‘NOW I DON’T HAVE TO DIE’
Eleventh-hour decision to suspend deportation may have saved gay woman’s life
A gay asylum seeker was granted a last-minute reprieve Friday from deportation to Uganda, after Canadian officials agreed to review new evidence that emerged after her claim was refused.
Yvonne Niwahereza Jele, 29, had been ordered to leave Canada as of today, but Ottawa has now agreed to suspend her deportation for a year while border authorities assess the new risks she could face if returned to Uganda, a country where homosexuality is outlawed and punishable by life in prison.
Just after her asylum was rejected in June, a news article in Uganda reported that local police were looking for Jele because she is gay. However, neither the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Canada Border Services Agency nor the Federal Court of Canada by law could review the new information.
“When I got my lawyer’s call, my knees dropped and I started crying. I have not been sleeping and eating since they gave me the removal date three weeks ago. I felt hopeless and helpless. The doctor had to put me on antidepressant,” said an emotional Jele, 29, whose story appeared in Friday’s Toronto Star. “Now, I don’t have to be punished and die. I can feel freedom.”
Aadil Mangalji, Jele’s counsel, said the border service agency has agreed to stop the removal and grant Jele a pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA), a process that had eluded her because of changes made by the former Conservative government in 2012, which applied a one-year ban on applications from failed refugee claimants. The PRRA could have been one way for Jele to present her new evidence.
“We are ecstatic that the government understood the danger she was in and protected her from it,” said Mangalji. “This offers a huge relief. The risk to Yvonne’s life is very real.”
In her asylum claim, Jele said she had been in a nine-year closeted relationship with her high school girlfriend until 2008, when they were caught kissing by her father, who became enraged and forced her to marry a supermarket manager.
Jele said she continued her secret relationship with her girlfriend, meeting her after work and on weekends in cheap hotels. But one day in 2013, her husband caught the pair together at their house. He called police to have her arrested, she said in her asylum claim.
She said she was looking for an opportunity to leave Uganda, and it came in March when her employer, a travel company, sent her to a marketing conference in Philadelphia. After the event, she came to Canada and sought asylum with help from her brother in Toronto.
In June, the refugee board rejected her asylum claim, citing “inconsistencies and contradictions” in her claim. It also dismissed her allegations of abuse by her husband.
Five weeks after her claim was refused, a news story in the July 17 edition of the Ugandan tabloid hello! reported under the headline “City Socialite Hunted Over Lesbo Links” that Jele was facing charges of committing “unnatural offences” and “indecent practices” and police in Kampala were looking for her.
A bilateral U.S.-Canada agreement stipulates that refugees seeking asylum must apply in the country to which they first arrive, but exemptions are granted to people who, like Jele, have family ties in the other country.
However, Mangalji said that exemption also prevented Jele from appealing to the refugee board with her new evidence, which he said would have supported her case.
On Friday, the federal court also agreed to set aside the refugee board’s decision to refuse Jele’s asylum claim, and to hear the application for judicial review on Dec. 19. However, the court is authorized on- ly to review whether the refugee board made any legal errors and cannot accept new evidence.
Jele, who is staying in a refugee shelter, said she won’t be celebrating because she is physically and emotionally strained.
“I can finally get some sleep. It’s all I need now. The fight is not over, but at least I will have a chance to show the new evidence they didn’t have before.”
“We are ecstatic that the government understood the danger she was in and protected her from it. This offers a huge relief. The risk to Yvonne’s life is very real.” AADIL MANGALJI LAWYER FOR YVONNE NIWAHEREZA JELE