What's the context? Lailah was kicked out of her Uganda home after coming out. It would take another 17 years to reach somewhere safe to be who she is
I came out as a queer person in 2007. My father chased me away. He said he never wanted to see me again. I was nine days away from turning 17.
I started living on the streets of Kampala in October 2007 until my auntie took me in. A few months later in January 2008, friends of hers, a Muslim family, were looking for a wife for their son. I was a beautiful young girl, and I was just given to them. That's how I got married -- rejected by my family and just given away.
But the good thing was that the person whom I was given to, the person who became the father of my children, had a good job in Abu Dhabi. He would just come for one month each year, but he was supportive financially. I gave birth to my firstborn in 2008, after I had just turned 18.
In 2018, he came home on vacation, and three days before his departure back to work, we had our evening tea while watching TV. I went to the kitchen, and when I came back, I found him lying lifelessly on the couch.
I took him to the hospital with the help of neighbours, and there medical staff told me he was dead. He died out of the blue -- he was never sick.
His family took his body from Kampala to their village in eastern Uganda. My kids were still young then, 9- and 3-years-old with the youngest being only 3-months-old.
My father-in-law blamed me for the death of his son, and I didn't have any access to my late husband's assets, because they were all purchased in my father-in-law's name. Then a friend of my late husband told me that my father-in-law paid him to burn my home down with me and my children in it.
I grabbed my children along with one suitcase and one bag. We left Kampala that day, spending the night at a friend's home in Mbale, about 200 kilometres northeast towards the Kenyan border. Around 2 a.m. that night, neighbors from Kampala were calling me, saying: "Lailah, are you in there? Your house is on fire."
The friend I was staying with advised me to go to Kenya, telling me a queer friend who went with his son was able to get help from the UNHCR.
I took the bus with my children to Nairobi and, after a few days, registered with the UNHCR. That's when they sent me back towards the Ugandan border, to Kakuma refugee camp.
I was told the children could go to school there, that we would have food and shelter. I had high expectations for the camp, but when I got there, it was the very opposite of what I had in mind.
I stayed at Kakuma for five years, but I never got asylum status. We started advocacy as a group of LGBTQ+ refugees in 2020 because of escalating attacks, including assault and our shelters being set on fire.
My children were discriminated against at school -- other children wouldn't play with them. They would often wake up from nightmares. I moved back to Nairobi, but I wasn't legally allowed to work without any official status.
I had the chance to take the children to school through the help of an international lesbian community. The group has supported me since 2020, helping with food and, later, with rent in Nairobi.
I started my relocation plans to Canada in December 2023. By then, I had the feeling LGBTQ+ asylum cases were not being worked on in Kenya. Many refugees started leaving Kakuma to try their luck in South Sudan, a much more dangerous place to be, but there were rumours that processing was being expedited.
Frontline Defenders, a group that helps human rights advocates, supported my paperwork and sent it to the government of Canada for review. Ten months later, I received the letter I had been waiting for -- by October 2024, I had relocated to Vancouver, Canada.
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Currently, I work as a volunteer at a school and women's shelter as I prepare to pursue a diploma in women's studies starting this summer.
Looking at my children, they are at peace. They have settled in well and enjoy their schools. What gives me hope is that the new environment is helping them heal from the trauma they endured for all those years we were in Kenya. My firstborn told me that he would never go back to Africa.
I hope to get a job after earning my diploma, and I know it will happen. My dream is to work with women experiencing different kinds of violence, because I want to help them, just as I was helped.
This story is part of a series supported by Hivos's Free To Be Me programme.
As told to Jackson Okata by Lailah, who did not feel safe using her real name.
(Reporting by Jackson Okata; Edited by Ayla Jean Yackley and Sadiya Ansari)
