--- title: Why an Activist Was Sentenced to Death for Being a Lesbian description: An Somali activst who spoke out for women's and LGBT rights escaped after she was sentenced to death for being a lesbian canonical: https://time.com/4279360/lgbt-womens-rights-africa/ author: Michal Zebede article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-06T15:43:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T15:08:09.000Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why an Activist Was Sentenced to Death for Being a Lesbian og:description: She fought for LGBT and women's rights in Africa og:url: https://time.com/4279360/lgbt-womens-rights-africa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1b4af9bbeea19be/698890eecd1bbad7f170074f/somalia-genital-mutilation.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3119 og:image:height: 1754 og:image:alt: Somalia Genital Mutilation og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why an Activist Was Sentenced to Death for Being a Lesbian twitter:description: She fought for LGBT and women's rights in Africa twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc1b4af9bbeea19be/698890eecd1bbad7f170074f/somalia-genital-mutilation.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why an Activist Was Sentenced to Death for Being a Lesbian > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Two Activists on How They Knew They Wanted to Change the World [Watch (HLS stream): Two Activists on How They Knew They Wanted to Change the World](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/rtI4aANS.m3u8) (5:11)  _Published 2016-04-28. Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a documentary filmmaker, sit down and discuss starting transformation around the world._ by [Michal Zebede](https://time.com/author/michal-zebede/) ## Michal Zebede Updated: Dec 13, 2023 3:08 PM UTCPublished: May 6, 2016 3:43 PM UTC  Discussion of the practice of female genital mutilation, funded by UNICEF, at the Sheik Nuur Primary School in Hargeisa, Somalila on Feb. 16, 2014. Discussion of the practice of female genital mutilation, funded by UNICEF, at the Sheik Nuur Primary School in Hargeisa, Somalila on Feb. 16, 2014. Jason Straziuso—AP by [Michal Zebede](https://time.com/author/michal-zebede/) ## Michal Zebede Updated: Dec 13, 2023 3:08 PM UTCPublished: May 6, 2016 3:43 PM UTC Amal had watched for years as some of her secretly gay friends in Uganda were outed and subsequently [burned alive](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ugandan-man-burned-death-being-gay-1438423) or [beaten to death](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjRr63dl-LLAhUJ6mMKHVaOBggQFggiMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2011%2F01%2F28%2Fworld%2Fafrica%2F28uganda.html&usg=AFQjCNFvlCIAIDP1FXWUvJ2BdRIHUy15cg&sig2=Pb67q2uNx03MT2-o81395g). The 22-year-old created an underground LGBT organization to bring gay people in the country together. Then a rumor surfaced that she was a lesbian. She began receiving death threats, including graphic descriptions of her murder and corrective rape. One night, five men assaulted her. They punched her in the face and kicked her ribs repeatedly, warning that next time she would be killed. As the threats escalated, she never imagined that her death sentence would come from somewhere else entirely—somewhere closer to home. Amal (a pseudonym because she fears for her safety) lived the first part of her life in Somalia, a [clan-based society](http://www.fragilestates.org/2012/01/10/somalias-complex-clan-dynamics/). At age 12, she decided to appear on the radio to speak out against [female genital mutilation](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwikyZPQmOLLAhUXwWMKHezhCCMQFgghMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fentry%2Fsomalia-may-soon-ban-female-genital-mutilation%5Fus%5F55bfaf59e4b06363d5a2e560&usg=AFQjCNG08VUa2kSIkVJIlKe4J06RU602nQ&sig2=I0ybe-ZKiP9osptaz1Lfqw&bvm=bv.117868183,d.cGc), a practice that affects [98% of girls in the country](http://www.unicef.org/somalia/SOM%5FFGM%5FAdvocacy%5FPaper.pdf). Amal had been cut when she was 8, an event she recalls vividly. She remembers the excruciating physical pain, along with her own screams: “you just ruined my life.” Amal was warned that if she were to publicly speak out against this widely accepted practice, she would be beaten or even killed. She courageously defied these warnings. After her radio appearance, she was kidnapped and beaten by members of Al Shabaab, a militant terrorist organization that had been gaining power in certain regions of Somalia. Amal’s family realized that if she were to remain in Somalia, she could be murdered. After the attack, Amal hastily moved with her mother and sisters to Uganda, while her father stayed behind in Somalia. It was in Uganda that Amal first gained access to the Internet. Google became her best friend—she had never before seen or heard the word “gay,” and it was her first exposure to literature about [female genital mutilation](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjQ5r%5FAmeLLAhUI8GMKHfkBAfgQFgg%5FMAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.who.int%2Fmediacentre%2Ffactsheets%2Ffs241%2Fen%2F&usg=AFQjCNF2oX3kbVP6RaeilGYwiOePwdKGcQ&sig2=On90R-zKNAiXBE6wjMuOnw&bvm=bv.117868183,d.cGc). When her sister got pregnant with a baby girl, she combined this research with her passion until she convinced her sister and mother not to cut the newborn baby girl. Amal, with the help of her mother, went on to influence the local Somali community to reduce female genital mutilation rates. (In Somalia, the Minister for Women is now developing a [ban](https://secure.avaaz.org/en/fgm%5Fsomalia%5Fban%5Floc/?pv=75) against female genital mutilation, and support from the global community could help push this legislation through.) Amal’s conservative mother, Decca, could be convinced that cutting a baby girl was wrong, but homosexuality was a step too far. When the whispers that 22-year-old Amal was a lesbian reached Decca, she was furious. Decca had always suspected it. Now, the fact was undeniable. Decca called one of Amal’s uncles from the Somali community in Uganda, who in turn summoned the elders from her mother’s tribe. It was at this point that Amal called Jason Jeremias, an international human-rights worker. The two of them tirelessly invented stories that could make her denial plausible, but nothing worked. It was decided that Amal would be sent back to Somalia, her fate to be determined by the highest elders. Shortly after Amal arrived in Somalia, her phone was confiscated, and she lost any way to contact her friends. She was completely isolated in a house of strangers when she overheard whispers in the hallway that a prominent elder was coming from far away to see Amal. Her heart dropped. This could only mean one thing. The next day, Amal received the official verdict: she was going to be killed. Amal was in shock. But she refused to accept her fate. With the help of a young local girl who smuggled a cell phone onto the property, Amal was able to get in contact once more with her friends in the international community. The night before her execution, Amal was smuggled out of the house and taken to the airport. Partners within the international community got her to Turkey on a visa. From Turkey, she was flown to North America, where she now resides. Despite what she’s been through, Amal said: “My mother never wanted to harm me in any way. I chose to forgive her.” Moreover, she wants to return home to keep fighting. “I cannot sit back and know there are other girls out there going through this.” ## Transcript Individual people can't just start an individual campaign, [ CROSSTALK ] but spark a movement. Change. org. What is change. org? The ease with which we can enable people to participate in change as a feature, not a buck. My name is Ben Rattray, founder in. Of change. org. My name is Sharmeen Obaid- Chinoy, I'm a documentary film- maker, and my recent film just won an Academy Award this year. This is what happens when determined women get together. I feel like our role is just to spark this conversation. If we can get a country to talk about an issue that they otherwise were not talking about that's where we are most successful. [ MUSIC ] So, you didn't want to obviously start Change. org when you were ten years old. What did you want to do? I wanted to be an investment banker. My god. And it didn't change for me until my senior year I stand for it and I go home for winter holiday and I talk to one of my younger brother who comes out as gay. Total unexpected to me and then he says the things that transformed my life he says, the things that was most painful about being a closeted gay American at the time weren't the people that were explicitly anti- gay but those who refuse to stand up and speak out against them. Than. People like me when I was more ashamed than, than I ever had been before. And it was the first in that cause me the really deeper fact than what I wanted to do with my life. Somebody you know credited documentary film about your life. And I gonna find the biggest laborers or interventions that made you who do first Saying you are because you are quite remarkable. What are those big interventions? When I was very young I used to go to school through a neighborhood that was relatively poor. And I would look at the children on the streets and I would wonder why I was in a car and they were on the street. And very early on I realized that it had nothing to do with me, it was a luck of the draw. That I could have just as easily been out in the street and they could have been in the car. I could have been born in Pakistan but born into a family that didn't value women's education. I could have been married off when I was 15, 16- years- old. And so I used to be very angry when I was young. And my mother told me very early on that I should channel my anger in writing. And so I started writing. I was 17 and I did this big expose which landed me into a lot of trouble and My name was spray painted with profanities across my gate. I came from a progressive family. But, my father was also a very protective man. The morning that he went out, and saw my name Spray- painted with all of these profanities. He said I don't know what you've gone and done, but they have spray- painted your name and then he stopped. I half- expected him to say stop writing. And instead he said something to me that has really always stayed with me. He said that if you speak the truth, I will stand with you and so will the world. That's the one thing that I think is remarkable, is that It's only when you're creating change that one receives immense backlash. People in power don't care when the things we're doing aren't having an effect. And so it's almost the case that when you see negative reaction, either in masses or by elites That you actually know that you're having an impact. Do you ever think that the work that you do might take people away from being active participants and just becoming kind of keyboard warriors? Early on Time when we, about five years ago, this [ INAUDIBLE ] disparaging work, slacktivism as if people are taking action online and because of that it absolves them the feeling of civic responsibility, necessary to drive them to go offline. The reality is all that, that indicates and all our experiences. That there's a ladder of engagement, that the best way to get people engaged early on in issues actually providing not difficult means of onboarding but actually the easiest way to first get engage and sometimes signing a petition, it's a beginning and not the end of one's experience. The ease with which we can enable people to participate in change is Feature not a bug. One of the things as a filmmaker, sometimes people say well, they have a tremendous amount of activists who've been working on this for decades. Now you've just come in and done one film and gone off. I feel like our role is just to spark that conversation. If we can get a country to talk about an issue that they're otherwise would not talking about and had those activists Kind of find something that will help them get to the next stage. I feel like that's where we are most successful. Here are the nominees for best documentary, short subject. Everybody who reads the Academy Awards, the pundits all 22 of them said I wasn't gonna win, so I took my mother to walk the red carpet with me. I had a baby recently and I haven't been able to wear high heel shoes after that, so I took of my shoes and I was wearing flip- flops, and my mother kept saying, you know your Time is gonna be, they're gonna be calling your category very soon. And I was like no mom, I'm not winning, don't worry about it. So, I'm wearing flip- flops. [ LAUGH ] And then my category announcement time comes. And before I could say the next thing, they'd called up my name. A Girl in the River, the Prize of Forgiveness. And so I went on stage to accept my academy award wearing flip- flops. My mother. She's like who asked for Flops to accept the Academy Awards? And I was like, I didn't think I was gonna win. 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