I’m a lesbian from Zimbabwe – was I wrong to claim asylum, home secretary?

Growing up as a lesbian in Zimbabwe was never going to be easy. For starters, homosexuality was illegal, criminalised by the British in the 19th century. Things have only got worse since then.

I was born in the 1980s, when Robert Mugabe was in power, a man who described gay people as worse than pigs and dogs. His regime was so actively hostile towards us that he embellished the colonial laws to create a new crime of “sexual deviancy”.

By the time I was a teenager and realised I was lesbian, there was nowhere I could seek advice, let alone help to come to terms with my sexuality. And then I was the victim of corrective rape.

I was around 18 or 19 when it happened. I had come out to a few people who I thought I would be safe with – I didn’t dare tell the majority of my family, but I had a few trusted close friends who I was living with in Harare. Somehow, word got around about me.

I was threatened with blackmail and was told I would be reported to the police if I didn’t do as I was told. I was taken to church where they tried to “excorcise my demons and bad spirits”. I was forced to – and tried my best to – conform to heterosexuality, living in shame, fear of abuse, harassment and persecution. There would be no protection for me anywhere in Zimbabwe. It was then I realised I would need to leave the country if I was to have any kind of life.

It’s still traumatising to go over the details of what happened next, but I was raped by a man who thought he could “straighten” me out. It wasn’t an isolated incident.

At the time, I was seeing a woman, but had to end that relationship for her safety. I couldn’t let the same things happen to her.

Meanwhile, my family had been pressuring me to get married, which was traumatic and stressful. My only way out was to leave my country.

Saying goodbye was hard, but being able to be free was important. Home is somewhere where you want to be – but my safety was more important.

I looked for support from a relative in the UK who helped me to study, but I didn’t want to come out to them. So I worked as a student to earn enough to support myself.

When the time came for me to apply for asylum in the UK, I had to give up that work to claim £30 a week from the government, which was tough going. Even harder was the asylum process itself. Mine took two years.

I had to prove I was a lesbian, and at grave risk if I was returned to Zimbabwe. I had to contact ex-partners, some of whom I didn’t want to speak to, and ask them to vouch for me. I even made a photo album of evidence, which I called “Relationships 2002-2005”, and labelled all of the pictures. It was all rather degrading.

At Micro Rainbow, I work with LGBTQI people seeking asylum who face harassment and abuse from other refugees. When I was going through the process, other refugees I was housed with harassed me for being gay, offering to pray for me or to find me a husband. Only a few weeks ago, a lesbian from Oman took her own life after experiencing abuse from others in her accommodation; she had also been waiting for her asylum to be processed for a year.

So don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy claiming asylum in the UK if you’re at risk for being LGBT in your home country. The UK is not a “soft-touch” country –the process is long and can be retraumatising and dehumanising. The standard of proof needed for LGBTQI people is very high. Those who seek safety in the UK do so because at times it is a case of life and death, not because it is easy. Suella Braverman, I hope you’re listening.

Moud Goba is national director of LGBT+ migrant charity Micro Rainbow (microrainbow.org)