Sudbury LGBT woman from Uganda says she can't go back: 'It's like a death sentence'

She first knew she liked girls when she was 14. 

"I met this girl... Every time I was with her, there was some kind of different way that I felt," the woman told CBC Sudbury on the condition that her identity be withheld.

But Dembe — which is not her real name — had to closely guard her feelings. In Uganda she said, being openly gay is not an option. 

"Being gay is like an abomination ... It can never happen," she said. "You could be in prison for life, or there was a law that was passed: I think it's death — a death sentence."

Amnesty International reports that a "new Anti-Homosexuality Bill [is] being considered by Uganda's Parliament [that] proposes a life sentence for engaging in 'homosexual activity' and the death sentence for 'aggravated homosexuality'." 

"People have been killed," she continued. "I know of a gay man who was beaten to death in a suburb outside where I used to live ... another boy was transgender [and he] was murdered by the people in the community. He was actually very young."  

'I was just sitting there and getting married'

After she was found out by her brother and reported to her father, Dembe said she was invited to a party. 

"So I went, you know, and then the next thing I know I woke up [in a hotel room] next to this person who is saying, oh he loves me. And you know, I've never seen him."

Dembe soon discovered she was pregnant by the rape, and, in a rushed home service, was forced to marry her attacker. 

"I was just sitting there and getting married," she recalled. She remained married to him for a decade. 

"It was a horrible ten years... I wasn't happy with him. There was a lot of domestic violence, a lot of physical abuse, emotional [too]. It was a lot... there was a lot of marital rapes. I had numerous abortions," she said. 

Dembe did have three children with the man who continued to rape her. She said during their marriage, he also married another woman, and once took their eldest son to stay with his new wife. 

"[My son] came back the next day and he was burned on the shoulder ... [and I]  kind of asked in what what happened. [My husband] kind of brushed it off and said, 'You know, don't ask me — a man — don't ask me. How dare you."

Dembe said that was her breaking point. 

'Suicidal'

She didn't have the money at first to apply for both she and her children to come to Canada to seek asylum. So, in a heartbreaking move, she came alone in 2017, leaving her kids in the temporary care of her cousin.  

She also left behind her secret partner. 

"I was so... [I had] panic attacks," she said of those early days in a Toronto shelter. "I couldn't sleep. I was suicidal... I felt like I wanted to actually throw myself onto a train track. I was so depressed."

But, in 2018 her children were able to join her, and they moved in to a family shelter. And then, the good news: family housing had opened up for them in Sudbury. 

"Sudbury ... has been very good to me," she said. "The people I meet are really kind and helpful. I have a really good network of friends.

"My kids are happy. They like it here. It's nice and quiet." 

Dembe remains in legal limbo now, waiting for the hearing that will ultimately tell her whether she and her children can stay in Canada. 

"I can't go back there," she said, thinking of her possible deportation to Uganda. "It's like a death sentence to me."

"I don't know what will become of me," she continued. "My kids will be taken away from me. I can't even imagine... I'd rather be dead."