“YOU CANNOT COME OUT AS GAY. EVERYBODY WILL STOP TALKING TO YOU; FAMILY WILL DISOWN YOU. YOU HAVE TO BE HIDDEN”
It
was late one evening in September when my phone rang, and I saw my friend John’s name flash up on screen. I expected to hear his bright, upbeat voice on the line. Instead, he was erratic and upset, struggling to catch his breath between words. His friend Kwesi had returned to the UK from Ghana after a group of men had burst into his hotel room and severely beat him up. He had been set up by a man he had arranged to meet. The police were called, and Kwesi, 48, was taken to the police station, where they tried to make him confess to being gay so that he could be arrested.
Two months later, I meet Kwesi in Brixton, London, where he recounts the ordeal. Still visibly disturbed by what he went through, his voice wavers from distress to anger as he shares his appalling experience. As our meeting ends, close to tears, Kwesi says that his only wish is that through speaking to Attitude he will help raise awareness of the plight of gay men in Ghana. This is his story, in his own words.
I grew
up north of Accra in Ghana. I moved to the UK in 2002, when I was 26. I work in a restaurant in east London. I have a lot of family here, but my mum lives in Ghana.