After a too-long hiatus, we’re back with the first episode of Season Two!
This season follows the lives of those who have sought asylum for their sexuality or gender identity.
This episode follows Nadim, a young man from Dhaka, Bangladesh who currently lives in London.
Made with the support of the Say it Loud Club, an organisation providing support and advocacy for LGBTQA+ refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. You can set up a one-off or monthly donation via their website.
Storytelling: Jamie Holton
Writing: Jamie Holton & Jessica Stone
Production: Jessica Stone
Transcript
Nadim: Since a young age I was different, I was very girly. I liked to play things, with the barbie doll and all this. I was never into the football, the cricket. That kind of game. There wasn’t any kind of sexual attraction towards the girls.
And then as I started to grow up, my interest was boys. Sexually started growing more and more. There was one point I had sex with my partner. And that’s how I realised this is who I am. And he explained me further.
After realising I was gay, it was difficult to hear in the mosque people saying that gay activities is haram. You cannot do it God will punish you. So, there was a lot of negative thinking inside. I just started hiding myself.
Jessica: Welcome to the first episode of season two of Refugees’ Stories Podcast. This season focuses on the lives of people who have had to leave their homes because of their sexuality or gender identity. Today we're listening to Nadim. Please note that this episode includes graphic description of violence against LGBTQIA+ people, which may be distressing to you as a listener.
Nadim: My name is Nadim. I’m from Dhaka Bangladesh. Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh.
Jamie: Nadim came to study in the UK in 2009. He explains how difficult life was for him in Bangladesh as a gay man, and how this motivated him to leave and continue his education in the UK.
Nadim: I had a boyfriend at that time. We had a sexual relationship. But it was very secret, we couldn’t do anything in public.
There was many nights I cried. There was nowhere I could go with my problem, my issue. I was struggling with my identity. I couldn’t walk to the street holding my boyfriend’s hand.
When I was hiding, I wasn’t myself. Maybe I was living my life but inside me I was living a double life. I wasn’t happy. And the other life, I was just doing it for society and the people to show this is who I am. It was very struggle for me.
There was a point where I realise. I finished my HSC, which is equivalent to A level. I thought I have to go, because I cannot be living the rest of my life like this.
Basically, when I came, when I first landed, the life here was different. Because I was stepped in here, Soho and everything. For me it was a dream.
I never expected my life could be that easy as a gay man you know finding a partner. If I wanted, I could have three partners in one night. It was a dream for me. Walking to the street.
When I came here everyone was welcoming. Everyone was accepting. There was no one bullying. back home I got bullied just because I was different so many times. But here, no one is bullying me, and I can live my life as I want.
Jamie: In Bangladesh, however, things are very different. Not only are there nowhere near as many LGBT organisations, but those organisations are often under threat—even serious threats of violence.
Nadim: Yes, in 2016. There was two gay men. They tried to promote LGBT and, they tried to, you know, little, not publicly, very open. But tried to be open. And there was a terrorist group came into their house, broke their door, and with machete sliced them in half in the bed while they were sleeping.
Jamie: Nadim is describing the murder of Bangladeshi LGBT activists Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy on April 25, 2016. The two men had set up and run Bangladesh’s first and only LGBT magazine, Roopban.
According to witnesses, six men barged past the security guard in Xulhaz’s building and killed Xulhaz and Mahbub, in front of Xulhaz’s mother, who was injured in the attack. Ansar-Al-Islam, an Al-Qaida-linked group, claimed responsibility for the murders.
Despite the group claiming responsibility four days after the murders occured, police did not charge anyone until May 2019. Shortly after the murders, the Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said: “our society does not allow any movement that promotes unnatural sex.”
Nadim: There was another story. A professor in Chittagong. I don’t remember the city. So somehow, he was very hiding himself. He wasn’t even open. I don’t know how come they found out he was gay. And they slice him in half in the university campus...
Nevertheless, all of these murders are a part of an overarching trend of murdering activists and progressives in Bangladesh, which includes secular bloggers and academics.
The murders of Xulhaz and Mahbub in particular are the epitome of the intolerance and discrimination against sexual minorities in Bangladesh.
Although in practice it is rarely implemented, the government has now twice rejected recommendations from the UN Human Rights Council to repeal the law.
In addition, authorities fail to support freedom of expression and the police are indifferent to the killings of progressive public figures.
As Nadim explains...
Nadim: And when, a lot of time when they catch, they don’t punish because they’re gay. So, for me when I came here, it was like heaven. I couldn’t even dream that this was even possible for a gay man in their life.
And I finished my graduation from my university in 2015. My family was pressuring me to get married and everything. They did fix arranged marriage with my cousin, one of my cousins.
I’ve been saying: I’m not ready. I need time. Because I didn’t want to marry a woman. I would not be happy. But I was just trying to avoid the whole conversation.
First of all. I cannot live my life as a gay man openly back home. And secondly, I cannot marry the girl, because none of us is going to be happy. I care about her.
And I was with a partner, I don’t want to fake another relationship. We were happy, so I told my parents. They never accepted me.
We haven’t spoken since then. And they threatened me, that they will find me and kill me, and my parents are quite powerful back home.
Jamie: Nadim’s fears about some sort of violence if he returns home are not unfounded.
Nadim: There was a boy, a guy, who made asylum claim. And they deport him back home.
After two weeks he was dead. Home office say he’s not gay and they deported him as if he weren’t. He met his family and after a week he go missing. His family start looking, and they find his dead body in the river.
This story is very sad, and it scares me even more. Because I came here 2009. Since coming here, my body language the way I dress, it’s changed.
I don’t want to hide my identity. That’s the whole reason the last ten years I was so scared to even go back home. Because I was scared my life would be in danger.
Jamie: Nadim highlights that he fears he would be harmed by his family, but also potentially by extremist Islamist groups and the government.
Nadim: And a lot of people’s mentality, think as well: if you kill gay people you go to heaven. That’s why a lot of terrorist groups, they think it’s their responsibility to kill gay people so they can go to heaven straight away. It’s a misconception they have.
And it’s a bit of politics as well. Because there’s a law, 377, which is like, you can go to prison for 10 years if you’re found as a gay.
Police, or like special force, which is RAB, and all the government authority doesn’t believe someone torture you. If someone does torture you and you go to report, you get into trouble.
And more important, you know, you might lose your life. All these people died.
And the thing is, as I say: Even when you sleeping, you don’t even know when you sleep if you are going to wake up tomorrow. And if you are walking through the street, you don’t even know if you will be able to come home, because someone might attack you from the street.
I wish that people will change their mentality towards gay people. At the moment there’s a big stigma that gay people, what they do is sin. And gay people like a virus, when they come to community, they spread the virus to other people. That all the society turns into gays. They have to change it.
But I think we haven’t decided ourselves to be gay. We were born as a gay. It wasn’t our choice to decide ‘oh I want to be gay’. That’s how we were born. God decided. If God decided us to be gay, then that’s who we are. We can’t change anything.
I don’t use Facebook at all at the moment. I haven’t been using, because my family would find out.
Yeah, so, I have a few friends, but I haven’t been speaking to them for a while. And after my family find out as well, they stopped speaking to me.
So, at the moment, back home, I don’t have anyone to talk to. Whatever I have here, my LGBT community and the family. And friends and all. So, they’re my family at the moment.
Jamie: Fortunately for Nadim, he's been able to get the support of his British partner.
Nadim: My partner’s been very helpful throughout my whole process. There’s many, many nights I’ve been crying, and he’s always there to support.
And anywhere I need to go, you know, if I don’t feel comfortable, if I need support, he’s always there.
My boyfriend his coming out was completely different. We talk sometimes, I share my experience, how my coming out was, my struggle through, and how my family reacted.
When we talk through, his is exactly opposite. His mother knew when he was young, but he never had to come and say to his parents, ‘I’m gay’. They knew he was gay, and it wasn’t a big deal, you know? You’re gay, you’re gay, that’s all. It wasn’t a big deal for him.
Jamie: Where did you meet your partner?
Nadim: Actually, one of my friend, you know, he invited. We were talking, then he mentioned he had a very good friend, he’s single as well.
So he invited us both at one of the events that he organised, and yeah we came one night, and he introduced us, and yeah, we start talking, we start clicking up. And everything went well.
We used to meet just for coffee or tea, and then in the weekends, or just for dinner.
The more I get to meet him, the more I get to know him, the more I start liking him. The relationship start getting stronger.
Then he proposed me, I wanted to live together, and I said yes, so we start living together. We’ve been living together for almost two years now.
So later, 2018, kind of beginning 2019, I found out about the asylum. I could make an asylum claim. Because I made a civil partnership application with my partner.
So I went to see a legal advisor, she said, okay you can make an asylum claim. So then I called Home Office and I made an asylum claim.
The time and the length of it, it varies. Some people it happens within 6 months, some people within one year.
There’s no set time, that within that time the result will come. So you have to be patient, don’t give up, and just keep fighting.
Jamie: The UK government’s decisions on asylum applications are taking significantly longer than before.
It can take years before the Home Office reaches a decision on whether an applicant is successful and can stay in the UK. This period of waiting makes people feel powerless and insecure about their futures.
To make matters worse, 45% of asylum applications in the UK are unsuccessful. This means that almost half of the people who seek refuge here, are told to leave.
This shows how difficult it may be for asylum seekers to prove their sexuality, especially if they have learned to hide it in the past, or have negative experiences with coming out.
Nadim: The thing is, sometime you go for interview, there’s some things, good memories, and some things, you know, you don’t really want to remember, you don’t really want to talk about that. Throughout this entire process, you have to remember old days.
Jamie: Asylum seekers in the UK are not allowed to do paid or unpaid work while they wait for the Home Office decision. They are also often not able to choose where they live.
Nadim: During this time you’re not allowed to work. They give you 37 pounds a week, which is not even enough to survive one person.
And if they give you housing support, they give you housing support but which is most time outside of London. So you get kind of isolated.
Jamie: In the meantime, despite not being able to work, Nadim is still able to socialise, through an organisation called the Say it Loud Club.
Nadim: So I heard of Aloysius, then I went there and met Aloysius, and he was very nice and all welcoming.
He never - even though all the refugee people are depressed and stressed, all the time - everytime you go to the meeting, he’s a very strong powerful character.
When he talks, he motivate you and give you the power. When he go walk into the room - before you start the meeting, you know, you’re depressed, all the problems in your mind you’re going through.
And when you come out, you’re motivated. You say you have to work hard as he said. So this kind of speech motivate us.
So I try to do my best to attend as many meetings as possible, because when I hear the speech and the way he talks, it give me power. It give me energy to fight through.
We have quite a lot, big number of people. So when you see them, you feel like you’re not the only one, there’s everyone. It’s like a big family, you know? Everyone helping each other.
Say It Loud Club is a mix of everything. There’s few people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda.
Yeah like a mix of pretty much everything. So it’s like perfect rainbow.
A lot of people think that asylum seekers just want to stay here. But a lot of people don’t realize the life they’ve been, the struggle they’ve been in the past.
And it’s not easy for someone to come - leave their own land, leave their own country, come to a different country and ask for protection when they don’t know anybody.
Because nobody want to leave their land.
Most of the asylum seekers has been through a lot throughout their life. And they don’t want another problem. They don’t want another issue. So, it’d be nice for all the people from the UK to give them a warm welcome.
A lot of the asylum seekers are intelligent. They’ve been studying throughout their life. And they can contribute a lot to the economy.
Jamie: Despite the challenges of the asylum process, Nadim has found acceptance in the UK.
Nadim: At the beginning, winter, I was very struggling. Because I’d never faced, I’d never seen snow before. And first time I came, and the first year, it was minus 6-7, and snow was up to the knees…
But slowly you know, I adapt to the weather and everything. Summer, autumn, winter, I got used to it. I like the weather now.
Most important. There is so many LGBT organisations. You can choose. It’s not like, okay, this one, even though you don’t like it, you have to go. You don’t have to. There’s like so many social groups, mental health groups, there’s so many health organisations you can go.
I like the people, they’re very welcoming. It doesn’t matter where you go, they don’t discriminate about your sexuality. That’s more important to me.
Last year I went to Birmingham pride. Actually, this year, Birmingham pride, Manchester pride, London pride, Oxford pride, I’ve been to. I like it.
Because this is the time of the year, we all can gather together and celebrate. We don’t have to hide.
I can walk. The more important thing I like, you know, on the gay pride, on the most busy street. I can hold my flag and walk through the street. And no one holding me...I couldn’t do that back home.
And don’t keep yourself in a closet. Because you’re losing your identity and living a double life doesn’t help.
When you accept yourself, the way you want to live, there’s nothing better in the world.
Jessica: That was the first episode of season two of Refugee’s Stories Podcast. You’ve been listening to Nadim from Bangladesh, interviewed by the talented Jamie Holton, a new member of the Refugees’ Stories Podcast team. The outro music is actually the Bangladesh national anthem, a request from Nadim because his first choice, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, is beyond our budget.
This episode was made in association with the Say it Loud Club, one of the very few organisations working in the UK to support those who have been displaced because of their sexuality or gender identity.
The Say it Loud Club is an incredible NGO that provides valuable community support, as Nadim described in this episode, ranging from social events to workshops and legal aid, functioning as a lifeline for people during what can be the extremely long waiting period after seeking asylum.
I strongly recommend donating and supporting their excellent work. The best way to do this is by setting up a regular monthly donation, which I’ve done myself by following the link through their website, www.sayitloudclub.org.
Of course, all statements in this podcast are my own, and not to be attributed to the Say it Loud Club.
Music credits in order: Les Cartes Postales Sonores, Stillborn Blues, Axletree, Borrtex, Rest You Sleeping Giant & Rushmo.
Thank you also to Nadim, for trusting us with his story. I can only hope that these stories go out into the world and help others to understand Nadim’s situation, and those of others like him.
And finally, my name is Jessica Stone, I’m the producer of this podcast. Thank you for listening to Nadim’s story.