Desiré Lemoupa, Cameroon

“I am from Cameroon, where I worked as a lab technician in a hospital and as a social worker with organizations focused on health issues and grassroots community development. I was tortured because of my political affiliation and my sexual orientation. When I look back at how much I have suffered and how far I have come, I can only thank God for giving me strength.
I experienced an overwhelming sense of hopelessness where I could not turn to family, friends, or the authorities. There seemed no end to my desperation. Survivors carry most of the things that they thought they would leave behind. The memories and scars are part of who you are. It makes no difference whether I am smiling or laughing, as they are always somewhere underneath. Being a survivor is an everyday struggle, and a journey with all the baggage from your experiences. Every day the United States asylum office forces me to relive the torture I experienced because it has forced me to wait over seven years for an asylum interview—I don’t know if I will ever get interviewed.
The projected image shows how the police and military degrade people by forcing them to crawl through dirt—you can see their bodies submerged in the mud in front of the police. The police humiliate people for so many reasons, including their sexual orientation. There is no one that they can turn to, nothing they can do. The penal code has a law where homosexuals can be sent to prison for up to five years. The photo shows how hopeless the situation was. When I look at that image, it brings a lot to mind. So much needs to change in that country. “