Once Beaten, Twice Deported: LGBTQ+ Ugandans Flee for Safety

KAMPALA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Kicked out of her company. Thrown out of home. Then beaten up by family. That was enough to convince Cindy to flee a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ violence sweeping her native Uganda.

It’s been a year since President Yoweri Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), one of the strictest anti-LGBTQ+ laws ever passed globally and a measure that has legalized a slew of homophobic abuse.

Not least forced evictions – which have more than doubled in number as landlords, families and neighbors force LGBTQ+ Ugandans from their homes or businesses with full legal support.

The year-old law made it illegal to rent properties to LGBTQ+ people like Cindy, leading to a wave of evictions and an increase in everyday discrimination.

“Ugandan’s laws prohibit same-sex relationships and, like many African countries that criminalize homosexuality, the penalties are severe,” said Arnold Akello, a Kampala-based human rights lawyer.

While there is no official data on the scale of evictions, rights groups and lawyers report an increase in emergency calls, despite a slight relaxation of the law last month.

EXECUTED AND STROKE
Cindy spent five years building a successful hair salon on the outskirts of Kampala – or so she had until February, when her landlord abruptly ordered her out.

Since he evicted her without notice, Cindy planned to press charges before multiple threats caused her to drop the case.

A month later, she was evicted from her home and then attacked by family members for “ridiculing them for being lesbians.”

Finally it was enough.

“I took refuge at a friend’s house… before crossing into Kenya,” Cindy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation of her escape in March.

Since then, Cindy — who only wanted to use her first name — said five of her LGBTQ+ friends had also been deported.

“They don’t even feel safe in the secret hideout where they took refuge,” she said by phone from a safe house in Nairobi.

STRONG NEW LAWS
While Uganda had long criminalized gay sex, the AHA was stricter than its colonial-era predecessor: part of a wave of harsh new anti-LGBTQ+ measures sweeping parts of Africa.

In Ghana, as in Uganda, LGBTQ+ people now face eviction under an anti-LGBTQ+ law that requires landlords to prevent same-sex relationships on their properties.

The consequences of such laws are chilling, advocates say.

Two months after the AHA launched, Kampala-based rights group Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum said it had recorded 36 evictions involving 75 LGBTQ+ Ugandans. This compares to an average of six evictions per month before the law came into effect.

The rights group said legal clinics trying to help evictions reported that landlords were “zealously” enforcing the law, while most evictions outside the capital went unreported.

Last month, the Constitutional Court struck down a clause in the AHA that criminalizes anyone who allows property to be used “for homosexuality” – but few expect much to change.

“The number of eviction cases is increasing as landlords and even members of the public become bolder in unlawfully evicting anyone they suspect is homosexual,” said Saida Nakilima, a lawyer with the Kampala rights group.

NO SAFE COINCIDENCE
Take Andrew, who was evicted from his home in the eastern city of Mbale a week after the Constitutional Court ruling.

The 28-year-old, who gave only his first name, said he had lived with two gay men for two years without any problems and that the eviction took place nine months before the expiry of their lease.

“The landlord told us he could not defy the government order by housing homosexuals. He refused to refund part of the rent we paid and even dared us to report him to the police,” Andrew, a website developer, said by phone.

The trio initially refused to leave, but after neighbors made threats, they moved to a secret LGBTQ+ shelter.

“I doubt we’ll get justice,” Andrew said.

That same week, Grace came home from work to find that her landlord had hired men to break in and throw away all her belongings after the neighbors reported her.

“The landlord told me that by hosting my lesbian friends I was encouraging and promoting what he described as ‘the behavior of the devil’,” said the 26-year-old, who lives in Mukono, a town east of Kampala .

Her parents refused to take her in and accused her of “embarrassing them,” so she now lives with a friend.

Even shelters that promise “safe” housing for deported LGBTQ+ Ugandans are no longer considered safe.

John Grace, coordinator of a Kampala-based NGO shelter, said shelters like his were now restricting new admissions as they had become targets of police raids and homophobic attacks.

“We have been forced to change our working methods. Our facility is not open all day as it would initially be, and we are only admitting very deserving cases,” he said by email. – Reuters