Readers’ donations have freed a total of 46 victims of African homophobia

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

This year, Project Not Alone has fed and freed 10 innocent LGBTQ prisoners.

Word cloud showing the names of the 46 prisoners for whom Project Not Alone has freed. — Word cloud showing the names of the 46 prisoners for whom Project Not Alone has won early release.

Five gay men and five 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.

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 36 gay, lesbian and trans prisoners in Cameroon and Nigeria during the years 2019 through 2023.

Project Not Alone has now set free 46 LGBTQ prisoners.

The prisoners in Project Not Alone this year were in Ebolowa, Cameroon, and in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. For their safety, pseudonyms are used in articles about the detainees.

The year’s initial financial goal was $8,122 to pay prisoners’ fines and provide lawyers working pro-bono for the three detainees who were being held pending trial. Readers’ donations were also 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.

The Attitude Magazine Foundation donated £2,450 (about $3,000), which supplemented individual readers’ donations to the project.

Groceries delivered to LGBTQ prisoners at Cameroon’s Ebolowa Prison as part of the initial scouting trip by Cameroon correspondent Steeves Winner. (Photo by Steeves Winner)

Here is how we learned about the 10 prisoners:

LGBTI rights activist Steeves Winner traveled to Ebolowa to deliver groceries (rice, oil, plantain, dried fish, peanuts food paste, soap, detergent, etc.) and to interview LGBTI detainees in the prison there. Nine of them met the requirements of Project Not Alone: Each of them was incarcerated for nothing other than their sexual orientation.

Three lesbians (Chrison, Amso, and Keli) were arrested Dec. 12 when police raided their home after one woman’s mother accused the other two of luring her daughter into lesbianism. In January, they were sentenced to four months in prison plus fines and costs totalling 592,0000 CFA francs (about $955). If they could pay that, their sentence would end May 14, but they didn’t have enough money, so they faced the prospect of remaining in prison until August or September. After Project Not Alone 2024 made its initial appeal to readers on May 3, readers quickly contributed enough money to pay their fines. They were released May 25.

Reporter/activist Steeves Winner (pseudonym) meets with the four newly released gay prisoners in Ebolowa. Their faces are blurred for their safety. (Photo by Steeves Winner)

Four gay men (Ekole, Anric, Boul and Asmar) were imprisoned on homosexuality charges after police raided their card game on Jan. 15 and found lubricant in their possession. They were tried, convicted and sentenced to six months in prison, plus fines and court costs totaling 894,000 CFA francs (about US $1,468). That sentence would last until mid-July, if they could pay the fines, or until mid-October if they couldn’t. With assistance from a local attorney, they were released May 31 after Project Not Alone paid their fines and costs of one million CFA francs (about $1,642).
Two lesbians (Yane and Hage) were arrested Feb. 13 on the basis of complaints from their neighbors. Because police found love notes and sexual propositions on the women’s phones, they were charged with violating Cameroon’s 2010 law on cybercrime and cybersecurity, which confronted them with the possibility of four-year prison sentences and fines totalling 2 million CFA francs (about U.S. $3,264). In the end they were sentenced to pay a combined 1,200,000 CFA francs (about US $1,959), which Project Not Alone could cover, and serve nothing more than the six months they had already spent in prison. They were set free Aug. 12.

Nigerian activist Mike Daemon notified us about this year’s 10th prisoner, a gay man named Ben, who was detained without trial at the Port Harcourt Maximum Security Prison. Ben was arrested during a police raid in February. In Nigeria, violations of the anti-homosexuality law can lead to 14 years in prison.

Port Harcourt prison (Photo courtesy of TopNaija.ng)

During his incarceration, Project Not Alone provided Ben with food and later paid ₦248,298 ($146) to secure his bail. In August, Ben was finally released with the understanding that charges against him would be dropped after he completed a series of counseling sessions.

Additionally, a generous donor contributed $540 to help Ben establish a roadside food business. With these funds, he purchased a gas stove and other cooking equipment, enabling him to now own and operate his own food stand.

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Late additions to the roster of Project Not Alone beneficiaries were the four employees of the LGBTI anti-AIDS group Alternatives Cameroon who were arrested in Douala on Sept. 30. Because they were receiving little to no food while awaiting trial, Project Not Alone delivered about $174 worth of food to them.

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

Project Not Alone has not yet completed a final accounting of 2024’s revenue and expenses, but a near-final tally indicates that $9,313 in donations were received while expenses totaled $8,222.

Those expenses included:

$768 for food and hygiene items, plus transportation and prison access fees. (Deliveries were scheduled every two months if donors make that possible and if detainees have not yet been released.)
$4,511 to pay fines and court costs of convicted prisoners.
$1,852 for legal expenses (filing fees, copying charges, etc.) incurred by attorneys working pro bono.
$307 to meet prisoners’ medical needs.
$375 for travel expenses and prison admission charges.

Looking forward to 2025, Project Not Alone will have about $1,091 in the bank that will allow us to pay for initial trips to prisons to find additional innocent victims of African homophobia who deserve help.

Receipt for groceries purchased on April 1, 2024, at the Moins Cher Supermarket by Steeves Winner for LGBTQ prisoners at Cameroon's Ebolowa Prison as part of his scouting trip. (Photo by Steeves Winner) — Receipt for groceries purchased on April 1, 2024, at the Moins Cher Supermarket by Steeves Winner for LGBTQ prisoners at Cameroon’s Ebolowa Prison as part of his scouting trip. (Photo by Steeves Winner)

Tally from 2019 to now

A total of 46 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 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 our the project’s involvement) in Bafoussam, Cameroon, and Port Harcourt, Nigeria. (See the article “We did it!” from early 2024.)
2024 — 10 prisoners, described in the article above.