Wed, 04 Dec 2013
S. Chelvan, Barrister at No5 Chambers, has just returned from Stockholm where he provided training at the invitation of the Migrationsvert (the Swedish Migration Board), on his DSSH (‘Difference, Stigma, Shame and Harm’) model for analysing and determining LGBTI asylum claims.
In attendance were not only the specialist decision makers appointed by the Board, but also Court lawyers and Judges. Having presented the DSSH model to representatives of sixteen governments at the Intergovernmental conference’s workshop on Gender and Sexual Orientation in Geneva in October 2012, in the week that the UNHCR endorsed the model in their International Protection Guidelines (No 9 § 62), both New Zealand (May 2013) and Sweden have now received training on the model.
Chelvan will now participate in updating the Swedish guidelines in 2014 to reflect, as one delegate noted, his work in having “ ‘[C]hanged the chapter’ in our understanding of how to examine and assess LGBT-claims.”
Please click here to view Chelvan's profile