Ugandan Lesbian Seeks Asylum For Fear of Her Life

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Olivia Nabulwala says her family in Uganda was so angry and ashamed to learn she was a lesbian that her relatives hurled insults at her, pummeled her and, finally, stripped her and held her down while a stranger raped her.

"I hated myself from that day," she said in a sworn statement. "I disliked my family for subjecting me to such torture, and yet they felt this was a good punishment for me."

Persecution based on sexual orientation has been grounds for asylum in the U.S. since the 1990s, but such cases are still rare. Most involve gay men persecuted by their government. There are few cases involving women, who are more likely to be persecuted by family members, said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a gay rights group that represents immigrants.

Immigration Equality, based in New York, said that last year it won 18 asylum cases for gay men and transgender women from the Congo, Algeria, Jamaica, Russia, Egypt, Peru, Bangladesh, Venezuela and Colombia. It said it lost two such asylum cases.

Among some recent cases: A man who said he was beaten by Mexican police and threatened because he is gay won asylum in January. Another Mexican man was granted asylum in a 2000 appeals court ruling that extended protection to transvestites.

In 1990, a gay Cuban who said he was abused by government officials in his homeland won asylum in the first significant ruling of its kind in the U.S. That ruling became the basis for then-Attorney General Janet Reno's 1994 order allowing gays from other countries to seek asylum for persecution based on sexual orientation.

"For women, it's developed quite slowly," she added. "Around the world, women face harm, often severe harm, from the nearest and not so dearest."

"I was forced to have sex with a total stranger, which was very nasty, while my aunts watched in laughter," she says. "Afterwards, they all left me lying there in a lot of pain."

An immigration judge in Minnesota, where she now lives, said he did not doubt Nabulwala had suffered in Uganda because of her sexual orientation. But he ruled that the rape was a "private family mistreatment," and not sponsored or authorized by the government.

However, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge used the wrong legal standard, and ordered the case sent back for further proceedings on whether the Ugandan government was unwilling or unable to control the abuse, as Nabulwala contends.