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Regardless of being vilified, threatened and humiliated in public, veteran Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom is decided to uphold the rights of gay folks in her nation.
A human rights NGO that she runs, Redhac, was not too long ago suspended by the federal government and she or he is due to seem earlier than investigators to reply accusations of cash laundering and funding terror teams – which she denies.
The 80-year-old says the authorities are obstructing her work and believes she is being focused due to her authorized advocacy with the LGBT group.
“I’ll all the time defend homosexuals as a result of they threat their freedom day-after-day, and they’re thrown into jail like canine,” she tells the BBC in a agency tone, talking in her workplace within the metropolis of Douala.
“My job is to defend folks. I do not see why I’d say I am defending everybody besides homosexuals.”
Wearing a black robe, Ms Nkom delivers her stark message in a measured voice that displays years of considerate authorized argument.
In accordance to the nation’s penal code, each women and men discovered responsible of gay intercourse might be sentenced to up to 5 years in jail and made to pay a effective. Members of the LGBT group additionally face being ostracized by their households and wider society.
Consequently, Ms Nkom has been seen as a surrogate dad or mum to some in her nation who’ve been open about their sexuality with their household.
The authorized skilled has kids of her personal, however a whole lot, possibly hundreds, of others search for to her as their protector following her work over greater than 20 years to defend these accused of homosexuality.
“She’s like our father and our mom. She’s the mom we discover when our households have deserted us,” says one LGBT activist, Sébastien, not his actual identify.
Dedicated to the Common Declaration of Human Rights, which is included in Cameroon’s structure, Ms Nkom argues that freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation must be seen as a elementary proper that supersedes the penal code.
“You should not jail elementary rights, you should not repress them – you must shield them,” she says.
It is a wrestle that has landed Ms Nkom in difficulties.
