Credibility Assessment in Asylum Claims Based on Sexual Orientation by the Greek Asylum Service: A Deep-Rooted Culture of Disbelief

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze the main practices that the Greek Asylum Service applies to assess credibility in asylum claims based on sexual orientation. The analysis is based on a survey of 60 cases (interviews and first instance decisions). According to the results of the survey, the practices used could be divided into two categories. On the one hand, practices that do not conform with refugee law, the Common European Asylum System, and human rights standards, such as questions around sexual practices of the asylum seekers, stereotyped expectations about applicants’ behavior and knowledge, and arbitrary assessments lacking any legal reasoning. On the other hand, practices that, at first sight, comply with international and European guidelines for credibility assessment but are based on an essentialist understanding of lesbian, gay, and bisexual identity. According to the research, applicants are expected to have passed through a hard process of self-realization which has to be accompanied, by default, by feelings of difference, shame, and suffering. In the article, the author critically reflects on the practices applied, concluding that this notion of sexual orientation as innate and defining one’s identity, fails to take into account the intersections of gender, class, ethnicity, and race, and could lead to unjust judgments.

Predictors of Compliance to COVID-19 Containment Communications in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Enugu, and Lagos States

The difficulty in understanding new virus strains affects scientific efforts to immediately develop drugs and vaccines to stem the spread of viral diseases. As a result, social measures remain handy tools to address viral diseases. Nigeria joined the rest of the world to introduce social containment measures for the new COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines the factors predicting adherence to COVID-19 containment measures in selected Nigerian communities. It adopts multi-stage cluster sampling in a survey involving 183 respondents from two states and Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Multiple regression and descriptive statistics were used to estimate the influences of social factors (religion, family, friends), demographic characteristics (age, residential area, gender), and credibility factors (perceived trust, ease of adherence) on attitudes toward media messages and social measures on COVID-19 prevention guidelines. Results show that age, gender, marital status, type of street, education, and state of residence have significant influence on adherence to COVID-19 messages. While age and gender positively correlated with credibility assessment, type of street was negatively associated with credibility assessment of COVID-19 messages. Social factors have more predictive influence on adherence to COVID-19 messages than credibility assessment of COVID-19 messages. The study discusses the implications of relationships between demographic factors and adherence to COVID-19 messages.