“It is okay to be different, because everybody is different in their own way,” says Jordan Zeus, a young Ugandan man in his early 20s.
Jordan is sitting inconspicuously in a coffee shop in downtown Nairobi, Kenya, sipping on a black coffee among the other patrons. But he knows too well what it feels like to be ‘different,’ and that it means when people don’t just think it is ‘okay’.
23-year-old Jordan is a trans man and a Ugandan refugee. After escaping pervasive discrimination and abuse at the hands of the police, he fled to neighbouring Kenya in search of refuge. However, recent reports of targeted attacks against Kenya’s LGBT community have left Jordan once again fearing for his life.
Return to Kakuma
On Wednesday June 20, Kenya’s government ordered a group of 74 LGBT+ refugees to return to Kakuma refugee camp in north west Kenya. They had previously fled after being targeted with homophobic attacks in the camp.
While U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, promised to provide protection, the spate of attacks on LGBT+ refugees in the camp have left human rights activists concerned. The Kenyan government’s claim that it intends “to ensure the physical security of all refugees in the country, including those with an LGBTI profile,” came as little comfort to many in the LGBT community.
High court ruling
This comes just weeks after a High Court ruling, upholding the ban on same sex relations.
The judgement was seen as a defeat for the LGBT+ community, not only in Kenya but in the entire East Africa region.
Many LGBT+ refugees, originating from countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo, have turned to Kenya as a place of refuge after escaping repression in their own countries. While homosexuality is criminalised, Kenya is seen as the best of the worst options; a country where anti-gay laws are rarely enforced and homophobic violence less of an occurance.
However, to many LGBT+ refugees in Kenya, the court decision showed that this is not the place of safety many had hoped to find. “After the court hearing the attacks became worse,” Jordan says. “Most queer people are not safe where they are.”
“Kenya has sent a clear message to its citizens that it does not care about LGBTQI people, and so those with already homophobic notions are even more empowered by such an announcement,” explained Adam Fitzgerald from the Refugee Coalition of East Africa.
“The recent attacks, evictions, and violence against LGBTQI refugees in Kenya may not all be a direct result of the Court’s ruling, but the connection to the permission to discriminate is clear and present,” he added.
A dangerous refuge
However, life for LGBT refugees outside the camps is hardly a safe haven even prior to the ruling. Last month dozens held protests outside the UNHCR offices in Nairobi, demanding more support from the agency and more respect from Kenyan authorities.
While many LGBT refugees fled their homes, faced with extreme violence and death threats, Kenya has not been the place of refuge many had hoped for.
“The LGBTQI refugee faces xenophobia and anti-refugee discrimination, plus additional persecution, harassment and violence as an LGBTQI person, and this comes from both the refugee and host communities,” says Adam Fitzgerald from the Refugee Coalition of East Africa.
“While rarely jailed for being gay, discrimination in housing, employment, and on the streets is common and harassment and even arrest by the police is a regular occurence,” he added.
This discrimination, alongside Kenya’s restrictive refugee policy denying asylum seekers the right to work, has led to high poverty rates and forced many to turn to sex work as a means to survive.
“It is really dangerous, me I have been slapped and beaten, it is really risky,” says Jordan, who relied on sex work in the past. “You can even provide services and you don’t get paid. But you know we are looking for survival.”
Within this environment, LGBT refugees are therefore faced with a choice between the camps, where there are frequent attacks, or moving to urban areas where safety and a sustainable income are almost impossible to achieve Fitzgerald explains.
“If you leave somewhere hoping where you are going will be better for you, but again it is the same as what you are going through, it is traumatising I won’t lie, so traumatising,” Jordan says.
Fighting back
Within this context, Jordan and others in the LGBT+ refugee community are working to create safe spaces to exist.
Currently there are a number of local, grassroots organisations that have set up safe houses, support networks, and wellbeing and advocacy groups, and spaces have been set up for poetry readings, fashion and design and other creative projects.
Jordan has recently started working to set up an organisation to provide a safe space of transmen, providing food and sanitary products and teaching handicrafts and skills from which to make a living.
While these organisations work under extremely challenging situations, made no easier by the recent high court ruling, Jordan and many others remain determined to fight for their rights and support others in their community. “I love fighting for transgender people, because noone is fighting,” he says. “There is no way I am going to lose my dignity or let people project their fears onto me.”
