NEVER STOPJust Human e.V.

Commitment to human rights

We advocate for human rights, especially for the rights of women and girls as well as LGBTIQ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgender people, intersexuals and queers). In addition, we promote measures and projects for the enforcement and consolidation of human rights, such as political and legal engagement, lobbying and public relations.

Support for LGBTTIQ refugees

Just Human supports LGBTTIQ refugees individually in emergency situations and some LGBTTIQ refugees, who would otherwise be completely destitute, also on a longer-term basis with monthly assistance.

Just Human keeps receiving desperate emergency calls from LGBTTIQ refugees. In Athens, many can neither pay the rent for sleeping places nor food. The consequences of homelessness are violence and all forms of exploitation. People who escaped exclusion and persecution in their home countries have to fight for their lives again.

Just Human supports, as far as this is financially possible. To make more help possible, we ask for donations for LGBTTIQ refugees.

We forward donations for LGBTTIQ refugees 100% to LGBTTIQ refugees who are in need.
Info about the legal situation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgender * worldwide can be found here.

Reports from LGBTTIQ refugees in Athens

Trigger warning! Texts contain descriptions of violence

In May 2022, Ronja Narr interviewed two LGBTTIQ refugees during her internship. Emma and Dian give very brief accounts of years of experience of violence.

Emma*: Violence, transphobia, drugs, suicide

“Moria was like a djungel”

Emma came to Lesvos, Greece in 2017. She lived in Camp Moria and described the conditions there as “like a jungle.” She was exposed to violence and had no house or apartment in which to live. After a suicide attempt, she decided to go back to Turkey. With friends she stole a boat.

Street in Athens

Many people in Turkey are very trans-hostile. Emma couldn’t get a job, she was insulted on the street and she couldn’t rent her own house or apartment. When she stayed with a friend, the neighbors called the police and claimed she was a pedophile.

So she set off again for Greece, again by boat. When they arrived on Lesbos, Emma and her friends were arrested, accused of human smuggling. The cell phone she had at the time is still in the possession of the police.

When she was released, a group of people supported her and she was able to stay in a house. She then made her way to Athens, in search of a job, a passport and a better life. But even here she is not happy. She receives no medical support and when new employers find out that she is trans, she is usually asked to leave immediately.

Getting help is difficult, many organizations cannot support her and continuing her hormone therapy is almost impossible. Therefore, she just wants to get away from Greece.

If she could change anything about Athens she says she would ban all drugs – including alcohol.

Emma has turned to just human in 2022 for support with her hormone therapy and legal aid.

Dian*: LGBT, woman, escape, rape

“I came here to recover, to be free, not to be held captive by anyone.”

Dian is 37 and comes from Iran. She has been in Greece for 2.5 years. In Athens, she says she likes it very much, the people here are very nice. However, she says she has had too many bad experiences here.

When Dian came to Athens, she lived for a while in an apartment with two couples and two women. To be able to pay the rent, she cleaned for the one couple. This allowed her to save a little money.

After a while the couple left the country and she tried to rent an apartment herself. In order to be able to afford it, she looked for a roommate. However, since this roommate was not very neat and clean, she looked for a new roommate after a short time. At the time her new roommate moved in, she had no money and no job.

The roommate offered to pay all her expenses and because of her financial situation, she accepted the offer. At night he came to her house and raped her. She had nowhere to go and had to go on with her life. After that, she recounted, she had no strength left. Life just felt like a line that she could have no effect on.

Every morning she woke up and felt the man’s eyes on her.

After a short time, she contacted the landlord and asked him for a new apartment. In addition, she asked him for work, he offered that she could work for him. Knowing the landlord and now employer, she worked very hard and recruited many new clients*. She tried to be strong.

One day the landlord asked her if she could come to a new house. When she got there, there was only one other man there besides her – the one mentioned earlier. He tried to persuade her to wait with him for the landlord. He talked to her and brought her beer. He took her to the bedroom and locked the door. Dian was afraid, also afraid of losing her job. When he started taking off her clothes, she went into a kind of rigor mortis, “it felt like a phobia.” She couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything.

When she told the landlord that she was going to the police, he told her she had to be undressed by the next day.

She went to an organization that, after talking to a psychiatrist, prescribed her medication. She was offered no more help than that.

“If you don’t have asylum, no one helps you”.

In the meantime, she was able to apply for papers and asylum and now, after one year and 8 months, she has a positive asylum decision. Nersioos works in a company on the assembly line. Nevertheless, she is undecided whether she should stay here.

Dian turned to just human in December 2020. Since then, she has been receiving a monthly rent subsidy so that she can live safely.

She would like more people to be aware of the situation of women in Iran and Afghanistan. She has given us two tips for this, both of which can be found on YouTube:

Music Video: Mojgan Azimi – Ayeh

Film with English subtitles: The Stoning of Sorya M (2008)

(*Name has been changed for security reasons.)

Graffiti zu Pushbacks in Athen

Graffiti regarding Pushbacks in Athens