A Nigerian asylum-seeker, Aderonke Apata, is about to
send a very personal home video of herself having s*x
to prove to UK Home Office that she’s gay and prevent
being deported.
According to IndependentUK, Aderonke feels she has
tried everything to persuade the Home Office that she’s
gay. She’d sent letters from former girlfriends – both in
Britain and Nigeria – and supporting statements from
friends. But after her claim that she could be killed
because of her s* xuality if sent back to Nigeria was
rejected, she feels there’s only one way of providing a
judge with irrefutable evidence that she’s gay: by
sending a very personal home video.
Sitting with her girlfriend, Happiness Agboro, in a bar
on Manchester’s Canal Street, Ms Apata, 47, revealed
the traumatic ordeal she has experienced:
“I was asked to bring my supporting documents for my
judicial review for the court to look at. What evidence
do we have to compile apart from letters from people? I
knew we
had a home video of ourselves, so I thought why not
just put it in? I cannot afford to go back to my county
where I will be tortured, so if I have to prove it with a
s*xual video, then I have to do it.”
IndependentUk reports that Aderonke’s experience is
echoed by many LGBT asylum-seekers in Britain who
are having to go to extreme lengths to persuade
skeptical immigration officers of their
s*xuality. Aderonke still feels distraught at having
shared such an intimate record of her personal life.
“I feel so bad it’s got to this stage. It’s such a
desperate and precarious situation to be in, very
dangerous, because anything could happen to those
pictures, those videos.”
When she came to Britain from Nigeria in 2004 , her
asylum claim was on religious grounds. She came from
a Christian family, but had married a Muslim man in
what she says was a sham arrangement to cover up
her long-term relationship with another woman.
According to Ms Apata, her husband’s family turned
against her as they suspected she was gay. They took
her to a sharia court, where she was sentenced to
death for adultery. She says her brother and three-
year-old son were killed in related vigilante incidents.
Ms Apata ran away and went into hiding after two
appeals for asylum were rejected, living on the streets
in Manchester to make sure she would not be
deported. In 2012, after being caught working as a care
manager with a false visa, she tried again to apply for
asylum – saying she feared returning to Nigeria and
being persecuted for her s*xuality.
This latest asylum claim was also rejected, despite the
fact that Ms Apata gave testimony that her ex-girlfriend
in Nigeria was killed in a vigilante attack in 2012 and
the country’s law now punishes homos*xuality with up
to 14 years’ imprisonment.
Ms Apata’s story has rapidly garnered mass support,
with one petition demanding Theresa May halt her
deportation already attracting more than 230,000
signatures. A judicial review has now been granted in
her case and she is hopeful she will finally have the
right to live freely in Britain with her girlfriend.
A Home Office spokeswoman said:
“We do not remove anyone at risk of persecution
because of their s*xuality. We provide dedicated
guidance and training to those dealing with such
asylum claims, and all applications are carefully
considered in line with our international obligations.”
For Ms Apata, the threat of deportation has proved too
much and she has recently been hospitalised with
complex post-traumatic stress disorder. “I want
sanctuary,” she says. “I just want to be protected. I
want to be who I am.”
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