War on Women, UK Edition
Your caring, sharing, equal opportunity New Labour in action:
“A young lesbian who fled Uganda after her Muslim father threatened to kill her is being deported back home tonight, despite facing persecution and a jail sentence of up to seven years because of her sexuality.
Faridah Kenyini, 20, arrived in Britain in 2004, aged 17. At an earlier asylum hearing, the judge questioned her sexuality, implying that she was too young to be aware of her sexual orientation. Since moving to Newcastle, at the behest of social services, Ms Kenyini has been in a settled relationship with Sarah Garanette, 25, a security officer and British citizen.
Sarah has offered to return to Uganda with Faridah and apply for a fiancee visa from there for a UK civil partnership, dangerous for them both and fraught with difficulty given strained diplomatic relations. Ms Garanette says that she’s “petrified” at the prospect.
The couple play an active part in the lesbian and gay community in Newcastle and have widespread support from community groups and students. Local playwright Kathleen McCleary and actress Miriam Margoyles are backing the campaign for Ms Kenyini to stay.
Ms Margoyles said: “In this country, we say we have the freedom to be who we are, but do we?”
Uganda has a well documented record of persecuting homosexuals. Section 140 of its penal code criminalises “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” and the offence carries a maximum seven-year prison sentence. The country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, once proposed the arrest of all homosexuals, though he subsequently modified his position and called for a return to days when “these few individuals were either ignored or speared by their parents”.
In August, the Ugandan tabloid, Red Pepper, published the names and workplaces of alleged homosexuals, aimed at “showing the nation how fast the terrible vice of sodomy is eating up our society”. The legislation banning same sex relations was inherited from British colonial rule.
Speaking from Yarls Wood” [immigration dettention centre] “yesterday, Ms Kenyini said that said that she was doing very well at college in Newcastle before she was arrested and that her aim was to qualify as a nurse. She said that none of her family in Kampala would help her and that she regarded her partner in Newcastle as her only relative.
“I am afraid that my removal documents will have details about my sexuality and that I will be handed over to the police and abused,” she said.
Faridah is due to be deported tonight – please let the minister know what you think of such an anachronistic barbarism.
UK Immigration Minister Liam Byrne:
Private Office to Liam Byrne. Telephone: 020 7035 0195; Fax: 0870 336 9034; Email: liam.byrne.submissions@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk …
Contact other Home Offfice Ministers, inc Home Secretary John Reid
Read more: UK, Uganda, Homophobia, Immigration, GLBT, Lesbian, Women, Partner’s rights
