How Do You Know It’s Not a Scam?
By: Teresa Kuhl
Tags: LGBT, LGBTQ, Human Rights, Humanitarian, Illumination

This journey that took me on a definite twist in my life started with a couple of Facebook groups. I have a transgender grandchild, and I realize what a huge blessing is for all of us. I wanted to put myself out there as a mother figure to offer kindness, compassion, and love to all these people out there struggling. So, that’s who I am, Mama T.

Various people would inbox me, and we’d talk, hang out, get to know each other online. One day, there was a different sort of message. One that would call me painfully, down to my soul.

Her name was Hady. She lived in Block 13, and she needed help. Immediately, I was nervous. Being a woman with more heart than money, I put up a little bit of a wall. I was determined to keep my emotional distance. Yeah. Right. My heart leaped the wall in minutes as Hady told me her story.

Block 13 is a section of a refugee camp in Kenya called Kakuma. It is where 189 LGBTQ people are warehoused together to keep them from the rest of the community. Their would-be rescuers, the UNHCR, said it was to keep them safe. The refugees believe it was to leave them to die.

Block 13 is inside the second-largest refugee camp in the world, Kakuma, in Kenya, Africa. This place is a place no one wants to be. Most of Africa is extremely homophobic. People are viciously beaten and left to die because they are gay. People are put behind bars for life for being transgender. People are segregated right out of every bit of society that exists because they are lesbians.

Image by SatyaPrem from Pixabay

A bit of backstory.

Thousands of LGBTQI refugees now live in Kakuma and Nairobi. While the refugees in Kenya come for many reasons other than sexuality, most of the ones I have met thus far are from Uganda. They are here because it is against the law to be LGBTQI in Uganda. Their homeland swarms with homophobic people, many of whom see nothing wrong with beating anyone suspected of a same-sex relationship or identifying as any form of LGBTQI to a bloody pulp. Including the homophobic police.

So they flee to Kenya, desperately trying to save their lives. That is ALL this state of ugliness is about. They are tired of being beaten and don’t want to die. Oh, they would also like to eat and sleep indoors.

In steps, the UNHCR- the United Nations Refugee Agency. The perfect people to help these refugees who are outcasts on every piece of Earth they put their feet, you would think.

Refugees have been brought into Camp Kauma for years. Kakuma is the second-largest refugee camp in the world. Refugees and asylum seekers from throughout Africa live there on what should be a stepping stone to their new lives.

When you look at UNHCR’s website, it’s easy to see how far they reach and how much work they present to the world. What’s apparently difficult to see is the reality of UNHCR’s work on the ground in Kenya.

Kakuma is a huge place. There is section after section after section. Within each of these groupings, there are blocks. Inside the block, the people survive. All the people.

Right now, Block 13 has only eight “houses.” 189 people are living in Block 13. 24 of them are children. The children sleep in the houses while the adults lay on the ground, praying the same prayer night after night “Please God, just for tonight, keep us safe. And no rains, please? Please, God?”

Attackers bring fire and knives. They leave behind blood and anguish. Burning homes and screaming people. Or, tonight, it may be the rains with big winds blasting all the bodies. There is no sleep now. And no sleep for days for those whose mattress or blanket or net got ruined in torrential storms. No sleep. They never know what to expect. Or if they will survive.

The meager houses are made out of iron sheets, as they are called, give cover to 24 children of the LGBTQ community in Block 13. Beautiful children. Smart children. Malnourished children. Abandoned Children. First by their families and then by the world, including the people who ran Camp Kakuma.

Just a few weeks ago, there were 25 kids in Block 13. Then a baby died at five months old—the eternal consequences of being sprayed with tear gas when she was only three days old.

Yes, I said tear-gassed.

By the United Nations Refugee Agency, the globally sponsored group that carries the mandate to give them refuge — tear-gassing a crowd of people who were begging for protection from those who would hurt them. How did this happen? Why isn't the UNHCR taking care of these people? Why are thousands being treated as if they were no more than filthy animals stray on a farm?

Meanwhile, on Block 13, the children occupy the eight houses, and the others all sleep outside. The lucky ones have a net to keep away mosquitos or perhaps a mattress, so they aren’t on the dry hard ground. Malaria visits the camp with typhoid in its back pocket. Things are quickly moving from really awful to catastrophic.