Finally, ‘I don’t feel like I’m afraid’

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This article was published 27/12/2023 (653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Facing persecution and discrimination — even from his own family — Esmail had known for a long time that he had to get out of Yemen.

The spectre of remaining in the Middle Eastern country where he was born guaranteed a miserable, closeted existence. And that was the best-case scenario.

“I realized once I was five years old that it was bad to be gay, and it was forbidden in the religion and society,” says the 35-year-old, who now lives halfway across the globe in Winnipeg.

“I was depressed and afraid from (an) early age.”

Esmail wasn’t comfortable providing a surname, fearing reprisals against others in Yemen, which is controlled by a repressive, fundamentalist Islamic regime.

Yemen is one of 64 countries in the world listed by human-rights organization Amnesty International with laws criminalizing homosexuality.

“One day my younger brother caught me talking on the phone to (an) anonymous guy who I met online,” says Esmail, whose preferred pronouns are they/them.

“My brother was listening to the conversation and he knew that I’m gay and he told one of my older brothers and then he tried to shoot me with a gun.”

Terrified, they managed to escape and never returned home. Nor have they had any contact with any family members since.

As a Yemeni passport holder, Esmail is permitted to travel only to three countries — Jordan, Egypt and Malaysia.

Despite widespread systemic discrimination and persecution of LGBTTQ+ people in Malaysia, Esmail believed it to be the safest option of the three available destinations and travelled there in 2020.

Once there, they applied for refugee status under a United Nations program. Three long, lonely years later — Esmail travelled alone and didn’t know anyone in Malaysia — word arrived that of the myriad relocation possibilities, the Canadian government had accepted the application.

They knew nothing of Winnipeg, nor how the city was chosen as their destination by someone in Ottawa. They got here Sept. 20.

The federal government connected them with Reaching Out Winnipeg (ROW), a non-profit organization that sponsors and offers supports for LGBTTQ+ asylum seekers.

ROW has helped Esmail find an apartment and a job, and connected them with the local LGBTTQ+ community.

“It’s my first place to be on my own… it’s going to be (my) home forever,” Esmail says.

“(I feel) kind of free. I can go and communicate with people. I don’t feel like I’m afraid to express my feelings,” Esmail says.

Randell Loster, volunteer chair of ROW, says the refugees the organization works with have often come out on the right side of a life-and-death situation.

“In many countries around the world, people can be killed for just being who they are… otherwise it’s persecution, jail time or family neglect,” Loster says. “It’s just a slew of negativity that comes towards somebody for being who they are.”

Founded in 2012, ROW has sponsored nine refugees from countries including Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and Yemen.

Loster says Canadians have the privilege to live authentically and express who they are without facing the kinds of danger that is a reality in much of the world. He says it’s important to support the wider LGBTTQ+ community so others can have that same freedom.

“This is a group of people that are part of our community,” Loster says. “They just don’t live with us.”

When sponsoring an asylum seeker, ROW is financially responsible for them for a full year and spends more than $20,000 per person. The money is spent on rent, general cost of living and Winnipeg winter-appropriate clothing, including jackets and boots.

Local marketing and public relations firm UpHouse, in partnership with ROW, created a “travelling suitcase” to raise funds for the organization.

The suitcase is equipped with a tap-payment device that allows people to donate $10 each time they tap their credit or debit card. The suitcase goes to participating businesses for a week at a time.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca