Leymah Gbowee

In our previous articles we talked about the conditions of the LGBTQ+ community in Kenya and the human rights violations taking place inside the Kakuma refugee camp. We then took up the testimony of J, the first case in our in-depth look at human rights violations within Kakuma, and the testimony of A, a lesbian female guest at Kakuma. Continuing, then, the investigation that Large Movements APS is conducting together with International Support Human Rights, in this article we will analyze the specific situation of G., the fictitious name of an LGBTQ+ boy from Kakuma with whom we had the opportunity to speak. As reported in previous cases, G. also stated that he left his home country as a result of the various assaults he suffered because of his sexuality and sought refuge in neighboring Kenya. The hope of being able to live away from the fear and violence he suffered in what he once called “home” was his compass that guided him along his journey, but life in Kakuma turned out to be far more terrible than he could have imagined. The short stay in Kakuma G. is a Ugandan citizen. He fled his country when life in his homeland had become unbearable after several assaults he suffered because of his sexuality. He arrived in Kakuma in April 2020 and left a year later, in April 2021, when living conditions inside the camp had become very risky, having experienced numerous violent attacks, along with the entire LGBTQ+ community in Kakuma: he was almost set on fire in May 2020 and they tried to poison him twice. It is therefore not surprising that G. describes the conditions inside the Kakuma camp as “horrible.” Police and UNHCR staff negligence G. said he reported to the police and UNHCR staff each time he was subjected to an assault. However, all the emails he wrote were ignored to the point that in April 2021 he was forced to flee for his life after surviving yet another assault.He also told us that upon his arrival he was chosen as the spokesperson for LGBTQ+ people in Kakuma. And it is because of this close contact he has with other people inside the camp that he can assure us that every queer person he knows has experienced the same neglect from the authorities and UNHCR staff. Intimidation, threats, and arbitrary detentions are means often used to oppress the LGBTQ+ community in Kakuma and force them into silence, so much so that G. states that many UNHCR reports from Kenya share information and data that are not at all reliable or close to the truth of the camp, because such information is the result of the use of force on LGBTQ+ refugees, confirming that Kakuma is not a safe place for queer people and that they need and deserve international protection and to be relocated as soon as possible. The questionability of the management of relocations The management of relocations is also questionable. Relocations are so important to LGBTQ+ people in Kakuma because, first and foremost, they give them hope. Hope to live and love freely, to be the person they are, and to become productive members of society. Above all, relocation means freedom and security for G. and those in Kakuma who still live in fear, unable to move freely even when attacked. Although G. never applied for it, as according to him a relocation was implicit in his asylum application, since Kenya is a hostile country for queer people, he told us how the relocation situation was handled while he was in the camp: at first, UNHCR told them that there were only a few available resettlement places and that they were not able to relocate everyone. Then, under the pretext of the health emergency from Covid-19, they delayed the relocations but since the outbreak of the pandemic, the relocations have not happened yet. In addition, the relocations have been used as a weapon by the Kenyan government and sometimes UNHCR staff against the most active and vocal members of the LGBTQ+ community who sought to expose the violations taking place in the camp. Essentially, those who tried to report the very serious conduct in Kakuma, such as G., were threatened that they would never be transferred. In June 2021, after the death of 22-year-old activist Chriton Atuhwera in Kakuma camp two months earlier, G. and LGBTQ+ people inside the camp launched a petition to UNHCR demanding protection and to be transferred. UNHCR officials responded with intimidation to those who wanted to join the petition, saying they would be returned if they signed. “It’s not just about keeping quiet, but they have been proactive in silencing the LGBTQ community,” G. said on the matter. If you liked the article, share it!

Climate and environmental migrations are a phenomenon discussed at the various environmental forums. However, each context brings with it differences in causes and consequences. In the meantime, a response on both fronts is becoming gradually urgent, while at the international level there are increasing difficulties in reaching agreement. Environmental and climate migrations Climate migration in Africa is an increasingly central topic in migration debate. As early as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations’ scientific forum for studying global warming and its effects, noted that the greatest impact could be on human migration. Therefore, it is necessary to remember the subtle difference between environmental migration, due to direct human action (e.g. caused by environmental damage such as oil spills), and climate migration: migration caused by the meteorological impact of climate change. To clarify, it should be recalled that the scientific community has long recognised the anthropogenic origin of climate change. However, it should be specified that it is not easy to distinguish between the two types of migration and they often move in parallel, adding up in their effects on human mobility. At the same time, the meteorological impact of climate change can be divided into two distinct migration factors: climatic processes and non-climatic factors. To the one hand, climate processes include phenomena such as rising sea levels, salinisation of agricultural land, salinisation of water and soil, desertification and increasing water scarcity, as well as climatic events such as floods and irregularities (as well as violence) in rainfall. To the other hand, non-climatic factors are political instability, population growth or community resilience to natural disasters. Finally, all these factors contribute to the degree of vulnerability that people and societies experience. Rainfalls’ effects in Africa and climate migration With regard to climatic migrations in Africa, an increasing irregularity of rainfall is observed in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas. Certainly, this leads to an increasingly unpredictable start and early end of the rainy season, prolonged phases of seasonal drought, and more intense rainfall. In addition, the trend seems to be towards a reduction in the general level of rainfall and an increase in occasional heavy rainfall. This means increasing difficulties for agricultural systems dependent on rainfall for irrigation. Consequently, these dynamics pose a persistent threat to food security as they result in the loss of large crops and staple foods such as maize and millet. In addition, changes in rainfall are accompanied by flooding, river overflows and flooding caused by cyclone activity in coastal areas. In Africa, from the point of view of climate migration, we have different effects depending on the area affected. On the highlands of East Africa, floods destroy settlements and agricultural fields, often forcing farmers to abandon their cultivated areas. In the lowlands, river floods and large-scale flooding mainly affect livestock farmers operating in arid and semi-arid areas, threatening also urban workers. In southern Africa, land near large river basins and coastal areas (particularly in southeastern Africa and Madagascar) are affected by high intensity flooding, triggering temporary or permanent migration. In conclusion, it must be said that the high dependence on agriculture and livestock forces small-scale farmers and pastoral communities to diversify their sources of income. This leads to an increase in circular and seasonal migration flows within the African continent, which represents a fundamental adaptation and resilience strategy. Climate Migration and forms of mobility within Africa In Africa we can see rural-urban and rural-rural circular labour mobility flows that are a common reaction in all regions of the continent. In this case we speak about ‘migration as adaptation’ to climate change. Often, individuals migrate for a certain period of time in order to earn money and employ it to mitigate the difficulties of their households. However, it must be remembered that there are the so-called ‘trapped populations’, i.e. those many households that are affected by the consequences of climate change but do not have enough resources to move. In addition, there is no ‘automaticity’ to displacement because of labour exploitation, unavailability of employment. Hence, harsh living and working conditions for migrants sometimes weaken the positive potential of migration. The most mobile communities in terms of climate migration are pastoral and semi-pastoral communities. Firstly, these are forced to move or temporarily relocate due to drought. Secondly, such displacements can take two different forms: processes of local sedentarisation or migration to urban contexts. Both of these two forms can have negative implications. For instance, communities often settle along rivers to allow livestock to drink and thus increase their vulnerability to flooding. Meanwhile, migration to urban contexts often leads newcomers to live in the slums of mega-cities. Here, in addition to the sanitation problems they may face, they may be subject to increasing violence. Environmental and political risks While environmental changes and their potential consequences are the key agents of climate migration, they are also linked to political, social, economic and cultural factors. In other words, the risk of climate migration is particularly serious in the presence of a generally unstable socio-political framework and prolonged armed conflicts. Let’s take an example of a fragile context with water scarcity caused by drought. In this case we are in a context with limited access to resources. First, we may have an increased likelihood of conflict over access to water between farmers and herders. Secondly, the materialisation of conflict or resource scarcity itself may lead to climate migration. Thirdly, the element of terrorism should not be overlooked. Africa is the continent that suffers most from the violence of terrorism. Often the choice to pick up a gun and serve the cause of a terrorist group is linked to a kind of law of the strongest: ‘I have the weapons, I can grab that resource’. Often the resource we are talking about is water, other times it may be the very management of a portion of territory. So, the choice of affiliation to a terrorist group is always more tied to the capacity

We often hear about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as in South Sudan, or the continuing violence and reprisals in the Central African Republic. However, we know very little about the people fleeing these conflicts, the refugees, their conditions, and especially about the plight of women fleeing to save both their lives and their families. This is why today we would like to emphasise a part that is often overlooked in conflict narratives: the people who are driven to flee from these contexts and who in the vast majority of cases, contrary to what is often falsely claimed, remain in Africa by seeking asylum in neighbouring states and do not choose to make the very dangerous journey to Europe. One of the African countries hosting a large number of people on the run is Uganda. Today we would like to talk about this with Maëlle Noir, an Irish Research Council PhD scholar at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway. Her PhD research addresses the question of gender-based violence against women refugees through an intersectional and decolonial feminist perspective, exploring the relevance of feminist lawyering as an alternative approach to legal practice in the Ugandan urban refugee setting. Maëlle has extensive experience in advocacy and community research as she has been working for the past five years with several national and local civil society organisations in India, Ireland, France and Uganda.  She is also a part-time research assistant in a European Union Horizon project on democracy and policy, collaborating with researchers in Slovakia, Austria, Italy and Ireland. Hello, Maëlle, it is a pleasure to have you here with us. Firstly, I would like to ask you about the refugee population reaching Uganda, which are the main nationalities asking for asylum in Uganda, What is the procedure to apply for asylum in the country and where are refugees hosted? It is important to start by stating that over 1.5 million refugees reside in Uganda which makes it the first-largest refugee population in Africa and the fourth-largest in the world. This can be explained by Uganda’s geographical location, at the crossroad of several conflict zones with neighbouring countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundi, Eritrea, Rwanda, etc. Uganda also has a long ‘open door policy’ history which is financially and politically sustained by the Global North which supports the State in welcoming refugees fleeing conflict and prosecution. With regards to nationality, South Sudan, the DRC and Somalia are refugees’ predominant countries of origin in Uganda as they respectively constitute 57.1%, 32% and 4.1% of the total refugee population. However, when it comes to urban refugees, usually located in the capital city of Kampala, in the Southern part of the country, these are mainly Somali, Congolese, Eritrean, South Sudanese, Burundian and Ethiopian. The Ugandan Refugee Act 2006 expands the definition of a refugee provided in the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1969 Organisation of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa by including a gender ground. As such, anybody who is outside of their country of origin, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order and has a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, political opinion or gender may be granted a refugee status. The procedure to seek asylum in Uganda varies depending on if the asylum seeker wishes to settle in a settlement (which is oftentimes granted based on prima facie or ‘automatic’ refugee status. Therefore, groups of people that come from a state UNHCR has recognised as meeting the objective requirements for refugee status. For these individuals, it should be easier and faster to obtain status because the burden of proof of the situation in the country of origin is completely non-existent. Inverted commas have intentionally been left on the term ‘automatic’, however, because in reality this presumption is almost never applied) or in the city (non-prima facie refugee, precisely, individuals not belonging to the ‘automatic’ mode) but in both cases, it remains relatively straightforward. For ‘automatic’ refugee status, asylum seekers who reach the border are transferred to one of the numerous reception centres upcountry for a short interview with an agent of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) before registration and obtention of the refugee status. This process takes between a few days and a maximum of a couple of weeks except if there is a particularly important influx of refugees. It is more difficult to obtain ‘non-automatic’ refugee status, especially to be able to settle in a city. The asylum seeker must register with OPM and go through a series of several interviewees before different stakeholders including a police officer, and an OPM reviewing status officer followed by a final case examination by the Refugee Eligibility Committee. According to UNHCR, around 87.5% of the refugee status applications were successful in 2022. By way of comparison, in 2022 in Italy, over 80% of asylum seekers were denied refugee status. Talking about Ugandan Refugee Camps, what are the reception conditions in the camps? Uganda is often praised by the international community as well as international media for its exemplary welcoming conditions which foster a ‘safe haven’ or even a ‘paradise’ for refugees. Indeed, on paper and in conformity with the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, asylum seekers who have secured their refugee status are automatically provided with a plot of land to cultivate, access to free education and health care as well as the right to work and freedom of movement. However, we know that theory usually drastically differs from practice and it is the case in the Uganda refugee context as well. The supposedly progressive non-encampment policy promoted by the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework is not very well implemented as freedom of movement remains conditioned to the obtention of a permit delivered by OPM and UNHCR. In the settlement, the monlthy allowance currently amounts to 13.000 Uganda