugglers, corrupt government officials and crooked coyotes as well as members of well-armed criminal gangs, who’ve made it their business to take advantage of all who cross their paths.
Women and girls are subject to rape, beatings, kidnapping, forced prostitution, extortion — even execution — as they travel to perceived safety in the US. Yet, on reaching the Southern border, the traumas continue as Trump & Co’s Migrant “Protection” Protocol traps them in some of the most dangerous places on Earth, offering no protection at all.
In Mexico, women and girls are subject to the same dangers they fled, and the same abuses the suffered on route northward. But perhaps most negatively impacted are transgender women who are not only targeted for being migrants, but are also objects of homophobic hate crimes.
They are regularly attacked and brutalized by cartel members not simply for being stateless, but for refusing to prostitute themselves. The brutality with which they are sexually violated is less about extortion and more about punishing them for their gender identification and expression.
That is why Estuardo Cifuentes, a gay asylum seeker from Guatemala, who’s been stuck in Matamoros himself for 20 months, created the Rainbow Bridge Shelter for LGBTQ+ refugees. He states, “being in our shelter and outside the tent encampment has reduced the risk of trans women becoming the target of organized crime in Matamoros by a large percentage.”
The Rainbow Bridge Shelter for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers opened its doors, officially, on 15 September 2020. It provides safe haven for the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable, who it will continue to serve once they have been allowed into the US.
“Crossing is not the end of the line,” says Estuardo. Homophobia and hate crimes toward the LGBTQ+ community exist everywhere. Many of the individuals he serves have been rejected by their birth families and have no one to go to once on the other side. So in addition to being a shelter now, Rainbow Bridge aims to offer LGBTQ+ refugees a life-long home.
To learn more: Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers.