The Decibel - Helping people escape the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ laws

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

In late May, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world’s harshest anti-homosexuality bills into law. It authorizes the death penalty in certain circumstances and a 20-year prison sentence for anyone who “promotes” or “normalizes” homosexuality. The situation was already bad for queer people in Uganda, but this new law makes things much worse.Kimahli Powell is the CEO of Rainbow Railroad, a non-profit organization that helps at-risk LGBTQ people get to safety around the world. He’s on the show to explain what it’s like for LGTBQ people in Uganda right now and what his organization is doing to help them.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

This is bad news. It's not just for queer Ugandans, but for queer people across the African continent. Zolavi Kwagala is a queer Ugandan photographer and LGBTQ activist. They're reacting to an anti-gay law that was recently signed by Uganda's president. You are arresting us for literally doing nothing, for simply existing, you know? But where are we supposed to go? How did we become refugees in our own countries? The legislation is being called one of the world's harshest anti-gay laws.

If convicted, people could face life in prison and in some cases, even the death penalty. Our requests skyrocketed. We're in June 2023 and we've now nearly 4,000 requests for help. Out of Uganda, 600 of those requests are coming directly from the country. Last year, we received around 300 requests from Uganda, so nearly double, and we're not even halfway through the year. Kamali Powell is the CEO of Rainbow Railroad. Rainbow Railroad is an international organization based in Toronto, Canada, and in New York, in the United States. We operate in both countries and our mission is simple.

We help LGBTQI plus people who are facing persecution around the world find pathways to safety. And just last week, Rainbow Railroad partnered with the Canadian government to help refugees resettle in Canada, the first program of its kind. Today, Kamali is on the show to tell us about the difficult situation for LGBTQ people in Uganda and the fight to bring people who are at risk to safety. I'm Mainika Raman-Wellms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Kamali, thank you so much for talking to me today. Thanks for having me. In late May, Uganda's president authorized what's been called one of the world's

harshest anti-homosexuality laws. What makes it so harsh? So it's important for people to understand that Uganda already criminalized same-sex intimacy before this act. And what it does, I think there are three things that we find really disconcerting and I think has led to the spike in requests for assistance. The first thing is the imposition of the death penalty. Uganda will now join roughly 12 countries that impose the death penalty on its citizens for just being who they are. They call it for serial offenders and potentially punishable by death. The second piece is around what it means to promote homosexuality.

We really believe that this will target human rights defenders and civil society. Organizations like Sexual Marital Rights Uganda, who are partners of Rainbow Railroad, have already been forced to try to shut down their operations. And we think that civil society will be one of the first targets of this new law. And this, just to be clear, it's not really the death penalty for that, but it would be a lengthy prison sentence for promoting this. Correct.

Lengthy prison sentences for what it means to quote unquote promote homosexuality. The vagueness of the law under some of these terms is really problematic. And I think there's going to be attempts to really kind of narrow the definition. And then finally, the third provision out of many is what it means to house homosexuality activities or acts, which could be extended to housing. We've heard from our request for assistance stories of evictions. We think those will continue. Employment. Employers have a signal to people they think are LGBTQI+.

If this bill turns into law, you will be fired. And so that will lead ultimately to displacement, which will be the key challenge for us at Rainbow Railroad. Yeah. So, I mean, this sounds like this law, yes, it targets members of the community, but it also makes it so that anyone, you know, a landlord, people assisting these individuals can also be targeted now. That's right. And the effect will be that the LGBTQIA plus community will be driven underground, displaced because they'll be kicked out of their homes, fired from their jobs, I think turned in by the communities, spikes of violence and then arrested.

The biggest change is that this will become state sanctioned violence and persecution even deeper than the previous law that was on the books. Yeah. I mean, like you said, Kamali, right? It's even before this law, Uganda was not a welcoming place for LGBTQ people. So what is it like? Like, what are you hearing from people in the community who are living there? We had to provide assistance for nearly 30 people who were arrested by local officials. And so you're seeing the effect, you know, rural community by community, city to city, on how the police force will implement this. You know, we have video evidence of floggings, violence on people in the street.

This is all happening before the bill was signed into law. And we just are concerned that it will increase. How is your organization helping people in the country now? So it's important to step back and understand what Rainbow Railroad does and how we help. You know, we have a team of individuals here in Canada, in the United States, where we operate, who work alongside human rights defenders to identify and verify cases. You know,

4,000 requests for help this year, you can understand that's a lot of triaging that needs to do on these cases. And when you say cases, what are we talking about? Yeah, so individuals, direct individuals who reach out to help. And there's two ways people could reach out to us. One is directly on our website

that is translated in multiple languages and people can self-refer and advocate for themselves in a case. Or we have partners on the ground in various countries who help us identify persons at risk. And why would someone reach out to you? Usually people reach out to us when their life is on the line and they're feeling that they have no other option but to flee. It's really important to understand that the vast majority of people who reach out to us want to just live in dignity where they live, in their homes.

No one wants to flee persecution. LGBTQI plus displacement works differently than other communities. Usually communities are fleeing war or humanitarian grounds. But what does it mean to be displaced and forced out of your country from your community, from the state? Sometimes it's alongside those issues, but sometimes it's people are literally being targeted

just for who they are. And you're seeing that in Uganda right now. And you're gonna see an increase of that. People being targeted by the state just because of who they are, who they love. And so people reach out to Rainbow Railroad for help when they think that their life is in danger when they are experiencing violence, potentially to help get them out of that situation. Correct. I know you may need to keep some of this secretive, because as you said, this is, you know, life and death for a lot of people. But can you tell me a

little bit about the process? Like, how does your organization get people out of these scary situations? How we help an individual really depends on which country they're in, their circumstances, what identification they have. And then we look at what country can receive them. And it varies. You know, I think one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about our work is that everyone comes to Canada. And that's not the case. It's only historically been difficult to have people enter Canada. We do a lot of work in Europe and help people move to European countries.

We've been utilizing Canada's private sponsorship program when appropriate, which is an important program. But it's also limited. So we really work and resettle people in multiple countries. Okay. And so once you identify someone who needs to get out, they reach out to you, you start finalizing travel arrangements. I guess, how does the extraction work? Yeah.

So, you know, without getting into too many details for the safety of the individuals, what I'll tell you is that we work through all the logistics and pay for all the logistical travels. But it's really important, like in going back to the spirit of the Underground Railroad, we are facilitators for an individual's journey. People around the world, and I think the biggest symbol of this is the US-Mexico border, But people around the world make dangerous, often irregular pathways to try to claim the legal right to asylum all the time.

And it's usually really dangerous. And LGBTQ people are often targeted through those pathways and sometimes don't even get access to them because like trans people who can't move because their ID doesn't match their gender.

And so what Rainbow Railroad does is use our expertise to facilitate safe migration. We will continue our work every day to facilitate as much resources to them as possible. So even though it is dangerous, this is important work that needs to be done, essentially, is what you're saying. Even more important now that the law has been passed. We'll be back in a moment. Kamali, let's talk about how this new law came to be now. Why was it introduced? It's a great question. I think a couple of factors. One, there is a heavily resourced movement that includes Christian evangelicals out of the United States and other countries who are pouring huge amount of resources to essentially import homophobic sentiment into these countries, including Uganda. And so what you saw is a lot of groups coming into the country to influence

parliament. Can I ask you a little bit more about that? Like you mentioned like U.S. Christian evangelicals here. Why would U.S. groups want to change things in Uganda? Because up until recently, I think they viewed themselves as losing the battle at home. Now, the United States has regressed seriously in policy, as many people may have observed, with now hundreds of mostly anti-trans legislation happening in states. You know, but this was not the first time there's been an attempt. In 2009, the famous Kill the Gays Bill was attempted to be adopted, which would have imposed a death penalty then. And then in 2014, there was another attempt. I guess I'm still trying to understand, though, why Uganda? What does a group like this gain coming into another country and changing things

or influencing things in this way? It's not just Uganda. I think one of the biggest concerns is that this will spill over to other points of Africa. And, you know, it's not that surprising. And I think people know that they're losing, especially in high income countries like Canada, the United States, because there are protections for LGBTQ persons, because there's a right to marry that just got enshrined by law in the United States last year. That fight is lost. And so let's point to other countries. If America is failing, let's try to do it elsewhere. I've also read that these anti-gay laws in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa, as you mentioned, have its roots in colonialism.

Can you explain that connection? Theresa May famously, who is a former prime minister of the UK, made a famous apology a few years ago and apologized for the UK's role in importing anti-sodomy laws that were enacted in the Commonwealth. And so these laws are essentially a result of the former British Empire. Because these were laws on the book in Britain. And when they colonized many other countries, those countries kind of imported. They had the same law, essentially. Exactly. But those laws have since, of course, changed in the UK.

So I guess, you know, why have these things not changed in other countries when that change happened? They are changing. There is a large effort to decriminalize these laws all around the world. And again, I want people listening to understand that overall, the movement is winning. This past year, four countries decriminalized. That's the most amount in a single year ever. Famously, India decriminalized a few years ago. And that tide is turning. And so overall, we believe there's progress. It's been harder in the African continent. As we mentioned a bit earlier, Uganda is not the only country that has harsh anti-LGBTQI plus laws around the world.

Even just within the African continent, right? More than 30 countries have laws that criminalize homosexuality, including Uganda's neighbor, Kenya. So how does I guess how does that complicate the situation for people in Uganda? This is a great question. So how does, I guess, how does that complicate the situation for people in Uganda? This is a great question. And my answer hopefully will explain why Rainbow Railroad is necessary and why specific partnerships are important. Uganda actually receives refugees itself from, you know, the DRC or the Congo and regions coming into the country. And yet, LGBTI plus Ugandans flee to neighboring Kenya all the time when they can. If they're able to get into the country, Kenya will allow and consider

someone claiming refugee status based on their sexual orientation or gender identity or sex characteristics. But Kenya controls how the UN refugee agency can process those cases and is a country that also criminalizes same-sex intimacy. So what does that mean? Someone crosses into Kenya and tries to get into a refugee camp. They face a homophobic or transphobic security guard that won't let them register that day. Or if they're able to get into the camp, they are in the camp with people from the same country who are also homophobic and transphobic. So they get segregated to an area of the camp. Meanwhile, they're waiting. They're

waiting for years for a country to receive them. And so what Rainbow Railroad does in that context is say to government, we can identify and refer people who are stuck in this system, who are being persecuted for violence in these countries for resettlement. And we've been asking that request for the Canadian government for years. Yeah, I mean, those are pretty scary situations you're talking about, right? Where you're trying to get out of one difficult situation, you find yourself, you know, not that better off in another. So this is really where people are in need of something. Last Thursday, Kamali, June 8th, the Canadian federal government announced that it is going to partner with Rainbow Railroad

to help facilitate government-sponsored refugee resettlement. And this is the first time Rainbow Railroad is partnering with a government like this. So what could this mean for LGBTQI plus people in Uganda? It's the first time any government has partnered with an LGBTQI plus organization to directly refer individuals. And it's a game changer. It's really important. We have had individual precedents, individual, I mean mean like in country-specific circumstances like Chechnya or in Afghanistan. Most recently, after doing a lot of advocacy because of a request for help, the government agreed to allow us to identify people. But that becomes a reactive strategy. And so every time there's a crisis, we have to scramble to kind of convince governments to allow us to refer individuals. What this partnership allows us to do is have a certain amount of slots within the government assisted refugee program where we can identify people from different regions around the world who are highly vulnerable.

And so when a crisis hits, we know that given their vulnerability, we can refer them for resettlement into Canada. You mentioned before that there was a law earlier, 2014, right, that actually got overturned. Is there the possibility that this law might go the same way? That's the intent. For activists, this is just one stop of a long game for their freedom. So they can't stop and they won't stop their activism because this law is in the books and we'll do everything we can to support them.

But I think they really do believe that with continuous pressure and using the vagueness of the law in many areas that it could be overturned. Kamali, I want to end on a broad picture here because we've been talking about Uganda,

but of course, we're seeing reversals around the world on LGBTQI plus rights as well. In the US, as we of course, we're seeing reversals around the world on LGBTQI plus rights as well. In the U.S., as we mentioned earlier, right, we're seeing a number of bills targeting trans rights. Big corporations like Target have been removing Pride-themed products after anti-LGBTQI plus backlash. And here in Canada, even a Catholic school board decided this year not to raise the Pride flag outside of their education center. So this is not just an isolated thing, right? I guess, what does this all say to you about the moment that we're currently in when it comes to progress around these rights?

We will win. I still strongly believe that overall, especially with younger generations, the people who spoke up the most against that pride-raising flag situation were young students. Younger people are more inclusive than before. And yet this time is still scary because people in power know that. People in power know that and they're going to use what power they have

in this moment to try to adopt regressive policies. And so we have to be vigilant. LGBTQI plus rights are not guaranteed. We have to continuously fight for them. And, you know, continue to raise the alarm when our rights are threatened and have strategies to counteract the heavily resourced and determined people who are going to try to roll back rights while they still can. But again, they are losing and they know it, which is why there's a desperate attempt in these regressive policies. Kamali, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

Thanks for having me. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer,

and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.