- Patience Atuhaire
- BBC News
Ali’s father told him that he did not want to see him again after his sexuality became public.
Uganda’s parliament last week passed one of the world’s toughest laws against homosexual activities, drawing widespread condemnation.
If the country’s president signs it into law, anyone who identifies as LGBT could face life in prison.
It also threatens the existence of the handful of shelters where this community has sought refuge after many have been driven from their homes. The BBC had access to these secret places and spoke to the residents about their lives and concerns.
Ali had kept his sexuality a secret but came out after being arrested when Ugandan police raided an underground gay bar in the capital Kampala in 2019.
“My father told me: ‘I don’t want to see you again. You are not my son. I can’t have a son like you‘” says Ali, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
Despite the obvious trauma of this experience, the young man, in his 20s, speaks softly and calmly.
“He was looking for me to hit me, but my mother told me to hide. I didn’t have a plan, but I knew I had to leave home“.
Her story of stigma, violence and fear offers insight into life for LGBT people in Uganda.
Homosexual relations are already prohibited in the country, but the new bill against homosexuality goes even further.
The measure prescribes life imprisonment for anyone who identifies as a sexual minority, as well as the death penalty for sexual abuse of minors committed by homosexuals. (Raping a child under 14, or if the offender is HIV positive, already carries the death penalty, but is rarely carried out.)
It can also lead to the closure of any reception center that has been used in search of security, since it classifies as a crime the leasing of a property “in order to carry out activities that promote homosexuality”.
image source, Reuters
Ugandan MP John Musira wore a robe emblazoned with anti-homosexuality slogans for the debate in Parliament.
After running away from home four years ago, Ali was told of a place where he could live in relative safety, which also provided meals and worked hard to find work for homeless homosexuals.
The former restaurant worker had only been there a few months when the coronavirus pandemic began.
“In 2020, the shelter was raided by the police. They lined us up and they called the public to look at us, mock and humiliate us. People were spitting on us,” Ali told the BBC.
He and more than 20 other men were detained, charged in court with violating pandemic restrictions on gatherings, and sent to prison.
“When we arrived at the prison, some of the inmates already knew our story. They had read it in the newspapers. We had to deny we were gay to stay safe“, Explain.
Abuses in prisons
His outgoing demeanor calls into question the trauma he claims he suffered during his imprisonment.
“And guardia who had seen the details of our file ordered other inmates to beat us. He also participated. Some of my friends had their private parts burned with wood embers. They beat us for about three hours, with wires and wooden planks,” he recounts, showing the scars on his arms.
Uganda Prison Service spokesman Frank Baine denies the men were assaulted while in detention. “When they were there, they were not known as homosexuals. Nobody tortured them and, according to the official in charge, there were no marks of torture. They were in pretrial detention until they were released on bail,” he explained to the BBC.
The government later dropped the charges against the group, who were released after 50 days. Ali moved to another shelter.
In Uganda there are more than 20 homes of this typewhich work with different levels of secrecy.
“We normally have 10-15 people in a shelter at any one time,” says John Grace, coordinator of the Uganda Minority Shelter Consortium.
Many LGBT people find safety and a feeling of belonging in these temporary homes. But even here, danger is never far away.
Residents of the shelter prepare to move in after being asked to leave by the landlord
constant attacks
Ali describes how he was attacked one night in November last year.
“A group of young people began to follow me and shout: ‘Gays, lwe are going to kill them. I didn’t answer and kept walking. One of them hit me on the head from behind.”
“When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital and had bruises all over my face and a large wound on the back of my neck.”
They took me to the shelter, which he has called home for the past three years., by back roads to a suburb in northern Kampala. Residents are wary of revealing the location.
The shelter, which the owner appears to have initially converted into a family home, has chipped paint in several places. It stands in an enclosed compound shaded by gigantic mango and jackfruit trees, under which clothes hang on a clothesline to dry.
Almost all of the interior space, including the garage, has been converted to bedrooms. In what should be the living room, the tenants are lying or sitting among mattresses, bedding, mosquito nets and half-packed bags with their belongings scattered on the floor.
Tim’s safety is under threat since the anti-homosexuality bill was debated
Uncertainty over the bill
The sense of chaos is a direct consequence of the possibility of the anti-homosexuality bill becoming law.
“After the bill passed, the manager told us to move.We must have everything ready for when you find a new homeAli told the BBC, standing between disassembled three-story bunk beds.
But the prospects are not good.
“In the event the owner evicts the current occupants of the shelter, we have no viable option.“, admits Grace, who groups the shelters.
Furthermore, the future of your organization is in jeopardy.
“If the bill is signed by the president, we could face legal prosecutionviolence, discrimination and stigma for offering safe accommodation to homeless sexual minorities, as well as identifying ourselves as sexual minorities,” he adds.
Among the other occupants of the house is Tim -not his real name-, whose parents stopped paying college tuition after they came out. His father, a pastor, completely ignored them.
Tim remembers the lowest moment.
“I did sex work. I slept with different men just to have something to eat. Some nights I felt disgusted with myself. I would go to the shower and wash myself like ten times.
“I didn’t see any future for myself: I had lost my family, I had lost my education, I had lost my sense of direction.”
Tim was the victim of cyber bullying the day the anti-homosexuality bill was debated in Parliament.
“People sent me messages saying: ‘Do you see what is going to happen to you?
“Some of us were beginning to recover a bit of mental health. Now I’m scared that a place like this could be described as a brothel. I feel that we had a wound that was beginning to heal and now they have opened it for us“, tells Tim to the BBC, heads down.
“I doubt that we can now regain a sense of dignity because of the hate that has been heaped on us.”
Uganda is already one of 32 African countries that criminalize same-sex sexual relations between consenting adults.
The bill has been condemned on a global scale. The United States has declared that it could consider the possibility of imposing sanctions on the country and the European Union has declared itself against the death penalty in any circumstance.
Local and international activist groups have also joined the protest.
When asked what she plans to do if the shelter can’t find a place to relocate to, Ali’s voice cracks and she ducks her head.
“The only thing that goes through my head is: ‘Where will I go?
“Everyone says that we are not normal, that we are not human beings. But I am like that. I have thought about going back home, but my father would never let me go back,” he says.
To find some foothold, Ali clings to his Muslim faith.
“I know that God is the one who created me and knows why I am gay. So I keep praying. Even now [durante el Ramadán] fast,” he says.
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