Davita Nassuna comes from Uganda – a country where homosexuality is illegal and in some cases punishable by death. Now she is to be deported, because the Swedish Migration Agency does not believe that she is a lesbian.
- “I can’t go back there. I will die”, she says.
Davita fled to Sweden from Uganda in December 2022 after her sexual orientation was revealed – something she says resulted in her being arrested by the police and put in custody.
But in Sweden, life was different, there she dared to express her sexuality and met love in Stockholmer Ebba Westin.
- “I am now married, something I thought I would never be. We talk about starting a family and having children. It’s liberating”, says Davita.
- “We want to live a normal, peaceful life together. That’s all we want right now”, says Ebba Westin.
In June this year, the couple got married – but their love story may come to an abrupt end. Davita has been denied asylum, first by the Migration Agency and then by the Migration Court.
Now Davita is to be deported to Uganda, which has one of the world’s toughest laws against homosexuality. During this year’s Stockholm Pride parade, several people on the train demonstrated together with Ebba and Davita to show their support – and to stop the deportation.
- “There is nothing I could have said differently. A decision was already made for me before I entered the court. I know my place in society. I am powerless, as an asylum seeker I belong to the bottom layer”, says Davita.
Not given a sufficiently detailed picture
Davita has not proven that she belongs to the LGBTQI group at the time the case was tried, the Migration Agency believes, and therefore they cannot grant her asylum.
- “The basic explanation is that even if it is difficult to tell about your own sexuality and events you have been a part of, you need to leave a sufficiently collected and detailed story so that we can use it as a basis for our assessment”, says Anna Lindblad, deputy head of justice at the Swedish Migration Agency.
When the Swedish Migration Agency decided on Davita’s case, she was not yet married to Ebba Westin. Even if Davita’s case cannot be reviewed, her new family situation means that the Swedish Migration Agency can decide whether she should be granted a temporary residence permit.
- “What she can do in this situation is to file a restraining order if she wants us to test this relationship with the wife”.
