BUS 449 Post 15

Dear Reader,

This time I want to introduce you a very brave woman Alice Nkom. She is a lawyer form Cameroon who, despite numerous death threats, actively promotes gay rights and defends people accused of practicing homosexuality. (Cameroon is a country where same-sex relations are illegal and can cause a five-years imprisonment.)

On March 18 Nkom was awarded Amnesty International's Human Rights Award for 2014 for the work she has been doing defending men and women sitting in prison because of their sexual orientation. She described the award as a “prize of hope”. “This gives me a voice that can get heard everywhere,” she said.

“Being gay in Cameroon is like being in hell. Permanent jail, permanent harassment, permanent violence and discrimination. From your family to the workplace to everywhere. I wanted to add this human rights dimension to my work because I'm just like a mother. When you have two kids who are different and one of them is vulnerable, you have to take care. You have to love them. You have to help them.”

To give you an idea about the situation, here is an excerpt from Human Rights Watch report:

“Many gays in Cameroon are imprisoned for years on the basis of trivial evidence: a neighbour’s complaint, a brief text message, even an allegedly “feminine” taste in liqueurs. Some are arrested “solely on the basis of rumour”. Police often use torture or abuse to extract confessions from them.

Innocent people are framed, spied upon by neighbors, subjected to extortion and bribery, beaten by police and gendarme, humiliated with flawed anal examinations, raped in custody, disowned by parents as a result of arrest, and emotionally scarred by traumatic encounters with law enforcement – all in the name of justice.”

Alice Nkom is 69 years old, which it more than the retirement age but she actively works and represents jailed homosexuals. I truly wish we have more brave and dedicated people like Alice Nkom.