We have freed dozens of imprisoned victims of African homophobia

LGBT Africans should not be imprisoned for whom they love.
LGBT Africans should not be imprisoned for whom they love.

Over the past six years, Project Not Alone has assisted 29 imprisoned victims of Cameroonian homophobia, plus two victims of Nigeria’s anti-transgender bias.

In 2018, in the first phase of Project Not Alone, three LGBT prisoners in Yaoundé, Cameroon, received food deliveries to supplement the one meal a day that Cameroonian inmates receive.

In 2019, the project paid fines that freed three gay prisoners in Muslim-majority northern Cameroon.

In 2020, two lesbians and a trans woman gained early release from a prison in eastern Cameroon after Project Not Alone paid their fines.

 

Logo of Project Not Alone (Otavio Zuni illustration courtesy of the artist)

Project Not Alone 2021 set free 11 LGBT prisoners, once again in Yaoundé.

In all of these cases, donors’ contributions only benefited prisoners who were incarcerated for whom they love, not for other unrelated crimes.

Project Not Alone is supported entirely by readers’ donations.

This is a chronology of the project’s work feeding and freeing innocent LGBT prisoners:

2018 – 3 prisoners in Yaoundé (food deliveries only) We had not yet learned that prisoners would be set free if we paid their fines.
2019 – 3 prisoners in the Garoua area
2020 – 3 prisoners in Bertoua
2021-22 – 11 prisoners in Yaoundé
(Accounts of those 20 prisoners are here.)
2022-23 – 7 prisoners in Yaoundé
(Accounts of those 7 prisoners are here and here.)

2023 — As of August, we had gained early release for 4 more prisoners — two gay men in Mfou, Cameroon, and 2 trans women in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

We also paid the fines for 2 lesbian prisoners in Mfou, Cameroon, which will allow them to leave prison in late 2023 — four months early. We were still working for the release of another 6 innocent LGBT Cameroonian prisoners in Mfou and Bafoussam, Cameroon.