Note from one of FUST’s Ugandan conductors:
“I want to tell you that a tabloid newspaper is exposing LGBTIs both in the corporate and other local celebrities in Uganda. I got the papers yesterday.”
Gabi: “If you can translate we can share on our website.”
“It is in English. This exposure places LGBTIs in the corporate world to more danger just like the ones we have moved out .”
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A message on 05/04/15 from a Ugandan leader/conductor:
Believe me you, with or without a working anti-gay law Uganda isn’t home to the gays. The locals take the law in their own hands to ensure that no known Ugandan is alive or living in peace.
Many Ugandans think that if you are gay, you must be mental disturbed, evil, living with HIV/AIDS, a monster or a born criminal. The Ugandan government has done nothing to change the minds of people towards the gays. No wonder that several times when the gays are attacked, the law never takes its course. The gays have nowhere to run to in Uganda and all they can do is to flee the unforgiving treatment in Uganda.
If you are gay and open within Uganda, you must be living in the city, having enough security, well connected locally and internationally, traveled and exposed, protected and well-off. That way, you won’t be attacked because the Ugandan government knows that if you are attacked the International community will pass the blame onto the Ugandan government for failure to protect you but even still, you must know where to hang or live. Still you are not free, you can’t walk the streets freely or even getting a rental can be so hard. Uganda isn’t welcoming or a home to the gays.
It’s even so worse for our trans-brothers and sisters, a little mistake can expose them. Many trans people are living in hiding, can’t be free and every day they are at risk of being exposed, attacked and even killed. They live a life of total lack of access to opportunities.
That’s why when we opened our doors to help more transgenders flee, the number has been overwhelming. We have been having 38 transgenders on the waiting list in one month another 17 has begged and begged us to help them flee so they can start another life in another country.
We have 31 trans men and 24 trans women. It’s upon this background that am appealing to you to help us help our trans brothers and sisters flee.
Best regards
H
After they were in hiding for well over a month and the situation was getting more and more critical for them, a transporter agreed to allow this conductor a short-term debt in order to move these 55 transgender people across a border to another country where they would be aided in finding new home countries to begin new lives. So this conductor group in Uganda now owes the transporter $52 x 55 = $2,860.00, and there was already a debt of $1359.30 to him for others transported in emergencies. So they need us to raise $4,219.30 to pay off their debt.
Another conductor we work with – in another part of Uganda – has had 16 lesbian nursing students in hiding, and we are sending money to transport 4 of them today, leaving 12. So we need to raise $2,220.00 to transport them out of Uganda.
Make a donation (CLICK HERE) to help us raise this current need of $6,439.30, and please spread the word about this important work!
As you may have noticed, we changed our name to Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund. And in just over a year we have been in existence we have funded the cost of transporting 1065 people out of Uganda. Please support us to do more. The need is great.
Thank you!
“If anybody ignored the plight of the LGBTQ in Uganda, it could be a big mistake, in fact it will be like a crime against humanity. Every day I cry for the thousands of queers who are still stuck in Uganda and can’t leave. L, hope you are holding up good amidst challenges with almost no resources. Keep the faith and keep the hope.”
Meddie Mukasa in Burundi
“Are FNUR and the Quakers still helping? Those guys rock. I am forever grateful to them. I found new love and am enrolling for a course in Beauty and styling, you know my passion. I am sending out some pictures to show am still alive and that I made it safely from Kigali to Bujumbura.”
Please make a donation to support the work of the Ugandans who are helping people like Meddie Mukasa.
Thank you!
“Hey dude, tsup? Ope u r cool, i finally got a job, with a tel communication company. My immediate boss and all my workmates know that am a lesbian, nobody judges anybody here. They just don’t mind and expect the best from me when it comes to working. Am in customer care, sometimes am in the call center. Guys I can’t thank you enough. I know without FNUR and the loving Quakers, I could be long dead and maybe even forgotten. Shit was tight in Uganda, I remember everything and how we escaped in the dead of the night. I could like to share some of my recent pictures with you guys. See how happy I look. Am free and am making new friends. Since am a lesbian Uganda is no longer home”
– Shantal Mulembe
Please donate to Friends New Underground Railroad so we can fund other LGBTQ people like Shantal. Thank you!
Today (April 14th) is the one-year anniversary of the Friends New Underground Railroad.
Quite frankly, we are stunned. None of us – neither the conductors without whom this work is impossible – nor Olympia Friends Meeting, the sponsors of the Railroad, had any idea that the need would be this great, or that you would be so generous. We are thankful, and humbled, by what we have been able to do together.
The most recent passengers have one of the most harrowing tales to tell. Twenty-seven left a hiding place after having been mobbed, sexually abused, raped, and beaten. They had been there for almost three months, virtually without food, little water, and absolutely no medical care – and tremendously frightened. One of the conductors finally moved them, but it was found that six of them had developed health difficulties so severe that they couldn’t initially complete the journey. We are now pleased to report that, after many trials and tribulations, all six are now out of Uganda, and in a hospital where their care is being paid for by a very generous benefactor.
They were able to contact one of the conductors and are now in deep hiding. They are very scared. It’s going to cost us $2,960.00 to get them all out, way more than we currently have. The conductor will break them up into groups, and, if all goes well, get them out in groups of three or four, as funds become available.
Please consider giving us an anniversary gift. It is rare that you will get to potentially save the life of someone under such direct threat, so do it now. Even small donations mount up – as we’ve learned this year. Donate here.
And celebrate with us – you deserve it!
Gabi
I chatted with one of our conductors today. He wrote:
“I have 27 people to cross.
It is increasingly becoming dangerous.
The 27 people are Catholic students aged 20 to 35 from a seminary and a nun’s house.
They are 19 gay men, 4 lesbians, 1 transman and 3 transwomen.
“We are living in a small house.
One meal a day.
No lights.
No power.
And no Hope.
“So risky.
If there is a way u can help, please help. We need to get them out.”
Gabi:
“Did specific incidents or threats happen to them for them to run?”
Conductor:
“Mob justice before they connected with me.
Undressing the trans to check their genitals.
Rape attempts on the lesbians to cure them of lesbianism
Some have been assaulted physically.”
So we need to raise $1404.00 to move these 27 people in hiding out of danger.
We also have another conductor who has five lesbian college students hiding in another rural part of Uganda whom we need to move. This will cost an additional $925.00.
Please help us. Every donation – large and small – helps.
Donate here via PayPal:
And here for information about sending a check.
Thank you!
Gabi Clayton
FNUR project manager
March 19, 2015 | NTV
“Government used over Shs600 million to clear Uganda’s image in the US congressional caucus after the controversy raised by the endorsement of the anti-gay law.”
[fruitful_sep]And this one from last October that we hadn’t seen before:
October 19. 2015 | NTV | By AFP
“Uganda is probably the last place a gay holidaymaker would want to visit, but tourism bosses in the east African nation are nevertheless trying to achieve the seemingly impossible. …
“Selling Uganda to gays is one of several curious initiatives the Ugandan Tourism Board has come up with this year as it tries to counter a drop in tourism — a key earner for impoverished Uganda that accounts for 8.4 per cent of GDP.”
See: http://www.ntv.co.ug/news/lifestyle/01/oct/2014/tough-sell-marketing-uganda-gay-travellers
February 5, 2015 – African HRC Staff
Human Rights Chairman – ‘Homosexual Rights Are Not Human Rights’ Chris Smith
Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey, who currently serves as a senior member on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and is chairman of its “Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organization Subcommittee,” has come under fire for comments he made during a January 27th subcomittee hearing-
He boldly told the panel- “I am a strong believer in traditional marriage, and do not construe homosexual rights as human rights.” Smith made his comments before badgering a witness as to whether “the Obama administration has hindered U.S. aid to Nigeria by supporting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.”
Read more here: http://www.africanhrc.org/#!Shocking-Comments-by-Republican-Human-Rights-Chairman/c1bm0/54d3ab830cf27bee9f08e2c3