Living hidden or in fear: Senegal’s LGBTQ+ community faces rising persecution
Living hidden or in fear: Senegal’s LGBTQ+ community faces rising persecution
Report Rejection by family, suffocating social climate, fear of arrest—since penalties for same-sex relations were doubled in March, distress calls from those desperate to flee Senegal have surged. Activist groups have joined forces to coordinate emergency support.
Cherif* arrived in France in early June with one certainty: he could no longer stay in Senegal. ‘I was going to get arrested,’ he insists. For weeks after a man he knew was arrested, he lived in constant fear. ‘The moment I read about it in the news, all I could think about was fleeing.’ The case involved a close associate of Ousmane Sonko, Senegal’s former prime minister and current National Assembly president, who spearheaded the bill that doubled prison sentences for same-sex relations from five to ten years—passed on March 11. Local media reported multiple arrests of alleged partners. ‘I knew my friend’s phone would be searched and that compromising messages between us would be found,’ Cherif recalls. ‘I deleted every message, photo, and trace of my hidden life.’
In Senegal, he says, the atmosphere has become unbearable. At home, in the streets, on television, and across social media, ‘everyone was talking about LGBTQ+ people,’ with hate speech spreading unchecked. ‘They’re corrupting the youth, destroying the…’