Displaced twice: Gay Ugandans on the run face upheaval in Kenya

Nairobi, Kenya – In June 2018, Danee Naturibale (not his real name) moved to Kenya after escaping from a Ugandan prison where he spent two months. The 37-year-old, who openly identifies as gay, was one of 20 people arrested at a party in Mbale in the east of the country, he told Al Jazeera.

“We were hurriedly charged [in court] and sentenced to 20 years in prison. After two months behind bars, we plotted to sneak out of prison,” he said.

Naturibale, who ran a thriving beauty salon before his arrest, fled his homeland with nothing but the clothes he was wearing and 50,000 Ugandan shillings ($13) given to him by a sympathetic prison guard. He paid 37,700 Ugandan shillings ($10) to slip across the border in a truckload of bananas.

Fellow Ugandan gay community members waiting for him on the other side helped him register as a refugee. It’s a recurring story; many in Uganda’s LGBTQ+ community have found a safe haven in Kenya after fleeing their very conservative country, where the government and society are openly hostile to sexual minorities.

At home, their friends are in jail or hiding from family and the government, they said.

“In Uganda, LGBTQ people live at the mercy of security forces and homophobic neighbours. There is rampant harassment and discrimination against gays in government institutions, shopping malls, hospitals and public transport,” Naturibale told Al Jazeera from Nairobi.

Kenya is also very homophobic; in January, prominent LGBTQ rights activist Edwin Chiloba was found dead in a metal box in the western part of the country. But the LGBTQ+ community is “much safer and freer,” Naturibale said.

That was until February 24.

‘Morality and way of justice’

The trouble started that day after the Kenyan Supreme Court ruled that the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) are allowed to officially register as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), as it is unconstitutional to deny endorsement based on applicants’ sexual orientation.

“Like everyone else, [LGBTQ+ people] have the right to freedom of association, including the right to form an association of any kind,” it said.

Instead of making life easier for the LGBTQ+ community, the ruling instead turned many Kenyans against them and exposed them to danger, they said.

The authorities criticized the decision and most citizens have mocked the ruling.

“We respect the decision of the Supreme Court, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. Our values, customs and Christianity do not allow us to support same-sex marriages,” President William Ruto said at an event on International Women’s Day, after a long silence.

His deputy Rigathi Gachagua said the court’s decision was “satanic and contrary to morality and the course of justice”.

The country’s attorney general said the government would seek a review of the apex court ruling as permitted under Kenyan law.

A lawmaker introduced a parliamentary motion asking to ban even discussion of same-sex marriage. Another has drafted a bill requiring a life sentence for anyone caught promoting or engaging in homosexuality.

According to Houghton Irungu, executive director of Amnesty International in Kenya, incidents of malicious online and offline behavior and public demonstrations against sexual minorities have increased since the Supreme Court ruling.

“It is concerning when we see personal data of individuals believed to identify as LGBTQ+ being shared publicly without their consent,” he said.

Consequently, many who openly identify as gay are afraid to leave their homes, NGLHRC co-founder and former executive director Eric Gitari told Al Jazeera.

“Right now many are too scared to even go to the store across the street because they don’t know what will happen to them,” he said.

Days after Gachagua’s comments, 26-year-old Jeen Kyaviluga (not their real name) and a small group of Kenyan friends were attacked around 10pm as they were leaving a club in Rongai, on the outskirts of Nairobi.

“They attacked me and claimed that I was dressed like a lady, but that I am a man,” said Kyaviluga, a second-year computer engineering student in Nairobi. “They destroyed my phone and told me to move out of town.”

In parts of Nairobi and elsewhere in Kenya, activists have said landlords are now evicting strange tenants – some by force – and clashes with employers are on the rise.

“Requests for evacuation, relocation and psychotherapy are on the rise, with organizations that have responded to no fewer than 117 recent homophobic attacks in the past month seeing their workloads increase,” Irungu said.

A few people like Kyaviluga got lucky.

“My landlord knew I was gay and when the hate campaigns got heated he was so kind and called us to meet and asked us to find a safer place. He even helped us find and move to a safer space where we are currently housed.”

He and another 10 Ugandans who also fled their homes in Nairobi now live in the safe house of a local pro-LGBTQ+ lobby group.

An activist anonymously told Al Jazeera, fearing interference from security forces, that their organization was working with other rights groups and foreign missions in Nairobi to help Ugandan and Kenyan members of the LGBTQ+ community who were at extreme risk get asylum abroad.

‘Like Suicide’

During the debate, Ugandan LGBTQ refugees in Kenya have said they feel much safer in Kenya and are unlikely to return home.

“Many of us have been able to go back to school, start a business, find a job and live freely [here]’ said Kyaviluga.

Despite the homophobic crusade led by Kenyan political and religious leaders who risked their lives, the country had given people like him the “hope and life” that had been taken from them in Uganda, he said.

In Uganda it gets even worse.

In March 2023, lawmakers there passed a tough bill that would impose the death penalty for some LGBTQ-related crimes and up to 20 years in prison for people who identify as LGBTQ+.

There is now domestic pressure on President Yoweri Museveni to agree to the bill, as well as pressure from the international community not to.

The new legislation would “undermine the fundamental human rights of all Ugandans and could undo the gains made in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging Uganda to reconsider implementation.

Whatever happens, Kyaviluga digs his roots into his new home.

“Going back to Uganda will be like committing suicide,” he said.