The project has also become an online platform where LGBT people around the world can submit their stories of identity and survival.
The vast majority of my work focuses on human rights issues and over the last 10 years a lot of that work has been in Africa. S o in conservative countries, people have reacted towards that, and in some cases built up hate for the LGBT communities within their own countries. I really feel that a big part of my work is about trying to make abstract human rights issues relatable and humanise them through personal stories.
So when I saw that in Africa we hardly ever saw stories from survivors themselves, I thought that was a way I could contribute. I was in Lagos, Nigeria, and I heard about five young men who were arrested in the north of the country.
They were in jail, awaiting trial, and they were facing the death penalty because they had committed gay acts. So I wanted to go and see them. By the time I got there, fortunately they had been released from prison and their case had been dismissed — they had been in prison for 40 days, they were tortured in jail, they were lashed.
As they were leaving the court, the community gathered around the court because they were dissatisfied with the case being dismissed. They gathered with rocks intending to stone the men to death.
