LBGT

-->

LBGT  -  by Claire MANDON

Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people are among the most persecuted individuals in the world today. Seventy-eight nations criminalize same-sex relations. Seven of these apply the death penalty for consensual same-sex conduct. In many more countries, LGBTI people regularly face harassment, arrest, interrogation, torture and beatings.  LGBTI refugees, as forced migrants and sexual minorities, are "doubly marginalized." In this context, the Lesbian and Gaypride Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon, as many other LGBTI's associations, receives constantly LGBT's asylum seekers. The association help them trought gathering as much information as possible about the discrimination and violence they suffer in their own country. The aim : making up a convincing application to obtain the refugee statute in France.

Sergey is one of those asylum seekers, coming from Kazakhstan and this is his story :

« In 1990, I moved with my parents in the region of Orenbourg (Russia). We lived in a small village. Quickly, people of my age started to laught at me and refused to have any contact with me. Because of my eyes, they gave me a girl name. I was not able to talk about my private life. After that, I began working in brick factory. I had a lonely life, and I was very withdrawn by fear of rumors. But at work, everybody began to talk about me behind my back. One day, the word « gay » appears in my pay slip. I was very surprised but also angry and at this time, signs of depression appeared. At night, boys were constantly calling me and laugthing at me. I lived this situation during thirteen years. Seeing my sufferings,  my mother decided to move in the region of Kalingrad, thinking that people were more tolerant towards gay people.  In 2003, we bought a flat in the seaside and we started a new life ».

« I was hired as painter. I was thirty three and still single. People started asking me questions about it. Throught internet, I meet a boy and we started to see each other secretly.  December 31, I was getting ready to go to his place in order to celebrate New Year together.  Close to his house, I saw my neighbour Andrey and other boys, all living in my village. They were totally drunk. Andrey called my name et asked me for a cigarette. When I told him that I didn't smoke, he asked « faggots don't smoke ? ». I wanted to leave but Andrey, who was younger and stronger than me, took me and threw me on the frozen floor. He laid down on me and breathed out on my face laughting. After that, I picked up and I ran to my house. Boys were yelling « fag, hermaphrodite ». Given that I had many scars on my back and I decided to go to the police to press charges. My statement was denied by the police who said « They are boys, you know them and their mentality. If you are affraid, stay at home » ».

« Because of those events, I felt again into a serious depression.  In february I went to a psychiatrist thinking he would help me. I told my doctor that I was gay and that I was in a deadlock hopping to die. The doctor listened to me and advise me to go to the Serbeskova Institute in Moscou to cure my homosexuality. I was against this idea knowing that homosexuality was not a disease. After a long speech about homosexuality contagiousness, he prescribed me an antidepressant and send me back home ».

« At the beggining of July, I found the word « Gay » on my  front door. Right at this moment, I understood that staying in Russia was too dangerous, especially since the promulgation of a new law prohibitting the spreading of homosexuality in different regions. I took the decision to run away in France, hearing that Montpellier was very tolerant towards gay people. July 24^th I left Russia. In case of return, I'll be in danger and I won't bear any other humilation ».

« I ask protection to France ».

Teaching Humanitarian Aid Students: "Closed Encounters of The Third Kind"

By Clémentine Tholas-Disset

On December 14th, 2011, I received my schedule for spring semester. As my colleague Mrs. Henderson-Peal would be on sabbatical semester, I was to be in charge of two groups of master’s degree students majoring in humanitarian aid; I started panicking as I thought “What the hell am I going to do with these revolutionary hippies?” As a Doctor in American studies with a minor in communication and media, I was scared we would really have nothing to share… I spent hours and hours trying to figure out how to please them and to make them discover things I mastered and liked.

I have been a teacher for six years now and the first thing I have learned is never to judge a book by its cover. First, when I met them, these students were no hippies or revolutionaries, so I realized I totally made up the wrong cover. Moreover, after a few hours with them, the content of the book seemed both entertaining and thrilling. Actually, I discovered a group of strong-willed and open-minded young people with very pleasant personalities.

Teaching this course is actually quite a challenge for me because I need to reinvent and adapt my professional habits. After four years in the AEI department, making freshmen and sophomore students work, I now have to collaborate with graduate students who have high academic standards. I have the feeling I traded my role of “youth tamer” for a new part as a “partner in learning”. My main goal has always been to bring satisfaction to my students no matter their age or skills in English and I’m learning to do so with a new type of student population, older, more mature (maybe not every day), more active and definitely not impressed by my teacher position. As a result, I think I have to make sure I’m offering creative and unusual courses or activities to keep them interested and I’m in tune with their expectations.

After being so afraid and worried, I must admit I am fulfilled because the moments I spend with the humanitarian aid students are synonymous of exchange. They may not have turned me into a relief work aficionada, willing to spend all her spare time volunteering all over the world, but I feel more concerned than before. I also became aware of some connections between professorship and aid work: you do both because you care about people, and, in both cases, it’s some kind of calling.

My conclusion will be simple: I don’t know if the humanitarian aid students are having a good time with me, but I am! So I guess it may be reciprocal…and if not they are very good at pretending!

Brigitte Piquard's Interview

By Fatim Hien, Kseniya Kotlyarova, Violette Moutard & Jeannette Nguyen

Brigitte Piquard is an anthropologist and holds a PhD in International Relations from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She is currently Co-Director of the Master’s degree in International Humanitarian Aid at Paris-Est Creteil University in France and a senior lecturer in International Humanitarism at Oxford Brookes University in England.

Q: What made you want to work in the humanitarian field?

Brigitte Piquard: Originally, working in humanitarian field meant two things for me. My first idea about humanitarian activities was idealistic. We can put it this way: I wanted to make things change, to make the world full of problems and injustice a little bit better, and working on humanitarian issues presented a good opportunity for me to do it. The second reason why I decided to turn to humanitarian work was more pragmatic: this kind of professional experience gave me some interesting career opportunities, so I decided to grasp them.

Q: What was your first humanitarian work experience?

BP: My first humanitarian work experience was a volunteer experience with a French NGO in Pakistan in 1987. At that time I was a 21-year-old student majoring in sociology and anthropology. My task was to make an assessment of the situation. This first experience was followed by many other humanitarian missions in the following 20 years.

Q: Are there times when you have doubts about your commitment? For example, when you appear to be in a difficult situation, or when you have to work in some hard conditions where humanitarian intervention is extremely difficult to do. Do you feel weary sometimes? Have you ever thought of giving up?

BP: Naturally, it happens to everyone working on humanitarian issues to feel helpless or weary not only in the field but outside the field as well. Humanitarian work is a very challenging kind of work. At times you have a feeling that your personal work input can’t make a difference to the global situation. But, certainly, it is very important not to give up. Every working process has its difficulties and hard moments.

Q: In which regions do you prefer working?

BP: I enjoy working in Asia, namely in Central Asia and South Asia. Besides, the Middle East is a very interesting region for me. I did my second 4-year university degree in Islamic studies, so working in this region is directly related to my university major.

Q: Why have you chosen to teach this master’s degree course?

BP: When I was proposed to administer this course, a similar course existed already in Belgium. Besides, I had a part-time teaching position in England. When I was offered to start an International Humanitarian Aid Master’s course here in Paris, it presented a very interesting and a challenging task for me, I was motivated to develop a new full-time course. It was an opportunity to step outside the routine and to come to France. This is the fifth year I administer this master’s course. And it is always interesting to train people, to be at the beginning of students’ career in humanitarian field. The humanitarian needs to have qualified humanitarian workers.

Q: Has this decision affected the vision that you have of the humanitarian world?

BP: Of course it did. Today we can observe a real shift in the global humanitarian activity, many things are changing. There is a huge need to accumulate already existing humanitarian experience, to capitalize experience, and to make a further research in this field.

Q: What do you think when you look at your students?

BP: It is always a pleasure for me to see the results of our work, when I meet my former students who graduated from this Master’s course a couple of years or a year ago. I keep in touch with many of them and regularly meet some of them at the conferences or meetings on humanitarian issues. It is always interesting to learn how they apply the knowledge they received while studying here, and what questions they ask themselves and what challenges they meet in their work. Sometimes they even suggest some changes or new directions in the programme.

Thank you!