Through their eyes: Life as an LGBTI refugee and asylum seeker in South Africa

They left in search of sanctuary, of peace from the relentless discrimination in their home countries. Leaving behind family, friends and lovers, many LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers are trying to make a home in South Africa, a country with some of the most progressive anti-discrimination laws on the African continent. Often, however, LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers find themselves facing new threats stemming from widespread homophobia and xenophobia.

Below are three of their stories, told through their own words and experiences. These personal tales illuminate how xenophobic and homophobic discrimination spirals together to disenfranchise and oppress. The narratives are creatively adapted from interviews originally done for a report on the economic injustice faced by LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers by the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty, a South African nonprofit that advocates for refugees and asylum seekers.

All names have been changed for security purposes.

TABIA

‘I’ve been raped, assaulted and threatened since I received asylum in South Africa. When I first got here, I saw how my openly gay and lesbian friends were treated terribly in the street, so I decided to change the way I look and dress. When I started being myself, all the problems started.

‘People call me ‘kwere kwere’ [a derogatory word for foreigners in South Africa"> in the streets. They threaten to beat me up for ‘taking their girlfriends.’ One time, two men followed me and a friend out of a bar and beat us up. ‘You’re stealing all our women,’ they yelled while punching me. ‘We’ll show you how to be a real woman!’

‘Another time, four men attacked me and the three female friends I was with. After beating me until I was bloody, one of the men dragged me to a dark alley and raped me until I almost passed out from the pain. He left me there to die. When I reported this incident, the police made fun of me and asked me why I was outside at night. They never found the attackers.

‘Avoiding attackers and dangerous areas is especially hard because I’ve never had a formal job. People won’t hire me because I’m a refugee. And if they do, they want to pay me unfair wages that are below what other workers make. Sometimes, when I find work, the harassment is unbearable. But when I work on my own selling CDs or cleaning houses, I can’t make ends meet. That’s why I have to live with three other people in one room right now. I often can’t have guests over and my neighbors gossip about my roommates and me all the time. But if I don’t live here, then I’ll be homeless. I’ve been homeless for days and weeks before, and almost anything is better than being out on the dangerous streets, vulnerable to attacks.

‘The law is in our favor in South Africa, but the reality is one big disappointment. The discrimination really takes its toll – you begin to feel small and disinterested. Maybe it’s useless to keep pushing for our rights because we never get what we are fighting for anyways. You never know what will happen tomorrow.’

JEREMY

‘I had opened my own grocery store, and it seemed like everything was going to be okay. After being called ‘kwere kwere’ constantly at my old job and where I lived, I finally had a successful business and an established home. All this changed when some people in my community discovered that I am gay. They burned down my shop while I was sleeping inside, and I barely escaped with my life. In one night, I lost everything—all my money, my belongings and my refugee status documents.

‘Since I fled to South Africa, I’ve realized that staying in one place for too long can be dangerous, especially if you are openly gay or HIV positive. If I want to survive, I have to constantly move around, hide who I am, and avoid immigrants from my home country who are extremely homophobic

‘After I lost my shop, I had to move to Cape Town to escape discrimination. I was able to find a job in another grocery store, but when my boss found out my real name and realized that I was gay, I was immediately fired. I was able to keep my next job in an Indian restaurant by hiding my homosexuality and HIV status from my boss. But after a while, I felt like I was living a lie. I had to come out, and when I did, my boss fired me because of my HIV status.

‘Thankfully, I’ve now found a stable job in a restaurant that accepts me for who I am. But I still have to constantly be on guard – I can’t go certain places and associate with certain groups. There really is no reprieve from fear and harassment here.’

FATOUMATA

‘When I came out of the closet to my family, my mother tried to kill me. That’s when I knew I had to leave my home country. I was living with my girlfriend at the time, and we had to sell everything to afford our plane tickets to Cape Town, South Africa. We knew that homosexuality is legal in South Africa; that’s why we fled here. We thought we’d be safe from discrimination. Before we even reached Cape Town though, we realized that we had misjudged this country.

‘Our flight had a layover in Johannesburg and we stayed overnight in the airport. While there, people hurled rude insults and dirty looks at my girlfriend and me. Since we’ve been in Cape Town, it has only become worse. In the streets, we’re threatened. At restaurants, we’re harassed. At the shelter where we stay, we’re menaced. Nowhere is safe and sometimes, it feels like no one can be trusted.

‘What’s worse is that we have been having a lot of trouble gaining asylum status in South Africa because the Department of Home Affairs has stopped taking new asylum applications. Without it, many employers won’t hire us. When I send out my CV, I usually get many responses because I have a lot of work experience and attended university in my home country. But because of my sexual orientation or lack of working papers, I never get the job. I always become hopeful and am constantly let down. I’ve had about seven interviews and none of them have led to anything. Two employers refused me jobs because I didn’t have work permits. A few other employers interviewed me over the phone and asked me to come in for in-person interviews. As soon as they saw me and the way I look, they didn’t ask for any of my information or documents. The job was suddenly unavailable. At the few jobs I have been able to get, I was underpaid or never paid at all. And employers have insulted me for both my sexuality and my refugee status, saying that both those things are the reason why ‘we’ cannot hold down jobs.

‘Since my partner and I are jobless, we cannot move out of the homeless shelter. We are stuck living without privacy and with thieves who constantly steal our precious few belongings. We have no space to call our own. Rather, racist South Africans and immigrants alike call us racist and homophobic slurs and constantly threaten to have us deported.

‘As much as I don’t want to return to my home country, I’m not sure if there would be a difference in our lives if we were deported. Back home, my family and my community deserted me, and I had no opportunities. In South Africa, there’s no safety, no job security and no place to call home.’

* Elizabeth Gyori is a Program Officer at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School.

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