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Migration agency ’to get rid of LGBT experts’

An internal report looking at ways to make Sweden’s Migration Agency more efficient has proposed the agency gets rid of specialists dedicated to LGBT-related issues. The move has prompted the country’s main gay rights group to see red.

Migration agency ’to get rid of LGBT experts’
Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

The report noted that the agency in recent years has lost a lot of experienced expertise at many of its asylum centres, and therefore proposed creating new, more general roles for some of its older staff. But the new jobs would entail getting rid of some specialist fields, including that dedicated to LGBT-related issues.

According to Swedish news agency TT, which cites the report, maintaining the LGBT expert field was considered to be time-consuming.

The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer rights (RFSL) immediately slammed the report, calling instead for more in-depth expertise within the area.

“All staff at the Migration Agency need basic training when it comes to LGBT-related issues. The experts specialised in LGBT must be educated more and their roles must be developed, not abolished,” Magnus Kolsjö, vice-chairman at RFSL, said in a statement.