“I think I was always going to end up as an activist. I’ve always been interested in particular social, legal and economic issues and I’ve always seen myself working towards a future that I dream of.” Njeri Gateru is a human rights lawyer from Kenya who works on the intersection of law and queerness, as well as one of the founders of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC), an organisation that provides pro-bono legal support for any person who’s violated, attacked or discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Njeri has always worked in activist circles, previously working with the Red Cross in Kenya, the Human Rights Watch in New York, as well as with LGBTQI refugees in Nairobi. In 2012, Njeri joined the other co-founders of NGLHRC to “address this gap that existed on the issue of access to justice for queer people, as well as the issue of redress for queer people.” Talking more about why NGLHRC was founded, Njeri explains “Around that time we were seeing a lot of people being violated, attacked, and arrested arbitrarily, with no possibility for them to ever access justice or even go to court.”
NGLHRC are now directly bridging the gap between access to justice and LGBTQI rights in Kenya with their free legal clinic, providing LGBTQI individuals with pro-bono legal advice and helping them go through Kenya’s court system, seeing over 500 clients each year.
One of these clients is Sula, an LGBTQI refugee from Uganda who fled to Kenya in 2016. While staying at a shelter for refugees, Sula was targeted by another resident because of his sexuality, falsely accusing Sula of committing crimes. This meant Sula was arrested and taken to the Police. Sula was dehumanised by the Police including stripping him naked and racially abusing him, asking why “he brought this vice from Uganda to Kenya”. The Police then attempted to medically examine Sula including an anal examination to “prove” that he was homosexual.
Thanks to the legal training Sula received from NGLHRC, he knew that subjecting people to anal examinations without consent was illegal. NGLHRC lawyers represented Sula in court and were able to have the false charges thrown out.
And this is just one of the many ways in which NGLHRC have been supporting the LGBTQI community in Kenya. As well as their legal clinic, NGLHRC are working to advance the rights of LGBTQI people across the country. In the past ten years, NGLHRC have worked on three major cases, affording LGBTQI people in Kenya with more legal protections.
In 2018, NGLHRC was successful in getting forced anal examinations banned. Talking about the case, Njeri says “In Kenya, we saw examinations that were being used discriminatory to obtain evidence from people and use that evidence to charge them with homosexuality which is illegal in Kenya. People would be forced to undergo very intrusive examinations that have no basis in law. The process of obtaining those examinations was very undignifying which involved undressing in front of people, being probed with specific instruments that were quite unpleasant and outside of one’s consent.”
Another case NGLHRC worked on was their ten-year legal battle to allow for LGBTQI organisations to register in Kenya. “We received affirming judgments that said that queer people must be allowed to register organisations in Kenya and that we are within our right to do so, and that a refusal by the government to grant us registration was a violation of our rights.”
“We received affirming judgments that said that queer people must be allowed to register organisations in Kenya and that we are within our right to do so, and that a refusal by the government to grant us registration was a violation of our rights.”
The third case Njeri speaks about is their decriminalisation case in 2016, where they asked for the repeal of the sections of the law that criminalise same-sex sexuality in Kenya, which is punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment. “In our opinion, these sections of the law are discriminatory, they are applied in a discriminatory manner and are used to target LGBTQ people.” As well as being used to target LGBTQI people, Njeri explains that these sections of the law also work to block access to the rights of LGBTQI people, and work as the justification for violations against the LGBTQI community.
“So we applied to the court to strike these sections of the law out, stating that they are of no benefit to anyone, they are not protective of the society at all. Rather, they have become the crucifixion point of anyone who’s seen to be queer.”
Unfortunately, they lost the case in 2019, but have since applied for a repeal hoping to get this law overturned. And it is laws such as this which make life for LGBTQI people in Kenya so difficult.
Explaining what the situation for LGBTQI people is like in Kenya, Njeri says “There’s very specific organising and attitudes that are held from the religious front and the political front, which then informs the day-to-day understanding of queerness in Kenya and subsequently how contact with people who are seen as queer plays out.”
One example of how this plays out is when NGLHRC saw a lot of backlash last year following winning the right to register. “When we received the ruling from the Supreme Court, there was a large public conversation around what that ruling was and there was a huge conversation around the rights of queer people in Kenya. Because of that conversation, we saw a lot of backlash and subsequently a huge number of violations against LGBTQI people because of what the public sentiment was.”
Njeri later says “The state, the government who’s supposed to be the protector of all of its citizens, has shown no interest in holding itself to that task, in that people who violate LGBTQI people are rarely prosecuted, rarely arrested. And because of that, and maybe in addition to that, what we’ve seen is elected political officials go out of their way to incite violence against LGBTQI people with impunity.”
“There’s very specific organising and attitudes that are held from the religious front and the political front, which then informs the day-to-day understanding of queerness in Kenya and subsequently how contact with people who are seen as queer plays out.”
Njeri recalls one member of parliament who, on the floor of parliament, called for the killing of LGBTQI people. She also talks about another political leader, who effectively put a bounty on LGBTQI people, saying he would pay the equivalent of $500 to anyone who would send him videos of them violating and harassing LGBTQI people. And people did send videos. He then reshared these videos as well as posted screenshots of him sending money to people who were committing these crimes.
“To date, we have seen no action, and these are only two examples. I could probably list a hundred examples of the ways in which the leadership of the country has agitated for an increase in violations and has contributed to the pervasive homophobia that has been existing at the moment.”
With the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda, LGBTQI sentiment is spreading across East Africa. “I think around the time of the passing of the anti-homosexuality act in Uganda, we already saw the first version of the proposed anti-homosexuality bill in Kenya.” She goes on to say “It’s a ripple effect in the way the anti-rights movement and the anti-gender movement is organising. It’s learning from each other, and replacing or duplicating itself in different contexts. We’re now expecting in time the Anti-Homosexuality bill in Kenya, which is named the Family Protection Bill, right.”
The bill in Kenya could see a complete ban on homosexuality as well as criminalising engaging in LGBTQI advocacy. The minimum sentence for those in breach of the law is ten years. Talking more about the proposed bill in Kenya, Njeri said “The author of the bill, just before showing the first version, was in a conference in Uganda with other members of parliament who were discussing family protection bills and the protection of the natural family as acknowledged. So we are very conscious of the ways that they are learning and replicating the anti-gender, anti-queer sentiment across the region.”
Despite the odds, the community in Kenya Njeri states are “exceptionally resilient, gifted, and present. I’ve seen our community show up in so many different ways despite the tyrants that are against them.”
And this resilience is something that runs deep through NGLHRC. Njeri says “We do this work afraid, we wake up afraid and we do it afraid. I think we have learned to do it afraid because on the other side of fear lies the possibility of joy. On the other side of our fear lies the possibility of us making it out, not just making it out but thriving and being happy. So I fight for home, I will fight like hell for the possibility of joy, not just for me but for my community.”
Learn more about the work of NGLHRC here.