Meeting Abbey Kiwanuka in his South London office – with podcast equipment neatly organised around his treasured plants – it is difficult to imagine anyone laying a finger on this mild-mannered man. Kiwanuka is softly spoken, shy even. And yet, in his home country of Uganda, he was outlawed by his own community and dogged by police; imprisoned, forced to sleep in his own urine; and physically beaten for being gay.

After escaping Uganda, Kiwanuka fought long and hard for his right to live in the safety of the UK. Now, as founder and director of Out and Proud African LGTBi (OPAL), Kiwanuka has so far helped over 700 people follow in his footsteps. So, this LGBT month, Abbey not only reminds other gay Africans they are not alone but reminds himself of the work that is yet to be done.

In his younger days, Kiwanuka was safe, despite being open about his homosexuality in Uganda. “My father was in the army,” he explains, “and being in the military in Uganda means you are like a king – you are so feared. So, people knew I was gay, but they could not do anything to me.”

But this is not an experience shared by many gay Ugandans. There are few countries more hostile towards their openly gay citizens; as of 2013, sex between men is legally considered “against the order of nature” and could mean life imprisonment. 

However, for some Ugandans, this law is not harsh enough. Two of Kiwanuka’s friends have been murdered by those who have taken the “law into their own hands”. Kiwanuka says, vigilantes beating openly gay men to death often yell, “Thief!” so onlookers join in.

In 2002 Kiwanuka’s father died, and with him his protection. Kiwanuka knew it was only a matter of time until he would be served a similar fate as his friends. Sure enough, two weeks after his father’s death, the police came knocking on his door, claiming Kiwanuka was “promoting homosexuality and prostitution”.

In prison, Kiwanuka was physically tortured and “slapped around”. Worse than the physical beatings, though, was the “degrading” conditions he was forced to live in: “You sleep on the floor, in the cold, in urine – actually you can’t sleep.”

Kiwanuka’s stories of struggle are horrific, but he tells them without emotion. He recounts tales of torture and dehumanisation as though reading pages out of a dictionary. He continues: a friend of Kiwanuka’s late father – another “top guy” in the Ugandan military – got wind of Kiwanuka’s incarceration. As another “feared” member of the army, the man was able to order the local police to release Kiwanuka. He then told Kiwanuka he had three options: join the army, “quit being gay”, or get the hell out of Uganda. So, in 2003, Kiwanuka packed his bags and fled to the UK.

Like many refugees arriving to the country today, Kiwanuka was greeted by a far-from-hospitable welcome party. He was crammed into Oakington Detention Centre, even though as a victim of torture he should have never been detained in the first place. Together with a national newspaper, Kiwanuka would later help close down the detention centre, exposing its unhygienic living conditions and “terrible” treatment by staff. 

To begin with though, Kiwanuka would have to grapple with the Home Office – who did eventually recognise him as a victim of torture and release him from the detention centre. But, his friends warned him against claiming asylum. They said many in his position who had done so were told they had no grounds for asylum, deported back to Uganda and ordered to “pretend not to be gay”.

Too scared to claim asylum or return home, Kiwanuka took what he saw as his only option: to live and work in London illegally. He worked for “peanuts”, being paid £1-2 an hour “just to survive”. However, after five years of this, the Home Office finally caught up with him and Kiwanuka found himself back in prison. Kiwanuka says he saw his arrest as “strange”. The way he sees it, all he was doing was working so he could “pay rent and buy food”. “I didn’t rob a bank,” he says, “I was just surviving.”

Again, when speaking about his time in an English prison, Kiwanuka refuses to let on any sign of emotion. After prison, however, Kiwanuka was sent back to another detention centre – which he describes with atypical detail and contempt. “At least in jail they treat you like a human being. In a detention centre, you are nobody. You call for a doctor and it takes them almost 10 days to come.” Kiwanuka claims a fellow detainee died because he was given paracetamol instead of having his health issues taken seriously.

Importantly, unlike the detention centre, the prison system also allowed Kiwanuka to study. He did a diploma in law behind bars and, upon his release, Kiwanuka used his new-found legal skills to take on the Home Office. Kiwanuka claimed for asylum and “was willing to campaign every day and night” to ensure he wasn’t deported back to the country that had tortured him.

And in 2010, thanks in part to courageous activists like Kiwanuka, the British Supreme Court finally ruled that gay and lesbian asylum seekers should not be expected to “exercise discretion” in their home countries to avoid persecution.

Despite this long, convoluted battle, Kiwanuka talks about claiming his right to asylum as though the victory was inevitable. Having known friends who had gone through a similar struggle, but came out the other end with a better life in the UK, he had thought to himself, “It will be a struggle for years and years. But one day I will make it.” 

But even after his asylum claim was successful, the struggle was not over: “I did not have many friends or family, and I had PTSD,” he says. “I had to make other family members, from scratch.”

Abbey decided to create a tight-knit community of other gay African asylum seekers, where they had a “safe space to chill out and be happy”. What started off as this informal network was, in 2016, registered as a formal charity and OPAL was officially formed. 

Now, OPAL represents more than just a safe space. It specialises in providing LGBT asylum seekers with vital legal and moral support. And, a “huge number” of OPAL members live in the Eastlondonlines boroughs of Croydon and Lewisham

And, whilst LGBT month is a key date in so many groups’ calendars in London, for OPAL there is an added significance: it serves “as a reminder that, ‘OK I am safe in England with a British passport’, but there are still many people in Africa going through what I went through.”

“Today in Africa,” Abbey says, “countries are using homosexuality as a scapegoat… they are using it to distract people from things that matter, like poverty.”

With podcasts, talks and workshops, OPAL is also using LGBT month as an opportunity to “get a message” out to people in Africa and let them know “you are not alone. However much your family is abusing you, you’ve got friends”.

Overall, Abbey seems to not take for granted the ability to live in a city where he can wave a rainbow flag without that fear of alienation. He may be far from home, but “at least I am safe”, he says – giving LGBT month another, added importance.