Rainbow Railroad is currently participating in the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) 2025 Progress Review in Geneva. The GRF marks a critical moment to maintain momentum and assess progress on pledges made in 2023 by states, non-profits, international non-governmental organizations, and private sector actors to protect refugees.
Since the last GRF in 2023, the global humanitarian landscape has shifted dramatically. What began as a crisis shaped by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into an overlapping polycrisis: the rise of anti-gender movements and authoritarian governance, shrinking humanitarian aid, and increasingly impenetrable borders. Together, these trends signal that refugee protection systems are being retooled not to help people survive forced displacement, but to prevent movement altogether. In this context, forcibly displaced LGBTQI+ people remain among those most at risk and most often left behind.
Globally, wealthier countries host fewer refugees and continue to externalize asylum responsibilities, placing growing pressure on Global South countries to contain displacement, often without adequate resources or safeguards. These shifts have real consequences. In Canada, for example, recent migration reforms such as Bill C-12 - introduced as “integrity measures”- risk narrowing access to refugee protection and further disadvantaging LGBTQI+ refugees, whose claims already face heightened scrutiny and systemic barriers.
Against this backdrop, Rainbow Railroad made seven pledges at the GRF in 2023, including commitments to carve out safer LGBTQI+ resettlement pathways, provide relocation support, and foster movement-building initiatives such as the Queer Forced Displacement Initiative. Central to this work is a commitment to LGBTQI+ refugee leadership, ensuring that forcibly displaced and stateless LGBTQI+ people have a meaningful voice in decisions that shape their lives, as well as ensuring that the needs and experiences of LGBTQI+ refugees are no longer invisible within global refugee systems.
One of the clearest examples of progress we have made toward our pledges is the Government-Assisted Refugee partnership with the Canadian government—a landmark LGBTQI+-specific pathway allowing Rainbow Railroad to directly refer up to 250 at-risk LGBTQI+ refugees each year without requiring UNHCR recognition. Since the start of the year, 87 people have safely arrived in 16 cities across Canada. This demonstrates what is possible when political courage meets queer expertise. Additionally, through our Queer Forced Displacement Initiative and other movement-building programs, we have invested over $1M CAD in 80 organizations to address the root causes of LGBTQI+ forced displacement, protection and community integration support for queer and trans refugees.
Despite this progress, at-risk LGBTQI+ people continue to be subjected to multiple forms of persecution—from discrimination to death, and shrinking access to resettlement pathways. Nearly half of Rainbow Railroad’s clients report surviving violence, including LGBTQI+ people living in refugee camps. And, the collapse of refugee resettlement pathways in the United States increased risk for LGBTQI+ people in life-threatening situations.
As we look ahead to the Global Refugee Forum in 2027, Rainbow Railroad remains committed to investing in LGBTQI+ organizations globally, sustaining our data-driven and movement-building Queer Forced Displacement Initiative, expanding access to resettlement pathways for LGBTQI+ refugees, and providing cash assistance to at-risk LGBTQI+ people in their countries of residence.
Rainbow Railroad continues to ensure that LGBTQI+ refugees are visible, protected, and supported within global refugee responses. As we take stock in Geneva, one principle must remain clear: “Ubuntu, I am because you are.” In that spirit, LGBTQI+ refugees cannot and will not be left behind.
We call on our community to sustain these efforts and help us achieve our GRF pledge goals over the next two years in preparation for the next GRF in 2027. You can support by contributing to our 60in60 campaign, and echoing our call for governments to expand resettlement pathways for LGBTQI+ refugees.