Many women in Nigeria, and just queer people in general, have to be cautious of getting “kitoed.” Now, you probably don’t know what I’m referring to, so I’ll explain it. Getting “kitoed” is basically where a queer person will meet another queer person online, they talk to each other for a while and then they meet up (in most cases, it’s meeting up for a date.) But once you arrive, the person they met online will try to hurt the queer person in some way or do something bad to try and turn them back into a heterosexual, which usually results in violence.
In this article, the nigerian women tell the stories of their experiences being “kitoed.” The Nigerian women, who I will just call Izzy (that’s what they refer to her in the article.) Izzy met another lesbian woman online and they began talking.
Eventually, the two women met up, the other woman changing the venue at the last minute of where they were going to meet up and just insisting that they go back to her home instead. Izzy agrees and at first, everything seems fine, but just something feels off. That was until there was a knock at the door, and as Izzy describes it “that knock ruined everything.”
Two men entered the apartment and ended up sexually hurting Izzy. The entire ‘lesson’ behind this attack was to try and teach Izzy on “how to enjoy a man.” Sadly, because of this attack, Izzy ended up getting pregnant.
She told her father about how she’d gotten pregnant and how she did, but her father kicked her out for getting pregnant, because in this family, having a lesbian daughter and that daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock was forbidden and a taboo thing.
Her mother found a church which agreed to take Izzy in but there, she said, as a pregnant young woman with a masculine appearance, she was made to prayer meetings, known as deliverance meetings, intended to “get rid of her demons.”
Izzy stated she also had to endure many sexual advances from men within the church community, including pastors.
“At night, I couldn’t sleep without a man coming to touch me.” she said.
Izzy ended up fleeing the church after a three month stay, but after several more months of sleeping in cars, or squatting with friends, her father reluctantly took her back in and let her stay in his home.
I find it incredibly terrible that practices like these, to try and convert someone’s sexuality, is considered normal in Nigeria when it definitely shouldn’t. People in the LGBTQ+ community shouldn’t have to be threatened with being beaten, raped, blackmailed or even killed just for being who they are
For example, Twenty-eight year old Raflat – whose name has been changed – told CNN that last year, she had to take 6 months of conversion therapy at an Islamic school her mother walked in to see her daughter and her girlfriend “making out.”
Raflat stated, “I was called a disgrace, a failure, unworthy.”
As soon as she arrived at the school, her ankles were chained to the floor in order to let “the demons naturally leave her body.”
I find it disgusting and cruel that people will discriminate against others just because they aren’t attracted to the opposite gender. Weren’t we taught in school that we can be anything we wanna be? That you can always be yourselves? It’s always disgusting to see these kinds of people saying “you can be anything you want to be!” then harassing others for being themselves.
Now these situations I talked about, these can happen anywhere around the globe, not just in Nigeria, but still, it’s terrifying that people in the LGBTQ+ community have to be wary of such violence just for being themselves.
What do you think?
