 Before we start with the interview, I will walk you through a short history of human rights according to gay people globally and it will be more or less an optimistic story and I think some of you are more gloomy about the fate of people from the LGBT community but I think we should put the whole story tonight in a certain context. Well, it's about this, let me, is the pointer on? Oh yeah, this is the one. All right, of course we'll talk about Nigeria, we'll talk about the problems there and there are a lot of problems and Dima will talk about it in a very extended way but when we are here in Europe, I think the first time that someone spoke out in favor of people who are gay, or actually in favor of all the sexual identities, it was Jeremy Bentham, I don't know whether you came across Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher from the United Kingdom and this is Bentham, when he passed away they dissected his body and his skeleton was put in a cupboard and they made a face of wax but his real face is just between his feet so it was a very extraordinary guy, one of the first defenders of animal rights and even of gay rights and his idea was this, of all pleasures Bentham told us, sex is the most universal, the most accessible, the most intense and the most abundant, nothing is more conducive to happiness than sex. Well, because of that, because sex is so important in our lives, a comprehensive freedom for all forms of sexual gratification would therefore be a huge, elastic benefit to humanity. Consenting adults should therefore be given the freedom to do what they want with their own bodies and it's not only from men to women or the other way around, but all the individuals. So he was a very, very early proponent of what we call today gay rights and of course the name gay rights was not there at that time. Jeremy Bentham, he was in the midst of the Enlightenment and it started in the Enlightenment and here you see these are the numbers of countries where homosexuality is legal or is decriminalized through the last two centuries. It started by the end of the 18th century and today it's about 130 countries where homosexuality is not a problem anymore. People can behave like they want to behave, whether they are hetero or homosexual. Then another personality was very important was a certain Magnus Hirschfeld. This Hirschfeld, he was a German and he started a society aimed to liberate gay people in Germany. And of course that was a big problem at that time, by the end of the 19th century. Hirschfeld, he was a Jew, he was gay of course, not of course, but he was gay and he had a society, but in the end he had to flee Germany because of the Nazi regime. He was the first doctor in 1930 who did surgery on a person who wanted to transform himself into a lady man. Hirschfeld then, but Hirschfeld and Jeremy Bentham were still within the academic environment. The first people who came out openly in Europe at least for their sexual identity that was not the common one but a gay identity, the first one was Josephine Baker. And she, of course, you know her as an erotic dancer in Paris, but she was a very, very fierce gay rights activist. She was openly bisexual and of course she was a human rights defender. She was engaging with Martin Luther King and walking with him in the 1960s in the southern states of America to defend human rights. And now she's an icon in the French tradition. She's even, her coffin is in the Pantheon, the big place where all the big philosophers and people from the icon people from the French Enlightenment tradition are there. Then Marsha Johnson, she's the last one born as Malcolm Michael and she became the first one who really identified herself as a dry queen and as a transgender person. And very, very famous in the environment of Andy Warhol, that artist in New York at that time, and open to the public about her sexual identity. Well, these are a few personalities, but all of them, they were very open about it, but none of them were allowed to marry the one they loved, not a bisexual one, not a gay one, not a transgender one. And the first time that there was a gay marriage is, as you know, it was here in the Netherlands in 2000. And now one of the most optimistic graphics here. So the first marriage in 2000 in the Netherlands that people could marry whoever they wanted. So it's not gay marriage, but it's marriage for everyone actually. And today there are 34 countries, I think, where the gay marriage or marriage for everyone is allowed. And every year one or two countries are added to this amount. So if you look to the number of countries where gay marriage homosexual is legal and it's illegal, then the majority of the countries, homosexual is legal and even the majority of the countries, will be, I think in the near future, will be allowing everyone to marry the one who he or she wants. But now the number of people living in the country where same sex marriage is legal is only few. Because a lot of countries now talk about more than 30 where homosexual marriages are common or legal, but big countries like China and India is not legal at the moment. So the majority of people are still living outside a place where they can marry or even where they can be open about their homosexuality. This is the map. Now you see that in the Americas, the blue countries, same sex marriage, marriage for all is legal, it's common, there's no problem anymore, same for Australia, South Africa and Europe. But then the more orange ones, there are a lot of problems. And of course, the biggest problem are here in the Middle East where people are hanged or tortured because of their sexual identity. Well, but there is one at the moment. As we speak, there is a court case in India, 1.4 billion people. Court case about should we allow same sex marriage or should we allow marriage for everyone? It's still there. It's not finished. But if India will go in the right direction, at least I think that's for you and for me the right direction, and they will allow the same sex marriage at that time. The majority of people all over the world will be in a country where homosexuality is not a problem anymore. So that's my optimistic view. And again, this is the story of a lot of countries who are not that far. And now I want to talk to Nadima from Nigeria about how it is to be an LGBT activist in Nigeria. Give her a round of applause, Nadima. Yes. Nadima, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the legal status for gay people? Pessimistic. Wait, I have to put on your microphone. Let me go to your buttocks. And there is a button somewhere. And I will put that button and now it's getting green, but now I have to put it back. Oh, yes. That's very interesting for a YouTube movie. I do it like this. People think, what is he doing? Okay. Okay. You're very pessimistic. Thank you. Yes. You're welcome. I am really very pessimistic. Why? This is because other than the fact that Nigeria is an African country, Nigeria... You're pessimistic about Nigeria? Yes. Very. Oh, Nigeria. Okay. Nigeria and gay rights. Yes. I'm very intrigued by your introduction and the fact that you mentioned all these countries where gay rights are becoming more acceptable, more legalized, and it got me really thinking about how far back my country is right now with the rights of people who identify differently. And so I am not going to sit here and say that I am optimistic personally. I am not. Because of a whole lot of circumstances, we have the colonial inherited laws that we inherited from... The British. The British. Yeah. And these laws, they are still there. We still use them today. And parts of the criminal codes of the law has criminalized what it terms on natural sex and now sex. And this is what the Nigerian government and majority of the Nigerian people see as gay sex. And then we also have cultural barriers, which... Let us elaborate a bit on that heritage from the British before we continue. The British, they got rid of this legal problem. But why is it still there in Nigeria? You are not colonized anymore? Yes, we are not. We are not colonized anymore. But I think one of the things that majority of African governments love to do is they love to have a system, an environment that hinders people, that ensures that people do not reach their full potential, whether in health, in wealth, or however else you want to see it. And one of the ways that is very easy for them to achieve it is to ensure that they continue to keep these colonial inherited laws that we have. They are not interested in putting in place laws that eradicate those laws. Because if they do that, it also means that they have to start making new laws completely. Like they did in South Africa. Yes, like they did in South Africa. Although we have our own indigenous laws, but these are laws that are bettered from what the colonial masters left for us. So I think our government still see us as an appendage of the British, even though we are no longer colonized by them, we are still historically tied to them. And one of the ways we show this is to keep those laws that we have inherited from them. That's right. Okay, that's one. Then the cultural barriers. The cultural barriers. This cuts across, because Nigeria is a country where we have over 550 languages. That tells you the number of ethnic groups that we have in the country. That tells you the number of different customs that we have in the country. And all of these customs are being used now to suppress gay rights. Because they tell you, oh, our customs forbids it, or our forefathers did not do it. So why are you doing it? But then again, it's a fallacy. Because as activists, we have also started to trace our history and go back in time to see what is happening, and which is also currently happening, our given instance. We have cultures where a woman can marry a woman. But the argument has always been, oh yes, a woman can marry a woman, but in the context that the woman who is married or the woman is not able to give birth to her own child. So she has to marry another woman so that that woman can bet children for her. But we ask the question, if this is allowed in the culture for a woman to be able to marry a woman under the pretense that she needs to have children from this other woman, what do you know they do behind closed doors? But that's a question for another day. Yes. So that's the cultural barriers that we have. And some of these barriers, cultures and norms are also taken from religion. So with the introduction of both religion into the country, Islam, Christianity, most of our cultures started picking the tenants and it became part of our system. So much so that in majorly the northern part of Nigeria, we have the Sharia legal system in place. It's one of the legislations that governs northern Nigeria. And even though the Sharia legal system is a religion, it's better from the religion, the laws itself has become a part of the cultural living of the not. You cannot be in the not and not experience the Sharia legal system in one form or the other. And it doesn't come only as a religion, it also comes in customs. And there are so many things that people do now and it pointed back to what is in the religion. But they relate it to the culture. That's right. But in Nigeria, I think there is a law for everyone, just a federal law or whatever. Is it possible to have the Sharia law next to that one or how does it work? So the way it works is we have a federal legislation and under it we have what is seen or called the customary legal system. So under this customary legal system is where you bring all of all these other customs and all those tenants that have developed from religion. So you find them here. We actually have courts in the federal level where the applicable law is the Sharia legal system. So if you go to that court, you know that you are going to be tried and judged under the Sharia legal system. And then we have the customary courts itself where if you go there, you know that you're going to be tried under the customary laws. And so whatever the punishments or benefits that accrues from these systems is applicable to you if you present yourself before those courts. And then when you go down to the states, because Nigeria is a state, is a country that has 36 states and a capital. So when you go down to the states, you find that in the states which are clustered in regions. So we have the east, the west, the south and the north. You find customs that are applicable to the people in that region. And the people are expected to abide by those customs. And because we have monarchies in these areas, kingdoms in these areas. So if you go to the east, we have the obese. That's what they are called. And they are a traditional system that people must respect. If you go to the west, you will see the obas. That's a traditional system that people would respect. And so it cuts across. We have all of these customs and all of these traditions that we, as a people, we live under. And irrespective of how maybe advanced the country is now in terms of modern technology, advancements that are coming in, people still subscribe to customs and traditions in Nigeria. So this is why it's going to be really very difficult. Somehow to do away with these laws that do not promulgate, do not encourage and, well, not in the future, encourage same-sex relationships. And then there's another one. So the federal government itself in 2014 passed a law which is called the same-sex marriage prohibition act. The prohibition act. Yes. Now, this is really very laughable. It's laughable because in Nigeria, we've not gotten to the place where we are saying, allow us to get married. We're just simply in the space where we are saying, allow us to break, allow us to exist, allow us to be like every other human being. We've not asked the government for a law that enables people to get married. We're just saying, can you protect us? And can you do away with these laws that not only encourages state actors and non-state actors to discriminate and violate us when they see us. Can you just protect us? But instead of doing that, you went ahead. The other way around. Yeah, and prohibit. And in that law, you have a provision where people are liable to 14 years in prison. 14 years. Yes. Just because they live together. Exactly. Exactly. Or you support them. Yeah, you support them. So if you support me, yes. So if you support me in Nigeria, in fact, you have a higher punishment than me. Really? Yes. If Bertie houses me in Nigeria, she's liable to higher punishment than me. So if you give me your premises to use for my business or to use for my organization, or if you're my family member and you support me, or you're my friend and you support me, and you have a knowledge that I am a gay person, you're liable to higher punishment than myself. How do gays in Nigeria behave? I mean, are there people who are openly gay expecting that one day they will be jailed, or is everybody hiding? Okay, so no, not everybody is hiding. I mean, I'm not hiding. Yeah. Yeah, but... But even you are not here under your real name, but under the DEMA, who is not... The name you picked to hide yourself. Yeah, so there are a couple of gay activists who are in the open, so to speak. I mean, you just showed us the picture of BC. BC is one of the pioneers of... BC, BC. BC Alami, the foundation. Oh, the foundation, oh yeah, that was it. Yeah, yeah, so we have people who have the privilege of being out and open. Some of them actually do not live in the country. BC does not stay in Nigeria. BC lives in the UK, but he had a very terrible experience in Nigeria before he was whisked away to the UK, because BC was attacked in his house. He was beaten and almost to death. He ran away from his house naked. He was really very lucky to be in a state where we have embassies. So he ran from his house to the UK embassy. It was left in. That's why he's even still alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many other like that who have come out and spoken against all of these discriminations, they have been chased away from the country. Most of them live outside Nigeria. People who have opportunity, who have the privilege, they also go. But as people are living, we realize that we cannot continue to keep quiet, because if we do keep quiet, it means that generations after us will continue to experience these violations, these discriminations, these non-acceptance that is happening in the country. And so some persons like myself have taken the step and the courage to sort of be visible. Sometimes, like I always say to people, not in the face of the government. Yeah, we don't step on their toes, because if we do, they have their ways of getting to us. But we do need to speak about these issues, because people are actually really suffering. I mean, can you imagine that you're walking down the street, you're walking on a road, and because of the way that you are walking, a policeman stops you. And then the next thing is, why are you walking like this? Are you a woman? Okay, let me see your phone. Immediately, you give your phone, they open it, they go to your photo galleries, they look at it, and if they see pictures that depict gay or gay persons or trans, the person is picked up immediately, immediately, and you're taken to a police station. And if care is not taken from the police station, they're taken to a prison without trial, actually. And so one of the things that is happening now is the police do a lot of extortions from the gay community. So they extort money from gay people. They see you walking on the road, they arrest you, and sometimes they use these persons who have been arrested to say, tell us your fellow gay persons. And because sometimes people want to save their neck. Of course, and they betray their fellow friends. And then the police go and pick these people up, and then they lock them up and they say, oh, you know, before you gain your freedom, if you don't want to go to prison, you have to pay a certain amount of money, or else we'll take you to court. And then people have to weigh their options. So what option is available to me? If I go to court, of course I'll be jailed. For 14 years. Yeah. And I suppose Nigerian jail is not a hotel. Oh, god. You don't want to go there. It's not even about the length. No one wants to be there. You don't want to be there. It's not even about the length. I spent the night at the police station in a police cell, I'll tell you later. So it's not even about the length of the prison term. It is also the psychological and mental effects. Because these court cases take way many years before a decision is made. So the person will be kept in the prison. You come from the prison to come and attend these court sessions before the person gets sentenced. So there's a lot of psychological thing, a mental thing going on with people. It's really very crazy. So I'll tell you about the nights that I spent in the police cell. I was actually, I was in the university. Shall we switch? I think the camera is there. And now it's looking into my face. Your face is more important. All right. I notice that all of her legs are here, yeah? So I was still in the university. And from the university, I came to town, what we call town. Like if I live here now and I go to the city center. And it was late. But then I've started activism. Because I started volunteering while I was still in the university. So I went to see some friends. And they were seeing me off. So I could get transferred back to the university. But it was late. And we're standing waiting. We don't have the kind of transport system that we have here. So we're waiting for something to come that I can take and go. And then this police van just came from nowhere, and packed in front of us. And the next thing is, hey, hey, hey. What are you people doing there? And we're like, us? We're standing there. We say, we're not doing anything. We're waiting. I'm waiting for something to go back to school. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no. You are two girls. Why are you standing? Two girls by this time of the night. What exactly are you doing? And I'm like, OK, can you allow me to at least introduce myself? And I said, OK, yeah, yeah, go. Introduce yourself. And I said, I am a law student at the university. And this is my friend. And I came to see her. And we have some business to discuss. And they were like, by this time, get into the van. Into the police van. They were not interested in your explanation. No, we were arrested right on that spot. Get into the van. And my friend started panicking. And I'm like, no, let's get into the van. And she said to me, if we get into this van, we're going to spend the night at the police station. I said, oh, we're not going to spend the night at the police station. Let's just go. I was very optimistic, because I was like, when we get to the police station, I was going to introduce myself. I was going to say that I volunteer. I am an activist and all. But I think that wasn't the case, because by the time I was done introducing myself, they said, OK, good, you sit here. So the sit here was behind the counter. And then you go inside that cell. So I spent the night in the cell. And I felt some crawly things, because it was really dark. It was musky. It was damp. It was wet. The night I spent in that cell made me to realize that, actually, my community, LGBTQ persons, go through a lot emotionally, mentally, physically, when they are picked up off of the street. That night, it also re-entrated. This is only police, El. This is only police. Not a jail. It was not a jail. And that night re-entrated for me that we need to do this. We need to do this work. Irrespective of the consequences, we just have to find a way to program for the LGBTQ community in Nigeria. I think from that point on, it became a passion and a calling for me that I just have to do this. And so I have spent more than 12 years, I think, doing this work, giving to the LGBTQ community in Nigeria. If you ask me if I've made progress, maybe I'll answer that. But yes, if you make progress, it goes straight away. OK, so did we make progress? In 2010, 2010, yes, 2010. I think I just about, I was in my last year in the university. And this law that has been passed in 2014, it was actually muted in 2010. The government wanted to pass it in 2010. And part of what we did was to go to the National Assembly when the bill was open for public hearing. So public hearing, people come in support or against the proposed law. So a few of us were quickly caught together. It's a long story. But I had a mentor who wasn't really doing LGBTQ work. She was more specific on women's rights. But then she has a desk that also programs for LGBTQ women. Somehow we connected and she became my mentor. So she brought a couple of us together and said, look, this bill is going to be publicly discussed, so, so, so, date. We need to go to the National Assembly. But then you had to identify yourself as gay. Yes, yes. So very, very dangerous. You're very courageous, but still very dangerous. Very dangerous. And it was just a few of us. I don't think we were even up to 10 in number. And by the time we got to the National Assembly, we met this large crowd. I'm sure there were over 100,000 persons in that crowd. They were not supporting you. No, they were in support of the bill. But that's not even what is interesting. What is interesting was when we got to the venue and just about coming down from the boss, we realized that these persons have t-shirts, that they wore, carps, and they were holding some placards and burners and things. And on those t-shirts were written words like, kill the gays. So the gays are not humans. The gays are despicable. Like a whole lot of derogatory things written on those t-shirts. And most of these persons are supposed to be Christians. They are from the church. Pupportedly. And they were there. Yeah, love your fellow humans, you know? So says the common mix. But then they were there to advocate for the killing of their fellow humans. And for us, who were just about ten of us with no protection, the fear of coming down from that boss was real. Like, I'm not joking. It was real. But we were encouraged to come down. We did. We walked through that turn. We had people pulling at us, you know, dragging us and saying us a lot of things and calling us all sorts of names. Went into the National Assembly. We spoke against the bill. We had foreign governments also supporting us at the time who also spoke against the bill. The fact was, the majority of Nigerians were in support of it. But at the end of the day, that bill was not passed into law, which is the good thing. So in terms of making progress, we made progress in 2010. But four years later, the government of the day at the time was so stubborn. Because again, I just quickly mentioned, LGBTQ persons, a campaign too, like a campaign message. So whenever it's election time, politicians will remember the LGBTQ community. And they will always promise the Nigerian community at large to say, look, if you vote us in, we'll make sure that these people do not this, do not that, do not that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it was one of the reasons why the law was passed in 2014. Because the government of the day wanted to leverage on the popularity that that law was going to bring to come back to office. Unfortunately, they didn't, which is also a good thing for us from the community. But now we are nine years later. How is it possible to have an idea about the public opinion in Nigeria according to LGBT? Yeah, so yeah, we do. We actually, every year, there are organizations that run a perception survey every year to see how the public is coming along with LGBTQ rights. It's been up, down, this way, that way, especially because those survey are also conducted in very limited states. Mostly in Lagos, other parts of the country are not really taken into consideration. But what has happened so far in Lagos is that sometimes this perception survey tells us that, oh yeah, people are being accepted by their families, by their friends, et cetera. But then again, incidents happen that shows us that it's otherwise. I mean, even last year, someone was severely beaten. I think almost killed on the streets of Lagos because they were a trans person who dressed as a trans woman and came out to go make their hair. And on their way back, they were severely beaten. Almost losing their life. So when incidents like this happen, it tells you that we are really a long way from where we want to be. Sure. I think you have some pictures. Probably is the picture of one of these Kenos, oh, that's where you're from, actually, Kenos state. Yes, that's. Let me go back. I don't know how it works going back with this one. No, it's just going off. Oh, yes, on the Lieke, how are you going back? Yes, Kenos state. Yeah. That's the place, that's the region where you're from, I think. Yes, this is to the north. To the north. We have Boko Haram is thriving. Yes, travel. Conservative place. Very conservative in Nigeria. Really very conservative in terms of religion, law, social, economic, social, politics. It's really very conservative. That's where I live and that's where I program form. But why don't you move to Lagos? That's more modern, I suppose. OK, so I'll tell you a very short story. I was born and brought up in the States. I grew up here and when I discovered my sexuality, I didn't have any kind of support system. There were no friends to talk to, no family of course, at the time to support me, nobody to talk to. So the organization that I'm working with and that we're leading is the first organization in northern Nigeria as a region. And northern Nigeria has 19 states. So we are the first organization that identify as LBQ organizing. If I leave the nut, that's the whole whatever gains that we have achieved with what we have been doing in the last couple of years would die off naturally. Because before the organization came into being, LBQ women especially were voiceless. They were invisible. They do not have a place of safety. They do not have a place to come together. A lot of persons were struggling with balancing and aligning their sexuality with the religion. There were a lot of cases and very few who are opportuned actually leave the nut. So we have a lot of northern women who are outside of the nut who are striving. But we have a whole community of persons in the nut who are not programmed for, who are not spoken for. And we have in the south, in the east, in the west, we actually have organizers that have been ongoing long before. So you feel an obligation to stay there, to support your people. Yes, sort of. That's in the end the other side. Well, we are actually heading to some pictures. I think there it comes. Which is this one? What is it about? So this person, his name is Rabi Uadamu. But he's popularly known as Bamanga. This is the very first officially recorded trans person who was killed and murdered in his house. And he was buried right inside his room where they killed him. After cutting off his head. So they buried him, they dug a shallow grave, and they buried him inside. And it's been more than seven years. Nobody has been accounted for, arrested. I even put behind bars for this person's death. So it tells not just him. Last year, another person, a gay man, was murdered in his room in Lagos. And this was in a compound with many other tenants. And every single person in that tenement has claimed they did not hear what happened to that gay guy. So in addition to Bamanga, we have this. We have so many other persons that we don't even know who have been killed in silence. And there has not been justice for them. So this is an inspiration for the work that we do. Yeah, I think so. Now, this one? Yeah. So this one is the one person that we actually directly programmed for. This person is an actress in kind of states. They were outed because someone who is also an actress that happens to know their sexuality wanted to take a role, a film role from this person. And in order to be able to do that, because this person was supposed to be the lead actress in a particular movie, they outed her. And according to her, she was at home. She lives alone. She was at home. And it was afternoon. She was taking a light sleep. And she had a lot of persons banging on her door, like shouting, come out, come out, come out. And they were speaking a lot of things in Hausa, some of which is translated to mean you gay person, you lesbian woman, you useless woman, you prostitute. And so she woke up. And she thought maybe it was her neighbor. But then she realized they were actually knocking on her door. So she went to see what was happening. And in the haste to go, she did not even put on proper clothing because she was alone in the house. And yeah. So by the time she opened the door, the first thing that greeted her was a blow, a slap, kicking, beating. They left her naked, dying, destroyed her house. It was a woman later that contacted someone. Because one of the things we do is we train persons from the community to be paralegals. And so that woman contacted one of our paralegals who drew our attention to the fact that this lady was lying in the coat for more than six hours after she was beating. So we went and we got her, took her to a hospital. And even as we speak, the Nigerian police have also refused to investigate. Even though she said she recognizes some of the persons in the crowd because we have local vigilantes that operate in some parts of the city. And in the area where she lives, they have a vigilante. And she was like, she could recognize some of them. With petitioned, the Nigerian police actually had a case to, for the courts, to compel the police to investigate this matter. They've not done that. She spent more than six months. I mean, here she's actually looking nice. Yeah, because this is like two months after she was taken to the hospital. So she spent over six months here, getting treated and recuperating. When she left, of course, we had to relocate her from her former place. But these are some of the things that we do. I think we'll stop here. There are even more pictures of people who have beaten severely. Just one last question before we go to the audience. Switch this off. Now you are recorded on a camera. It will be on YouTube. Aren't you afraid it will harm you when you are back in Nigeria? I am very afraid. But again, like I said, if we don't do the work, who is going to do it? That's one, too. I've also said to people who have shown me concern that one form of safety and security is also to be visible. To be in the openness. To be in the open. Because when you are visible, it will be difficult for the authorities to just come and whisk you. Because they feel you have some sort of protection. As I'm sitting here now, they probably feel, oh, OK, she's under the protection of the Netherlands government, for example. So she's untouchable for now. She has privilege. She has visibility. She has a voice. If she disappears, people would ask questions. But that does not take away the fact that maybe did I step my foot in Nigeria? I may disappear from the airport. So afraid? Very, I am. But then again, it is what it is. We just have to do the work. I think you're very, very courageous. I am not, actually. It doesn't mean that you don't have fears. It means that you still are an activist, although the fears are there. That's right. I think you have to digest it a bit, what Nadima is telling us. But certainly, I have to go to the audience. I have to go to you. And I think there are a lot of questions. Who will be the first one to ask a question? A microphone is there, and a microphone is there. This is Mina, this is Sam. Who? Completely in the back, there's one. There's one there, too. Yeah. Hi. I just wanted to ask what you think the role of decolonizing culture, decolonizing education, decolonizing language could play into the humanization of queer people in the general public's eye. Yes? Are you asking in terms of the African continent or just generally? What do you mean by decolonization? I think it's different from an academic setting and perhaps in a former colonial region. Decolonization in the sense of just like Nigeria, in the sense of like the country, the state. OK. Thank you very much. So I think that would go a long way, because like I mentioned earlier, we have activists who are now going back into history to see what was the context and how people were behaving before the colonial masters came in. And I think about two weeks ago, one young activist, Matthew, also launched a project of how gay people used to address themselves, the languages that gay persons were using before colonization. And yes, so indeed it's going to have a huge impact on enabling a very safe, probably accepting, maybe, society for gay persons in Nigeria if we're able to do that. But the question is, and has always been, whenever we come up with research reports and we put up these reports, the government is not really interested in taking them forward, beyond what we are able to do with the limited fundings that we have. In fact, one of the things that the Nigerian government have done recently is to export history from school syllabus and also to vehemently refuse to take sexuality education as part of curriculums in schools. So it will help if we are able to have the platform to be able to do this from both the academic point of view and in other context. But again, it will be difficult for the Nigerian government to assess. I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Hi. Thank you for being here firstly. I was wondering, because I'm an exchange student from Turkey and I come from a very conservative neighborhood. And I'm a queer person, but I'm in the closet the whole time when I'm in my neighborhood. But when I'm in my university, I'm queer as I can be. So I was wondering, how do you come out in Nigeria, especially in the context of university? How do you trust your peers in a university? OK, so personally for me, I never came out to anyone in the university. I did two diploma programs. I had friends. I never verbally came out to them. That does not mean that there are no connections there. But in fact, it was even worse for me when I was a law student. It was impossible. I couldn't even in any way express my sexuality, because you just have to conform to the form of dressing that is allowed in the law faculty. When I was doing the diploma programs, I could dress whichever way that I wanted. But in the law faculty, it was different. In fact, the day I tried to put on a jean and a shirt, professor called me and told me that the next time they see me dressed that way, they were going to expel me. So it was really difficult. But we've had stories of younger activists who are coming, who have tried to be open with their sexuality in university spaces, especially. And they have not had good stories to tell at all. So most times they are beating up. One of them who is really out again is Matthew. I'm not going to mention his other name, but he's really very popular. He's using social media platforms to do a lot of amazing work. So Matthew suffered. The reason why activists like us got to know about Matthew was because he was always telling the story of Facebook about what he was going through as an undergraduate student in the university, never accepted for who he is, the way he works. I mean, I was in a space where Matthew was also in the same space and I was at the gym in that space and Matthew came out from the room, we're actually in a hotel for a workshop program and Matthew was one of our participants. I was at the gym and Matthew came out, I was taking a stroll around the pool side. I was in that gym with over 15 other guests from the hotel and they were saying very demeaning, very derogatory things about Matthew, who had no idea that they were even there. But I was in the gym with them and when they started talking, I was like, who are these people talking about? So I had to pee and I saw that it was Matthew. He walks and gestures like a woman, right? He is very beautiful in the way that he expresses himself and he felt that he was saved in that hotel. But these guests, if you had allowed them, they would have gone to the extent that morning to go and deal in quotes with Matthew. And these are people who because of the kind of hotel, these are people who I would assume have had the privilege to travel out of Nigeria, but they were reacting and responding in that way to someone that wasn't even in close contact to where they were, right? So it's not easy for gay persons to express themselves in university campus. We can't even do what Umbrella Association is doing. Like, they're really very powerful. I must applaud them. This is not something that you will find in any university in Nigeria. If you have to express your sexuality, it has to be really very far away from where you are well known, for example, yeah. So if you have your case, if you have a girlfriend, nobody knows that you have a girlfriend. Even your family doesn't have an idea. How does it work? It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. So if, I mean, there are a few persons who are privileged to have partners that they can introduce to every other person, or this is my partner, but of course, in very limited spaces, majority of people who are in a relationship don't have the privilege to say this is my girlfriend or this is my boyfriend or whoever they want to identify with themselves. You just can't say it. Your parents cannot even conceive of that idea that your partner is the same sex like yourself. No, no, no, it's really very impossible. But is it possible to hide for the audience that you are in a relationship with a woman? In your case? It is not completely something that you can hide. Because in some forms, in some ways, you would express some kind of emotions and feelings that enables people to say, okay, same as this two persons, maybe they are in a relationship. But because both of you are also very cautious not to express in public, it's then hard to pin down to say, okay, these two are in a relationship. But sometimes, maybe if you are cohabiting with your partner in a house where there are other tenants, it's very possible that, yeah, they cannot perceive that these two persons are in a relationship. And there are other ways too that you can identify. I see a hand there. There are other ways too that people identify that they are in a relationship. So in the context of how they dress in Nigeria, for example, most times you see in quotes, the stored, the way they dress is actually different from the fend, the way they dress. So when you see a store and a firm together, sometimes it tells you maybe they are in a relationship. There's a question. Yeah, okay. The question is, is there an anti-capitalist fight in Nigeria? Is there a what? An anti-capitalist or anti-capitalism fight in Nigeria along with the other intersectional movements. And I ask this because there is a relation in the productive system and the idea of nuclear family and binary gender back in the 19th century when the Victorian age imposed the model of a nuclear family and the heterosexual binary model. It was the moment when Europe was expanding its imperialistic industry and they needed. Can you limit the addition of family? You're also talking to a question. It is important and experience in Mexico and also in Brazil. Nigeria is the biggest economy and the most populated country in Africa. And I consider it's important to make the emphasis in how the capitalism requires the nuclear family and the binary gender to reproduce the state and reproduce the economic power in the global south. Unfortunately, there is no anti-capitalist movement in almost all the African countries. So in Nigeria, you will not find. We have a few persons who have tried like the late Ghanifau Ahimi. He was a human rights lawyer. We have the late Afro-Bits musician Fela. But these are drops in the ocean. Anti-capitalist is not a movement that is popular in Africa. So I don't think that is, that's something that we can use now in Africa, especially because even now there is a movement from the U.S., I think they are from the U.S. It's a Christian organization and they preach about what a family looks like and the majority of their advocacy is actually done in Africa. The current bill in Uganda that is worse than the law in Nigeria, if it's signed into law, was because of the work of this, I've forgotten their name, is something, something family Christian. It's from the U.S. And they are carrying out this propaganda now in Africa to say a family is comprised of a father, a mother and children. So it's a long walk to freedom for us. But actually, isn't this Islamic radical organizations like Boko Haram, they are in fact anti-capitalist? No, they are not. No, they are not. Okay. I mean, Mariana would tell you that the Boko Haram is not anti-capitalist. They are a very selfish, oh please, but they are a very selfish organization that is actually, initially they were used for political purposes until they metamorphosized into what they are today. Literally, Boko Haram means we are against everything that is more than everything about education, but these guys are very well-educated and they can use any modern work on that. Yeah, sure, they are well-educated, but they are not a favor of education for the masses. Yes, they are not, but again, it's a selfish thing because if they say they are in favor of education for the masses, they will not be popular. So they have to do something in the reverse that makes them popular with the government because they actually wanted the attention of the government. I mean, Boko Haram is limited to a certain number of states in the North. They came to Kano once to bomb the city and compel the government to enter into dialogue with them. We don't know what happened, but I will tell you that after that dialogue, they've never been back to Kano. So it's just what they do is a way of drawing government attention to themselves and feeding off of what they can get from the politicians. So they are not anti-capitalists. Okay, first I'd like to thank you for the interviews, very informative and eye-opening. Okay, so I have a question. Is that basically I think the way or the strategy that you would use in order to advocate for human rights for everyone, like especially for oppressed minorities, especially different from countries, right? So in the Netherlands, you would do this, but you can't do that, absolutely not in Nigeria. So in your talk, in your interview, you mentioned that in order to survive as an organization, you try not to step on the government's toes. So do you have any experience or strategies that just kind of show us how to do that? Or how do you basically expand your influence like at the same being seen, being heard, but at the same time survive? Yeah, thank you very much. That's a very important question. So basically one of our strategies is advocacy. And advocacy happens at different layers, different levels, different tiers. So it depends on who your audience is. You prepare adequately for that audience. You make sure that whatever you are speaking about sits with that audience. But importantly, you find an entry into that conversation before you start it. We do advocacy at all levels. We've been doing advocacy at community levels. We've been doing advocacy with states, policymakers, and all that. But we, like I said, this is a strategy. So we don't just go hong-ho to them because of course they are going to kick us out. So for example, we would say, we want to talk about SRHR for LBQ women. You have to find an entry point. The entry point sometimes is where does this issue intersect with all the women? What are the gaps? And how can we bridge the gap? What is lacking in the laws that needs to be remade to make the law more inclusive, more gender affirming? So we look at these things and then we put our strategies together and we can go to the policymakers to say, you know what, XYZ is not in this policy around health and so it's not inclusive of all women, however they identify, and even marginalized women. And sometimes they can ask you, so who are the marginalized women? You start by saying, oh, but we have women who live with disabilities. They're marginalized. We have women who don't have access to education. They're marginalized. We have women who are not economically empowered. And by the time you give them this list, they will not even know when you've mentioned LBQ women. So these are the kind of strategies that were implored. We always find where the issues intersect and sometimes we also encourage alliance and movement building with organizations who we call mainstream. Mainstream because the work that they do is with the broader community and not specific to marginalized communities. I hope that has answered the question. Sure, okay. My question is on the US and what are your feeling on what's happening in the US as the trans community and all the bills? And do you think there are some impacts on what's happening in the US, in Nigeria, and Africa, for example? Exactly. So every time something happens in the West, most African countries would want to use that as a precedent to say, oh, yes. So you see, if this can happen in these countries that you feel are more accommodating, have all the structures of human rights, why do you think it should not happen here? So we are afraid, especially now, because there is a growing anti-rights movement across the world coming from the West. So a lot of persons are against abortion rights, for example. And it also means that these persons are also talking against LBQ rights, transgender persons rights, intersex persons rights. So for us in Africa, we're really very afraid of the impact that these anti-rights movements, we have on whatever little gains that we may have made in the African continent. I was just telling Ralph that in Kenya, years ago, they got the judgments from the courts saying that LGBTQ organizations should be allowed to be registered legally in that country. And now three years down the line, because of that judgment, they are now experiencing worse and growing homophobia in the country because the people are beginning to feel that, oh, if the law would allow LGBTQ organizations to be formally registered to be legalized, consider what will then happen next. These people will start asking for their rights, right? So the people are already putting up laws that are stricter, that are more dehumanizing to LGBTQ persons. So whatever happened that way affects us this way negatively. Are there countries in Africa who are moving in the right direction, just like South Africa 20 years ago? South Africa, yeah. Very nice laws they have. I mean, I think South Africa have one of the best constitution in the world. Reach that constitution. But now there will be a but. But it's a but. A but. So societal perception and acceptance goes beyond what is in the legal documents. Whilst we're actually saying, give us this legal recognition. We also understand that if the people are not accepting, the laws are useless. And that's what is happening in South Africa. A lot of lesbian women gets raped. A lot of gay people get killed. And it's almost the same thing with Nigeria because most of the killers get off the hook. But they have the laws. They have, when you go to a city like Johannesburg, you can freely express. You go to Cape Town, you can freely express. But outside of these major cities, it is terrible in other places. I mean, just yesterday Namibia have passed a law that says gay persons who married outside of the country have the same rights with heterosexual persons when they come back to Namibia. It's either a trap or not. I don't know, but Namibia is one country that is really very homophobic, very homophobic. But yeah, so South Africa has the law, but what is the government doing to change the mindsets of the people? So it goes just beyond the law, actually. Do you think that as student anywhere around the world is like, how can we help? How can we, I don't know, follow Twitter accounts or Instagram accounts and have to be heard from your perspective? Okay, so this question is something that I've not really given my mind to, but it's also a really good one. I mean, how can the gay community outside of Africa continue to help their brothers and sisters in Africa? I think just continue to speak about those rights and continue to raise awareness when you can and where you can because really no one is free until every one of us is free. There are lots of persons in Africa who do not want to relocate, but for them to enjoy the universality of being a human first, they need to leave their country of origin. And Europe is getting overpopulated because of the constant migration. People would love to stay back in their countries. So for whatever it's what, for people who are allies, people who support gay persons, people who are friends of the community and the community itself because even though I understand that it's not 100% here, alright, okay, but it's too far better than what we're experiencing back in Nigeria. So continue to speak, continue to speak and continue to speak in whatever you do, just find ways to intersect and talk about this rights because let me just leave it here. There's a hand there. But what can I do for you especially to make your more safe when you return to Nigeria? I don't really know, but Shutter City Initiative, they have some plans in place for when I go back because of course I have to go back. I've left. And you want to go back? Yeah, I want to go back. I've left the organization, by the time I'm done with my stay, it will be three months, they are just there. We tried as much as possible to put things in place for when I am not there, but I know that the organization is suffering, so I need to go back. Yeah, Shutter City, they have some plans. I don't know what the plan is, but I'm also just hoping that by the time I go back, I'll be able to continue to do what I do and how I have been doing it. If I'm drowning, of course, I'm going to call everybody that I know here and say, help, I am drowning, but I hope it doesn't get to that point because through this, I enjoy living in Nigeria. I love it. But does it help these people and me make selfies together with you for Facebook and Instagram or whatever? We can have a picture, no problem. That will help somehow. Yeah, it will, definitely. There's a question. Yes, hi. So you mentioned how although changing the laws is helpful, when the community itself is unaccepting, it's still dangerous to be part of the LGBTQ community. What do you think we can do or what sort of process can be done in order to make the community itself more accepting and more willing to take on the laws when they change? So again, part of our strategies is that when we talk about advocacy, we also talk about social perception and social change. And so in our programming, we always have levels and tiers. So we program for community, community gatekeepers and we encourage them to go back and have conversations with their communities because of course we don't have all the funds to reach everyone, but we try. So we program for communities, we program for parents who are willing to attend our programs. We started looking for ways to also see how we can program in religious spaces. It's going to be difficult. And by the time I go back, we have a program that we have developed that is going to be around campaign strategies where we use all available social media platform to talk about gay rights and that campaign is going to run for two years. So we're going to share the content with as many organizations that are willing to promote it to promote it so that because the more people see it, the more they will be able to question what they are actually afraid of because the truth is people are afraid of what they don't understand. And so the fact that people don't understand what being a gay person is makes them really afraid and they feel that if they allow gay people to strive to have their rights, the world is going to come to an end. It's a good instinct because of course there will be no reproduction but that's not the case and that's not true. So we're going to put context that are going to speak to people to social change and hopefully more persons are going to listen to those kind of conversations because pilot tests have been done with parents and others to see what's this kind of programs, what impacts they will have and we've had bad results, which are good things because you can then build on lessons learned but we've also had very positive response from some parents and that's why if you see even in the Uganda case, they've been parents who have come out to say, our children are not evil, do not sign that bill into law. Yes, we've had parents who have supported their children in Uganda. So we also factor that into our programming. Hi, I have a very heavy question for you. So you told me that you have two main religions in Nigeria and that being a part of the LGBTQ or helping or supporting is also illegal. So I was wondering because of historical matters, we all know that conversion therapy, it's a thing. Is there anything that is similar to that apart from politician violence, let's say, or police violence? Is there actually a medical system that is trying to convert LGBTQ people and how do they do it? Is that legal actually in Nigeria? So it depends on what we're going to see as legality right now, but whether conversion therapy is happening, it is happening. In fact, I think there's an organization CS, they have a report on conversion therapy, how it is happening in Nigeria and the methods that people are using, one of which is the parents who take their children to church to be prayed over every night, every day, 24 hours, the child is in church and is being prayed over. That's a conversion therapy. There are also church that use whip. They want to whip out the devil from the child. It's also conversion therapy. There are many different methods that they're being used in Africa. Whether this is legal, I can really say because I don't think we have a law that says people cannot do what they have been doing so far. From the medical point of view, I don't think we've had any reports so far that says that doctors or nurses are trying to convert people from who they are into, in quote, normal. But we do know that, for example, with intersex persons, there's a lot of surgical operations being carried out without their consent. That again is also conversion therapy. So yeah, it's happening in the country. Yes, and this concludes our symposium for today. Thank you very much for your questions and of course, thank you very much, Nadeema. And Rolf, I would like to thank you not only from the Umbrella Association but also from Studio Michalachali and of course, the audience today. And I would like to inform the audience that on your way out, you can grab a drink voucher and you can join us for a drink at the Espanola Cafe. Thank you very much for attending.