My name is Annah Watsemba, born in Uganda and a female 30 years old. I am the mother of my child boy Raymond Waboka.
Suspended for being in love.
I grew up in a big family with my stepmother. I started school at Magale Girls Primary School in Mbale district. My innocence never imagined that one day I would be suspended for being in love. In primary six, I had a very best friend called Recheal. She loved me so much that she requested me to sleep with her in one bed, which I did.
This is how I started being a lesbian. Later, the matron got to know about my relationship with Recheal. I got suspended for being in love and sent home. My father took me to another school called Bupoto Primary School, where I finished my primary level. In 2005, I joined secondary and fell in love with a friend who liked me most until other school children knew we were lesbian.
Forced into an unwanted marriage.
As a result, my father failed to pay my school fees. I dropped out of school, and from there, my parents hated me. In 2017, others forced me to get married to a witch doctor in our village. He even paid dowry in an attempt to remove that supposed curse from me. In that process, I got pregnant and had a baby boy.
In 2020 I was having sex with my husband’s adult daughter. My husband caught us red-handed. He made noise, and people gathered and started biting me. They undressed me and took me 3 kilometres to the LDU office (Local Defence Unit. Providing security for local villages). Under arrest, they held me for two days. My mother brought my son to me.
Two LDU officers raped me.
On the second day, two LDU officers raped me and, in the morning, took me to Lwakhakha, on the border of Kenya and Uganda with my son, and forced me to cross to Kenya. Suspended for being in love took on a whole new meaning.
Life for me and my son, Raymond, was a daily struggle in Kakuma Refugee Camp.
More so caring for and worrying about my son, who suffers from the effects of Typhoid. I felt like leaving the camp because of homophobia, constant hunger and a high degree of discrimination.
Late in 2023 I took the risk and left,, with my son, aiming for a UN camp in South Sudan. While it was and still is a dangerous country because of conflict, I had heard stories of LGBTQ folk being resettled in safe and friendly countries.
My friends and colleagues in Kakuma eventually followed, in small groups and not without a few scary situations. Gladly, they all arrived safely.
My best regards for reading what I share here. Thank you.
Annah Watsemba
