Shackled Love: LGBT Asylum Seekers in the U.K.

Sibo Dube and Maureen Nabisere met inside the U.K.’s most notorious immigrant detention centre, Yarl’s Wood. In the midst of captivity and uncertainty, the two women bonded in the detention center choir group; they had come to the U.K. seeking liberation from the emotional imprisonment they had faced in Zimbabwe and Uganda respectively, where their sexuality is illegal. Their relationship would be their emotional salvation, and potentially, their ticket to freedom in the U.K., which places a heavy burden of proof on LGBT asylum seekers to show they’ve had same-sex relationships. Produced by Hannah Harris Green and David Waters. About the producers: Hannah Harris Green is an independent writer, reporter and radio producer interested in gender and globalization. Her work has appeared in How We Get to Next, Quartz, The Guardian and VICE News and has aired on KPCC, WHYY, Pacifica and KUNC. David Waters, who produced the interviews for this piece, is a journalist and radio producer based in London, U.K.. David produces the Voices podcast coming soon on Audible. More on Sibo’s story will be featured in an upcoming episode this fall. Collaboration: The Voices podcast, forthcoming on Audible Follow Afropop Worldwide on Facebook at www.facebook.com/afropop, on Instagram @afropopworldwide and on Twitter @afropopww. Subscribe to the Afropop Worldwide newsletter at www.afropop.org/newsletter/ S2:E5 Distributed 10/31/2017