Regardless of being vilified, threatened and humiliated in public, veteran Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom is decided to uphold the rights of gay individuals in her nation.
A human rights NGO that she runs, Redhac, was lately suspended by the federal government and he or she is because of seem earlier than investigators to reply accusations of cash laundering and funding terror teams – which she denies.
The 80-year-old says the authorities are obstructing her work and believes she is being focused due to her authorized advocacy with the LGBT neighborhood.
“I’ll at all times defend homosexuals as a result of they threat their freedom day by day, and they’re thrown into jail like canines,” she tells the BBC in a agency tone, talking in her workplace within the metropolis of Douala.
“My job is to defend individuals. I do not see why I might say I am defending everybody besides homosexuals.”
Wearing a black robe, Ms Nkom delivers her stark message in a measured voice that displays years of considerate authorized argument.
In line with the nation’s penal code, each women and men discovered responsible of gay intercourse may be sentenced to as much as 5 years in jail and made to pay a advantageous. Members of the LGBT neighborhood additionally face being ostracized by their households and wider society.
Consequently, Ms Nkom has been seen as a surrogate guardian to some in her nation who’ve been open about their sexuality with their household.
The authorized skilled has youngsters of her personal, however lots of, perhaps 1000’s, of others look as much as her as their protector following her work over greater than twenty years to defend these accused of homosexuality.
“She’s like our father and our mom. She’s the mom we discover when our households have deserted us,” says one LGBT activist, Sébastien, not his actual title.
Dedicated to the Common Declaration of Human Rights, which is included in Cameroon’s structure, Ms Nkom argues that freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation ought to be seen as a basic proper that supersedes the penal code.
“You should not jail basic rights, you should not repress them – you need to defend them,” she says.
It is a battle that has landed Ms Nkom in difficulties.
A memorial wall on the entrance to Alice Nkom’s NGO Adefho tells the tales of seven activists who’ve died previously twenty years [BBC]
She says she has been bodily threatened a number of instances on the street, and divulges that when she first began out on this space of regulation, she employed bodyguards to assist defend her.
However her journey to develop into certainly one of Cameroon’s most outspoken authorized figures started effectively earlier than that.
In 1969, aged 24, she grew to become the nation’s first black feminine lawyer, after learning in each France – the previous colonial energy – and Cameroon.
She says she was inspired to pursue her research by her then boyfriend, who later grew to become her husband.
Her earlier authorized work concerned representing the much less well-off and deprived nevertheless it was an opportunity encounter in 2003 that led her to develop into concerned within the combat to decriminalise homosexuality.
She was on the public prosecutor’s workplace in Douala when she noticed a gaggle of younger individuals handcuffed in pairs, who didn’t have the braveness to search for.
“Once I checked the courtroom docket, I realised that they had been being prosecuted for homosexuality,” she says.
‘Tried homosexuality’
This offended her sense of human rights and he or she was very clear that sexual minorities ought to be included amongst these whose rights had been protected by the structure.
“I made a decision to combat to make sure that this basic proper of freedom was revered,” Ms Nkom provides.
She went on to discovered the Affiliation for the Defence of Homosexuality (Adefho) in 2003.
Since then she has been concerned in dozens of circumstances. Some of the high-profile lately was her defence of transgender superstar Shakiro and a pal, Patricia, in 2021.
The 2 had been arrested whereas consuming in a restaurant after which charged with “tried homosexuality”.
They had been sentenced to 5 years for contravening the penal code and outraging public decency.
“It is a hammer blow. It is the utmost time period outlined within the regulation. The message is evident: homosexuals haven’t got a spot in Cameroon,” Ms Nkom was quoted as saying on the time.
Shakiro, together with Patricia, was later launched pending an enchantment and has since fled the nation.
Since then the state of affairs for LGBT individuals has not improved. LGBT activist Sébastien, who runs a charity to help households with gay youngsters, feels issues have gotten worse lately.
Final yr, a track based mostly on the favored mbolé rhythm with a title and lyrics that inspired individuals to focus on and kill homosexuals, was launched. It’s nonetheless being broadly shared, and is frequently performed within the trendiest locations within the nation’s main cities.
“Individuals assault us due to this track, which glorifies crime,” says Sébastien.
LGBT individuals have to cover their sexual identities however “some individuals set traps to get near us and assault us or report us to the police”, he says.
Final yr, the daughter of Cameroon’s president, Brenda Biya (L), shared this picture of her embracing Brazilian mannequin Layyons Valença [Brenda Biya/Instagram]
Ms Nkom says that when Brenda Biya, the daughter of President Paul Biya, got here out in public to say that she was a lesbian final yr, she thought it would assist to vary the regulation.
Ms Biya – who spends most of her time exterior Cameroon – has been quoted as saying she hoped that her openness could alter things at home.
Ms Nkom senses a possibility. “I am utilizing the Brenda case as a precedent. Now I’ve a case on which I can problem the president,” she says.
The lawyer additionally requested Ms Biya to do extra for the reason for the LGBT neighborhood in Cameroon.
“Brenda hasn’t replied to me but, since I made the assertion within the media, however I do know that she’s going to.”
For now, although, she’s going to proceed her authorized work.
She views the most recent try to limit her efforts as simply one other impediment – definitely not sufficient to make her cease the battle she has been waging since 2003.
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[Getty Images/BBC]
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