“We Want to Be Free” Stories of Ugandan Lesbians

by Reginah, Hady, Shifra, Juliet, Annemarie, Rolyne, Aisha, Shamim, and Latifah

 As told to Rose Rickford (The Radical Notion) With thanks to Sally Jackson, FiLiA, for facilitating this conversation.

Republished with permission from The Radical Notion feminist magazine. You can order print and PDF copies of The Radical Notion at Radical Notion

These are the stories of lesbian sisters who are seeking asylum due to persecution in their home country of Uganda. They have all spent years in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, but some have now fled elsewhere.

In 2023, Uganda passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act. The act makes lesbian and gay sex a criminal offence punishable by life imprisonment or death. The act also criminalizes the intention to engage in lesbian and gay sex, the allowing of lesbian and gay sex on a premises, and advocacy for the rights of LGB people. The act has been subject to legal challenge by activist groups, and was upheld by the Ugandan Constitutional Court earlier this year. LGB+T people have faced severe discrimination, harassment and violence for decades—an inheritance of British colonialism. In recent years, Uganda’s persecution of LGB+T people has been actively supported by the US radical right, including through the use of propaganda within Uganda to encourage and enforce the social and legal sanctioning of homosexuality.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, where Kakuma refugee camp is situated, homosexuality is criminalized under the colonial-era penal code, and there is a growing movement to follow Uganda’s approach to anti-homosexuality legislation.

The Ugandan lesbian sisters featured in this piece told their stories to Rose on a Zoom call organized by Sally Jackson of FiLiA. Rose asked them to tell her anything they wanted to about their lives, their experiences in Uganda, Kakuma, and elsewhere, and their hopes for the future.

The sisters were in places with poor network access, so some of the stories end abruptly. They worked together to provide an overall picture of their lives, filling in gaps and adding more details. As the call went on, sisters talked about what they wished would change, their hopes for the future, and what international women can do to support them. The early accounts therefore tell stories of the past, and the later accounts focus more on what these women need now, and what they hope for in the future.

As you will read, they need two things from the international sisterhood. First, they urgently need money. Some are living *only* on donations from international sisters. You can donate via FiLiA’s Kakuma campaign.[1]

Second, they need you to use your voice to tell their stories. Share this article. You will find more information, and a podcast, on FiLiA’s website. And just tell people. As Shamim put it, “Advocate for us, because we are tired of the situation we are living in … We are so, so tired.”

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Reginah, Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya

I am Reginah, a single mother and a lesbian, living in Kakuma refugee camp now. I was born in Uganda. I grew up in the family of mother, father, sisters and extended family. I started at primary school and later I joined secondary school and I came to realize that I’m a lesbian around Year 2 there. That is when I got a strong feeling towards my fellow women, girls. Uganda’s culture and norms are against LGBTI people. Against lesbians. If you’re a woman and you fall in love with a woman, it’s against the law and the culture and norms. So, if they get to know that you are a lesbian or from the LGBT family they fight against you. Either be killed, imprisoned for life, or else you have to fight for yourself, to run away from that torture. It’s very hard to stay in Uganda if you are a lesbian.

After finishing secondary school, I was in love with my partner, and I joined nursing school in the international hospital in Uganda. After the nursing course I was still with my partner, but my parents were expecting me to bring a man home, for me to get married. But it wasn’t in my thoughts. My parents forced me to get married to a man, not of my will. It was so hard for me. I didn’t fall in love with the man. They were just forcing me. I stayed there for some years, and had two children. I have my children here with me now. Life was so hard for me in that I didn’t have my rights as a woman, as a lady. All that happened in that marriage was not of my will. I thought, “This is not the life I have to live.” I had to find ways of living my own life. It’s not easy to find your own way in a situation where you’re not liked by your parents, by their relatives, by the other people around. And then a person entered my house while I was with my partner. They called the other people in the community. And the community really wanted to kill me. They called the police. And they started stoning us. We had to run to survive. I went to Kampala city, I boarded a bus, and I was brought to Kenya, where I was welcomed by the UNHCR and transported to Kakuma where I am now.

In Kakuma, life hasn’t been easy. In the reception centre they didn’t want to register me as an LGBTI. I was with some other comrades of the same category, and they were refusing to register us. We had to protest in order to be registered. Through all that, the other people in the reception centre knew that we are LGBTIs, and got to know where we were staying, and they told other people around that these are the LGBTIs. And we were attacked.

Hady, refugee camp, undisclosed country

I’m a lesbian from Uganda. Right now, I am in a refugee camp. I fled from my home country, Uganda, in 2018, after being caught red-handed by my landlord with my partner. We were beaten and undressed. And they did everything to us. Then I escaped to Kenya, where I met my fellow refugees, my fellow LGBTI, my fellow lesbians.

When I reached Kenya, I didn’t know anybody there. Someone directed me to UNHCR. He told me, “That is a place where you will get help.” But it was all in vain. They said, “There is no space for LGBTI, you just go away, we will call you when we have anything.” I was trying to tell them that I have nowhere to go, I have nowhere to sleep, but they ignored me. So I slept almost a year on the streets. At that time I didn’t know Mamma Sally.[2] I didn’t know FiLiA. Eventually I went back to the UNHCR compound and I told them, “If people here want to kill me, let them kill me here, but I’m not going anywhere. If they want me to die, let me die there in their compound.” That is when they took me to the reception centre, where I spent almost five months. And I met other LGBTIs there.

After five months, the UNHCR said we had to move out into the community. We were given a relocation allowance of $50. We had no option because the UNHCR called the police and said, if you don’t go, you’ll be arrested. The money was so little, and I decided with my fellow lesbians to rent at least one house, so that we can be there. But immediately, when we reached the community, we were attacked. They took all the money we had, and some clothes off us. We went to the police, but there was no help. We went back to the registration centre for refugees. We told them, “We have nowhere to go, everything was stolen,” but we didn’t get any help. A friend told us, “If you want help, you go to a Red Cross.” But from Nairobi to Red Cross, it’s far away. And then we met one good Samaritan, and we told him what was happening to us. He drove us up to Red Cross, and Red Cross brought us to Kakuma refugee camp.

From 2019 to 2024 I was in Kakuma. Immediately when I reached the reception centre, we were beaten. After a few months they relocated us into the community. I met more fellow lesbians, Reginah and others. But we were being attacked on a daily basis. Women in Kakuma are being raped, women are being beaten. Gay men have been raped. Transgenders have been undressed. Every sort of thing, you know, they did to us. No one helped us. UNHCR never helped us. We went to the UNHCR compound in Kakuma refugee camp for protection. People lost their lives there because we were tear gassed and beaten. And then they forced us at gunpoint back to the community and dumped us there.

So UNHCR and the government of Kenya exposed us, because everyone then knew where the LGBTI people were staying, and started attacking us every day, beating us, burning us alive, killing us. Until in January 2024, me and other LGBTIs, we left the Kakuma refugee camp for another camp. So here we are, in another camp in an unstable country. It’s a country of war. It is not safe. Even where I’m standing right now, I don’t know, because everyone is always suspicious, to see someone on the phone like this. They can even come at this moment and attack me. “Why are you talking on the phone?” So I don’t know what life are we in. I don’t know what kind of life is this?

But we really thank our international sisters because they have been there for us for so long. For me, it’s now seven years in this process of, like, struggling. We are struggling. Women are here struggling with children. It’s the same as Kakuma, here in [undisclosed location]. We have been silenced. They don’t give us food. [Line lost.]

Shifra, in hiding

My name is Shifra and I’m an asylum seeker. I lived in Kakuma refugee camp for three and a half years. But right now I’m in hiding elsewhere. I am a human rights defender. That’s why I was forced to go into hiding. In Kenya, fighting for our rights is considered as promotion of homosexuality, and we were going to be arrested at Kakuma. We would be put into a place where no one knows where we are, and we would be tortured and all the other sorts of things they have tried to do to us for a very long time. I personally, I have been a victim to three rape cases. It’s just that I managed to escape without being raped, but I was attempted to be raped three times in the camp. At that time I was a minor, because I went into camp when I was 16 years of age. I’m 20 now.

So, I’m a survivor of violence and all other sorts of homophobia and hate. In Kakuma camp we have lived a very, very, very terrible life. I know my sisters in [undisclosed location] are still going through the same things. We lost a lot of lives.

We lived in a group of LGBTI refugees who had nowhere to go, who had no family, who fled from their home countries after their families wanted to kill them and their government wanted to arrest them and imprison them for who they are. So we were a very large number of people, and we didn’t have protection from the Kenyan government. We were not getting enough for our basic needs met by the government. We were not being helped by the officials of UNHCR, because they feel like we are disgusting. They will not help us in anything, because for them we don’t have a right to live, just because of who we are. So in those years, 2019, 2020, we managed to provide security to ourselves. We were in large numbers, so gay men would keep watch during the night and we would sleep outside because we did not have enough shelters. Also, the shelters we did have, we were not able to sleep in them because you would be in a shelter sleeping and people would set fire to your shelter, and you would die. Two people were burned in a fire at a compound where we used to sleep. One of them did not manage to survive. She was transgender. Her name was Trinidad, she died. And one survivor is called Jordan: her partner right now is in hiding. But still UNHCR was forcing him to go back to the camp where people were going to kill him.

The children of the LGBTI family in the camp are not going to school. I was still a minor when I arrived, and I tried going to school. It did not go well. I only went to classes for a week. I was discriminated against by the teachers and my fellow students to the point that I could not have a seat in class, but rather I had to sit down on the floor where it is dirty and watch the class. I was not allowed to sit in a chair because I was not seen as a child just like others. The teachers would teach about me in the class and humiliate me. So, there is still a lot of homophobia in Africa.

In Uganda, our home country, they are trying their best to fight the LGBTI community. Saying that a man cannot love a fellow man or a woman cannot love a fellow woman. Which is wrong. Because what is wrong with a woman loving her fellow woman? Nothing is wrong with that. You’re not affecting the country’s economy. There is a lot of discrimination that is still going on in Africa. In our countries, in our families, we need to teach the community about it. And they should be aware that we are not evil, we are just like them. We are normal people. We don’t have a mental disorder like they say.

It’s a lot. I hope for a future where I can go back to school freely, not discriminated by society, and can walk on the streets freely. I also hope I can live a life where I am able to work and earn my own living. And I hope when I get to safety I am able to continue to fight for the rights of the women and children that are passing through what I went through.

Juliet, in hiding

My name is Juliet. I am a lesbian, a single mother, and a human rights defender. I’m also in hiding because of people coming and asking a lot of questions, and they were going to arrest us. In Kakuma we are voiceless. The police just come and they arrest you and they take you and torture you, beat you, and you have no right to say anything about that. So, I am one of those who managed to escape from the camp.

I first came to Kenya after many things happened in my life with my children. My husband died. I wasn’t married by my own will. I was just 17 when I was given away by my family. I was given to a man to teach me how to be a woman. I was raped every now and then by the man who I was given to, and I had two children. And then he died. In 2019, his family realized that I was a lesbian. They came and found me in the house with my partner and they called people, and they wanted to beat me and to stone me to death. But some people were saying, “This is a woman who has no husband, and she has children. How will you tell her children?” So they chased me away from that village, and I went somewhere else very far away. I don’t know how but they found out where I was, and they hired someone to kill me and the children. But God saved me, because the person who was hired to kill me, he knew my late husband and he warned me, “Go very far away because I’m coming to kill you.” I didn’t have any money, but he gave me some money to use to run away. And that night he came and burned the house down to fulfil what he was paid for, but I wasn’t in it. Once I had escaped, my father-in-law, the one who had ordered my death and my children’s death, he contacted me and said, “You survived today, but don’t think that next time you’ll survive.” He was former UPDF—those are the people in power. He had guns, he had power, and there is no way I could survive. He was going to track me down. So I ran and ran.

A friend advised me to go to Kenya. I didn’t know about the whole camp thing, about the UNHCR, because I didn’t have plans of escaping. But that day I had to escape. So she told me, “You go to Kenya, there is a camp where they help people who are homeless, who have nothing, they will help you there.” So that’s how I came to Kenya. I went to UNHCR. I was with Hady—her story is mine in some ways. They took us to Kakuma after suffering some months in Nairobi. And that’s where the real suffering started. Because when we went there, nothing was a good thing.

We realized that we had no voice because the people we hoped would help us did not do that. So, since 2020, when we reached the camp, we’ve been surviving on our own. Trying to fight, trying to talk to people, trying to raise awareness about the situation we were in. Some of us had children, but our children were not going to school. When we tried to take them, they were discriminated against right from the beginning. And the surrounding community knew about us. UNHCR brought us there after beating us and forcing us from the compound, so everyone knew about our sexuality—that we are homosexuals. So they attacked us. They came all the time, they stole everything we had, they stoned us, they burned our shelters. The time came when no one could sleep in the shelters. We were all afraid all the time. It was too much in the camp. So that’s how, in that whole scenario, that’s when we met sister Sally. She came in and she has been just a godsend, because without her we don’t know where we’d be by now.

In the UNHCR hospitals, we’re not getting help because of our sexual orientation. Whenever you go there, even the doctors themselves, they want to kill us. One day they almost killed Shifra in the room. We have been at Kakuma for many years. Six, four, five. Some people have been there for almost seven years. We are just still asylum seekers for this long. Yet we see other people are being helped.

Raising awareness and telling people about the situation you’ve been going through is a crime to the Kenyan government. We are hiding right now because they started looking for those people who were trying to fight for others. They call it ‘promoting homosexuality.’ Right now, if you are caught saying anything, like defending yourselves about the situation you’re going through, that is a crime.

Generally, the situation in Kenya, when it comes to LGBTIs, is not good at all. That’s the reason most of our community decided to go to another camp. Because in Kenya, they told us point blank that there is no help for you. You should find your way out. But the place those other people have fled to is even harder, because where they are now is a country where there is no peace. It’s also where many of the people who are in Kakuma refugee camp come from. So it’s very dangerous to be there. Hady’s decision to go to that place—it wasn’t a small thing. We don’t know what to do. We still need a lot of people, friends, sisters, like sister Sally, to help us because we are still here. We don’t know when it will ever end. We still need support. We don’t have food. We need financial support. And for us where we are right now in hiding, we need money to sustain us. We need to eat. And we need to pay for where we sleep, until God knows when it will end. So generally, we need you. We need more and more and more sisters to come up and help us to go through this.

Annemarie, in hiding

My name is Annemarie. I am a lesbian from Uganda, but I’ve been staying in Kenya since 2019. I am a mother but I was forced to leave my children. After people realized that I was a lesbian they said I’m not worthy to be a mother. So it’s been nine years that I have not seen my kids.

I cannot go through everything. It’s really, really a long story. I’ll just cut it short. Firstly, when my family realized I was a lesbian, my uncle took me into a marriage where I had my children. It was a forced marriage of six years, and I faced domestic and gender-based violence. But I was able to get my three boys. They were my only hope. They were something that I could hold on to, to keep going.

There are times that it is not that easy to really believe what you’re feeling. All my life, like in school and all that, I was still in denial, saying, “Maybe I’m wrong” [about being a lesbian]. Because of course when it comes to the African culture, this is a taboo. A woman and a woman, a man and a man: it’s a taboo. So I was still in denial; “Maybe I am wrong.” But when it comes to it, it is something that you cannot force, right? But in our culture, they don’t understand.

And time went on, and I said, “I have to be true to myself. I have to run for my life.” I went to two Arabian nations where I thought maybe I can start my life again, be independent, and be able to get a chance to be with my children again. But it did not happen. So finally, I ran to Kenya, where they assured me that I would be safe. When I arrived at the offices asking for help, they asked me about my story. I had to tell them, and they said, “Yeah, it’s okay, you can be safe.” The only place they gave me to go was Kakuma. Oh, God, Lord. When I heard these words, I felt a bit safe. I said, “Wow. In this world, I cannot believe that there are people who can really accept me.” Because my family did not accept me. But getting someone who can accept you, I felt I had hope. And I believed that maybe I can start my life again. I can be someone important, like, I can function and be productive to the community. Right?

They told me, “In Kakuma refugee camp you can be yourself. You will get security and protection.” “Yeah,” I said, “okay, fine, I’ll go for it.” But it’s really unfortunate that all the belief and the courage it took, it all turned into regret because, yes, in my country I suffered. But I have never suffered as I suffered in Kakuma refugee camp.

Seeing blood every single day. Looking at women being raped. And like, it looks like something normal. The authorities they told us to go to report to, they blamed us and said that we are bringing this on ourselves. So I felt broken. I felt hopeless. The sisters, of course, they have told you the stories. That was our day-to-day life. Knowing that of course there will be an attack, they’ll cut someone, you cannot get services as you’re supposed to get them. And as we knew that we didn’t have anyone to support us, we decided to stand as ourselves. We became our own protection. It was down to us to protect ourselves. We were sleeping in shifts, right? So that we can provide protection for ourselves.

It became very, very dangerous for anyone who would stand and speak out on everything that is going on. They started to arrest us, they started threatening us. Shifra, she was still a minor, came out and started advocating. Juliet was a mother, a mother who lives with her kids, right? I want you to just picture that. A mother who is advocating for us, and she’s being threatened, right? Now, just imagine those kids, what are they facing? The kids around us used to look at the humiliation that their mothers went through. It is really painful. I’m telling you, it is so painful. Looking at your mother being undressed, being disrespected, being humiliated, discriminated against, and all that. It is so painful. So, it came to a time when it was really dangerous. We were scared of losing our lives, because a lot of threats were coming to us. So some of us decided to run for our lives. Because life is important, no matter what, life is really important. Yes, we would like to advocate. We would like to fight the injustices, but you cannot fight when you’re not alive. So we decided to run for our lives. Some of our sisters decided to leave the camp to go to an even more dangerous country, where you expect anytime that they will be killed. You understand? So when it comes to all this, you have to ask yourself, what’s next? You ran because you were being threatened, you were being attacked and all that. But now, you’re in even more danger. These are some of the things that we face every single day. Our sisters who left, and us who are in hiding, we are literally on our own. I don’t know whether the Kenyan government and the UNHCR itself care about our wellbeing, because we cannot get the protection they promised. We cannot get shelter. We cannot get medical help from them. We are surviving on the support that we get from our international sisters, FiLiA and other sisters from other countries. That is literally what we are surviving on, which is even not enough. Do you understand? These are some of the challenges that we are facing. You don’t know what is next. You don’t know where to go. You don’t know who to ask for help. So, as Juliet said, we really need support.

We don’t know where these words will go. But we really need help. We need safe places. Myself, one day, I wish to be reunited with my children. I want to be someone. Like, someone who can be of help to the world. I would love to continue to be an activist, someone who can stand for the voiceless, with the women who are suffering, but how will I do that when I’m in hiding? I cannot do that. So I would love to have a safe place where I can do my work openly. And I need my freedom again. We really need freedom. And our sisters who ran abroad, many of them are mothers. These children need to go to school. But they cannot because they are being threatened. They’re also in hiding. They are unprotected.

But we have dreams. We have dreams. We need to do something for ourselves. Because, not that I’m not thankful for what our sisters are doing, but it feels really good if you can support yourself. If one day I can hear someone else calling for help, to be able to help. You understand, those are some of the dreams we would love to fulfil. I just hope that our stories can be heard. And for sure they can help to be motivational to some people, to be inspirational to some others, but I wish the people who hear these stories will help us to gain our freedoms back. We want to be free.

Rolyne, refugee camp, undisclosed country

[Written by text due to a lack of signal, in response to Rose asking about what the women hoped for in the future.]

I wanted to share my excitement about my future after moving into safety. Looking forward to a life filled with authenticity, acceptance, and love. 🏳️‍🌈 #ProudAndSafe

 

Aisha, refugee camp, undisclosed country

We’ve been through a lot. We are mothers who have children to take care of. And for most of us, our dreams are shattered. We are hopeless. We don’t have a future, that’s what I can say. We want someone to raise their voice for us. We are voiceless now. We dream just to have the freedom to do what we want, to love whom we want to love. Because love is love. You cannot tell someone whom to love. But where we are now, they have told us to keep a low profile, to stay inside and not to show anything of who we are. We don’t have freedom. I hope that one day we can have peace. We want to be at peace. My concern is to at least be able to have dreams. To think about the future. To have our freedom. That’s what I wish for.

Shamim, refugee camp, undisclosed country

I would like to explain the situation we are in here. It’s not good. I was in a meeting with UNHCR about our need for protection and I tried to address our issues—medically, healthwise, each and everything, but the responses were not good. We were just told to keep a low profile. We are not able to keep a low profile. We tried our level best. I personally and my fellows cut off our dreads because we are in fear of homophobic people who we are staying with here. But still we are facing the same situation. People are insulting us, they’re discriminating against us. So please, sister Rose, we are requesting you raise voices for people who are here. I have not explained why we relocated ourselves from the camp where we were [Kakuma], but it was very harsh. We have seen a lot. We are in crisis with no solution from UNHCR. And so we are praying. Please, sister Rose, advocate for us because we are tired of the situation we are living in. It has been long. Years. We are so, so tired. We were living stressful lives from day one. We are hidden here. We don’t have democracy here. No privacy. Our lives are in danger.

Latifah, refugee camp, undisclosed country

I am so glad to see you, dear sisters, sister Sally, sister Rose, we are so glad to have you today and to share with you what we have been passing through. I’ve been hearing my dear sisters telling you each and everything. For real, we have passed through a lot. Right now, we are passing through a very terrible situation. So are our children. They’re telling us, keep a low profile. Even right now, that’s why I am speaking in a bush. We can’t do anything because these people will see us. What I’m asking you is to help us raise our voices. The situation we are in here is worse than even Kakuma. The people we are living with, they are the very people who have been torturing us in Kakuma. We are just keeping a low profile, but not forever. You can’t hide what you are. The time will come when we can’t keep it secret anymore. So, we are asking you, our dear sisters, please help us by raising your voices. Try to reach UNHCR, tell it everywhere, anywhere that you can tell them that these ladies are suffering, and they’ve been through a lot. I came to seek asylum in 2018. Today, I’m still in a situation that I can’t even explain. With my two children. The kids have grown big. They don’t have an education and they can’t speak English because they have not gone to school. So that is the situation we are in right now. We are hiding. Sister Sally, I really thank you so much and your group has been doing a lot for us. I really appreciate you. So, yeah, don’t get tired of us. Keep on fighting. We are also fighting, but we need more pressure on these people so they give us the freedom that we deserve. I didn’t mean to cry but our situation is getting worse every day.

[1] FiLiA, ‘The Kakuma Campaign,’ filia.org.uk/kakuma-campaign.

[2] Sally Jackson, FiLiA trustee and long-term supporter of lesbians in Kakuma refugee camp.