Human-rights alert

The label “safe country” can hide unequal risk

Five European governments have agreed to move forward with return hubs outside the European Union for people subject to final return decisions. That policy raises broad legal questions. For LGBTIQ+ people, however, one risk stands out: a country that appears safe in general may still expose a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, or queer person to violence, criminalization, detention abuse, or onward removal.

Why individual risk must come before political labels

International protection is built on individualized assessment. A person may face no generalized war or conflict and still be at serious risk because of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics, activism, family history, or prior persecution.

This is why the concept of a “safe third country” should never operate as an automatic shortcut. Legal texts, diplomatic assurances, and government designations are only part of the picture. Real safety depends on police conduct, access to justice, protection against hate crimes, detention practices, healthcare, documentation, and the ability to live openly without being targeted.

Return hubs also raise a chain-refoulement problem

The principle of non-refoulement prohibits sending a person to a country where they face a real risk of persecution or prohibited ill-treatment. The danger does not disappear if the harm occurs in a second step. A person transferred from Europe to a third country may later be removed again toward the country they originally fled.

That is precisely why courts have scrutinized third-country arrangements so closely. The UK Supreme Court’s 2023 judgment on Rwanda focused on the real risk of onward refoulement, while European human-rights case law has repeatedly emphasized that authorities must look beyond formal guarantees and examine what protection actually exists in practice.

For LGBTIQ+ people, “safe” cannot mean safe on average. It has to mean safe for this person, with this identity, in these actual conditions.

Documentation checklist

What should be documented before an LGBTIQ+ transfer is even considered?

1. Legal environment: criminalization, censorship, anti-LGBTIQ+ laws, registration restrictions, and lack of anti-discrimination protection.
2. Police and detention practice: harassment, extortion, abuse, arbitrary detention, and custodial violence.
3. Social risk: documented hate crimes, family violence, public hostility, and impunity.
4. Healthcare: access to HIV care, gender-affirming care, mental-health services, and emergency treatment.
5. Legal remedies: whether the person can realistically challenge transfer, detention, or onward removal.
6. Support networks: the effect of separating a person from family, NGOs, legal counsel, and community.
7. Psychological vulnerability: trauma, prior persecution, suicidality, isolation, and the risk of re-victimization.

Civil society should prepare before the first transfer

The new model is not yet operational, which means the strongest human-rights response is preventive. Organizations should begin building country-condition files, preserving testimony, mapping detention standards, tracking court decisions, and creating cross-border channels for emergency documentation.

That work is especially important because once a person is physically transferred outside the EU, access to trusted counsel, journalists, advocates, and community support may become more difficult.

Silueta X and Diane Rodríguez: turning risk into evidence

Asociación Silueta X works on human-rights documentation, strategic advocacy, and institutional support for LGBTIQ+ people facing discrimination, violence, and mobility-related risks.

Diane Marie Rodríguez Zambrano, attorney, psychologist, President of Silueta X, and a specialist in international human-rights law and forced mobility, brings together legal analysis and forensic-psychology perspectives to assess risk in asylum and international-protection cases.

That combined approach is especially useful in third-country transfer cases, where the strongest evidence often sits at the intersection of country conditions, legal safeguards, prior persecution, mental-health impact, and the specific profile of the applicant.

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