Readers’ donations have freed a total of 56 victims of African homophobia
Now please help us replenish funds supporting our advocacy journalism.
Eight gay men and two lesbians have been set free this year in Cameroon and Nigeria because of readers’ donations to Project Not Alone, which helps the innocent victims of African homophobia.
All 10 had been locked up for nothing other than whom they love.
“I was treated like a criminal, just for who I am,” said Bob, who was incarcerated without a trial at Bertoua Prison in Cameroon after his gay lover turned on him and claimed that their relationship wasn’t consensual.
Those 10 imprisoned victims of anti-LGBTQ hostility and homophobia were the focus of this year’s Project Not Alone, which built on the project’s previous work that won early release for 46 gay, lesbian and trans prisoners in Cameroon and Nigeria during the years 2019 through 2024. Project Not Alone only works for prisoners who have been incarcerated for nothing other than their sexual orientation.
This year’s original goal was to free 12 innocent prisoners, but family and friends of one imprisoned gay couple unexpectedly paid their fines and set them free before Project Not Alone had raised enough money to do so.
Since its inception in 2019, Project Not Alone has set free a total of 56 LGBTQ prisoners.
The prisoners in Project Not Alone this year were in Maroua, northern Cameroon; in Bertoua, eastern Cameroon; and in Port Harcourt, southeastern Nigeria. For their safety, pseudonyms are always used in articles about the detainees.
The year’s financial goal was $12,861 to pay prisoners’ fines and provide lawyers working pro-bono for the three detainees who were being held pending trial. Readers’ donations totaled $6,048, which was used to pay for hygiene supplies and supplementary food for prisoners during the months while they awaited release from their dirty prison cells, typically surviving on one filthy, poorly cooked meal per day.
We ended up spending $8,614 — less than we had expected, both because of the unexpected release of the two gay prisoners and because we weren’t able to raise as much money for food deliveries as we had hoped.
The UK-based Grand Camp Maisie Fund (GCMF) which supports LGBTQ-related projects, made up the shortfall. Much of that was money that we and GCMF hoped to use for employment training for newly released prisoners, but we had to use it instead to pay prisoners’ fines.
We learned about nine of the 10 prisoners during visits to the prisons in Maroua and Bertoua that were underwritten by a GCMF grant.
The Grand Camp Maisie Fund was created by the will of the late British LGBTQ rights activist Andrew Lumsden, who was instrumental in organizing London’s first Pride March in 1972.
During the prison visits, LGBTI rights activists working for Project Not Alone delivered groceries (rice, oil, plantain, dried fish, peanuts, food paste, soap, detergent, etc.) and interviewed LGBTI detainees. Nine of them met the requirements of Project Not Alone: Each of them was incarcerated for nothing other than their sexual orientation.
In Maroua:
- Four gay men (Sabir, 24; Dom, 23; Yabby, 25; and Sol, 23) who were arrested on Jan. 12 on homosexuality charges after their local imam reported them to police for watching homosexual videos. Nearly nine months later, they were freed on Oct. 6 after Project Not Alone paid $1,705, covering court expenses, a fine and negotiations with the prosecutor by LGBTI-friendly attorney Roger Galima, who worked without pay. The four men were never put on trial, but were threatened with a two-year prison sentence. “The project gave us a voice, a lawyer, and above all, a chance. Thank you to everyone who believed in us”, said Dom, before heading out to a job he found working as a mechanic.
In Bertoua:
- Two male truck drivers (Mojo, 30, and Asa, 29) from the Central African Republic who were arrested Jan. 28 after they were discovered having sex at the back of their truck. More than eight months later, on Oct. 9, Galima negotiated their release, without trial, after some of their friends from back home contributed $800 and Project Not Alone paid $2,400 in fines and legal expenses. As Asa prepared to board a bus to the border, he exclaimed, “We’ve come out alive! We’ve come out with dignity! Thank you to those who thought of us!”
- A nurse and a hairdresser (Fleur, 32, and Wanda, 33) who were arrested in September 2024 for lesbianism after their families reported them to police. They were tried and sentenced to six months in Bertoua Prison. If they had money to pay their fines, they would have been released in March 2025, but they didn’t, so their six-month sentence threatened to last for 12 months. Project Not Alone quickly raised enough money ($1,059) from generous readers to pay their fines, which allowed them to be released on May 26. “I thank everyone who believed in us,” Wanda said. “You don’t know us, but you changed our lives. I hold you in my heart.” With a small grant from the Grand Camp Maisie Fund, they bought equipment and supplies that allowed them to resume their careers as nurse and hairdresser.
- A gay man (Bob), who was arrested for sexual harassment after his lover’s parents reported him to police and the lover denied being a willing partner in the relationship. He was imprisoned without trial on Feb. 16. After his arrest, Bob had no legal assistance. His trial, scheduled for May 11, never took place. He spent months without any clear information about his case. Project Not Alone provided him with an attorney, who arranged for his release on Aug. 25 for a mere $493. “I just want to live, work, and be respected,” Bob said. “Is that too much to ask?”
In Port Harcourt, Nigeria:
- A gay man (Sully, 23), who was arrested by police in December 2024 after an online acquaintance lured him into an ambush laid for him by violent homophobes. Unable to pay police a $620 bribe, Sully was imprisoned without trial on homosexuality charges. A volunteer lawyer working with Project Not Alone took his case and arranged for him to be released in early August if he paid a fine and agree to attend therapy sessions. For Project Not Alone, the cost was $2,878 for the fine, therapy sessions, food deliveries, transportation costs, and unavoidable legal expenses. “I thought my life would sink, but it did it not turn out that way. I appreciate all the donations towards my release,” Sully said. “I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who donated and the Project Not Alone team. God bless.”
Tally from 2019 to now
A total of 56 innocent prisoners have been freed by Project Not Alone since 2019:
- 2019 – 3 prisoners in the Garoua area of Cameroon
- 2020 – 3 prisoners in Bertoua, Cameroon
- 2021-22 – 11 prisoners in Yaoundé, Cameroon (Accounts of those first 17 prisoners are here. including a report on an additional three prisoners who received supplemental food from us in 2018 but were not freed because we didn’t yet know how to do it.)
- 2022-23 – 7 prisoners in Yaoundé, Cameroon. (Accounts of those 7 prisoners are here and here.)
- 2023 – 12 prisoners (excluding a 13th prisoner who was released without the project’s involvement) in Bafoussam, Cameroon, and Port Harcourt, Nigeria. (See the article “We did it!” from early 2024.)
- 2024 — five gay men and five lesbians in Ebolowa, Cameroon, and Port Harcourt, Nigeria. (See the article “Readers’ donations have freed a total of 46 victims of African homophobia” from November 2024.)
- 2025 — 10 prisoners, described in this article.
Funds still needed
Our focus on Project Not Alone fundraising from May through September 2025 left Erasing 76 Crimes with only a little remaining cash to pay for its fundamental work of publishing articles about the human toll of 65+ countries’ anti-gay laws and the struggle to repeal them.
Without that work, Project Not Alone wouldn’t be possible.
If you’re in a position to help us pay our activist reporters, please consider making a generous donation. Our financial sponsor, the St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation, is a tax-exempt charity, so donations are U.S. tax-deductible via:
- PayPal (for U.S. dollar contributions). For other currencies, send PayPal donations to stpaulsfdr@gmail.com
- Alternatively, you could send a check to St. Paul’s Foundation, c/o Colin Stewart, 5517 Paseo del Lago East Unit 1B, Laguna Woods CA 92637 USA. Please write “Project Not Alone” on the memo line and send an email to stpaulsfdr@gmail.com to let us know it’s coming.
