Dylan Robertson, the international affairs reporter for The Canadian Press in Ottawa, has been awarded this year’s $25,000 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship. The Canadian Press will publish his resulting project – a series of articles as well as audio and video clips in both official languages. His work will be hosted on the CP news website.

See the news release from Carleton University, which administers the endowed Fellowship fund.

The Story

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association called 2023 a year of "unprecedented intensity" for laws affecting gender and sexual minorities.

It left gay parents in Italy fighting in court for full custody of their kids, for example, and American families moving across state lines so their transgender children wouldn’t lose medical care.

It prompted worries in teenagers across Canada that new provincial policies on gender identity would put their peers at risk.

The issue has become most acute in parts of Africa, where organizations that used to fight anti-sodomy laws now find themselves banned entirely, while people face mob violence and severe criminal penalties — even death — for being gay.

Robertson will look at how this is playing out in three countries where Canada has deep ties: Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya.

The global backslide in LGBTQ+ rights poses a challenge for Canada, as a country with a feminist foreign policy where there is cross-partisan support for refugee programs that protect sexual and gender minorities. Canadian aid dollars and grassroots diaspora groups have helped advance rights for gender and sexual minorities abroad. However, Western politicians are frequently accused of imposing their values on local populations and making life harder for activists.

Robertson will examine what's causing these trends, what those most affected are doing about it, and what role Canadians and their governments should play.

The Journalist

Dylan Robertson has worked as a journalist on Parliament Hill for a decade, including five years as Ottawa bureau chief for the Winnipeg Free Press. As a freelancer, he has reported on a range of issues and events, including the plight of Syrian refugees in Lebanon for the National Post, a riot at a Pride event in Russia for the Toronto Star, and unrest in Ukraine for The Christian Science Monitor. 

Dylan Robertson

The Journalism

Dylan Robertson produced a series of eight stories for his Fellowship project exploring LGBTQ+ rights in Africa. As noted by the Canadian Press, he “travelled to Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya to look at what is happening in those countries, as well as the consequences for Canada as a country with a feminist foreign policy that prioritizes gender equality and human dignity.”

Read his work, below. And listen to him talk about his series on CBC Winnipeg during the afternoon commuter radio show: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-111-up-to-speed/clip/16114653-canadian-reporter-investigates-lgbtq-rights-parts-africa 

Nov 29, 2024

Articles:

LGBTQ+ Africans look to Canada for help as anti-gay laws expand

Les droits des personnes LGBTQ+ sont en net recul dans certains pays africains

Video:

LGBTQ+ people in Mombasa recount anti-gay protests

Video:

Diaspora can help inform LGBTQ+ advocacy

The Reporter’s Notebook

Ghanaians with indigenous gender identities, Isaac Bill (left) and Naa Busuafi, speak with Travers fellow Dylan Robertson on June 17, 2024 in Accra, Ghana.

Photo courtesy of Isaac Bill

My reporting trip to Africa taught me to sit with uncertainty and make room to breathe.

For months, I'd read and watched everything I could about what's causing a rollback in LGBTQ+ rights on the continent. Many mornings I'd make virtual calls with activists abroad, trying to gain their trust, to arrange a visit to a fly-in refugee camp, or find a discreet way as a tall white guy to visit a safehouse for trans women.

Sources would agree to speak, or to rally some friends when I arrived. But almost no one would commit to a specific time and place. During previous international assignments, sources in places like Lebanon and Russia would often agree to a specific time. But almost nobody would commit to a specific appointment in Ghana, Cameroon or Kenya.

I was anxious about being able to deliver the unique reporting you can only get on the ground that the Fellowship was entrusting me to capture, and ending up with stories I could have done through phone interviews.

Journalists tell ourselves that nothing beats showing up; that the story will find you if you get to the right place and show enough curiosity and respect. In Africa, this applied on a whole other level. When I got there, I found that people were warm and eager to meet – so much so that my schedule quickly became unwieldy.

It was inspiring to meet people who put their safety at risk every day in hopes of a better world. It was heartbreaking to see how much exploitation and violence are part of everyday life for gender and sexual minorities.

I'm so glad I built in enough gaps in my itinerary for last-minute meetings, and to pivot when plans went awry. If anything, my challenge was to just breathe.

I'd packed my days with interviews, without realizing just how long it takes to get between places in traffic-congested cities, where power outages or unexpected weather could kibosh plans.

My days felt like a constant to-do list: Find the compelling story. Get the name and phone number. If you can't take a photo, write down all visual elements. Make broadcast-quality audio. Upload content each night. Delete all laptop files before heading to airport. Confirm tomorrow's interviews. Locate a public but discreet place for tomorrow’s interview. Take malaria pills. Eat.

All these thoughts cycled through my head until I reached the New Bell prison in Cameroon. I had spent the previous night consumed by how to get into the prison without causing problems to myself or others, what to bring and what to say if the guards got upset.

I was seated in the squalid visitation room when reality hit me, as two young men, 17 and 25, entered, sat on stools and explained how they had been jailed for being gay.

They spoke softly. They showed me their wounds from when police hit them with a machete. They explained how their families had largely abandoned them. We laughed about Cameroon's weird expressions in French. We avoided looking at each other when each recounted sexual violence in jail.

The R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship helped me go beyond reporting that is based on pre-planned angles where editors have a solid sense of who would be interviewed before the reporter boards a plane.

It was only because I had enough time on the ground to build trust and meet friends of friends of sources that I got to meet the people who could explain what's causing the rollback in human rights.

As a journalist covering Canada's foreign policy, it also helped me understand firsthand the broader issues affecting Africans that I'd only read about. A debt crisis that is robbing youth of opportunities, China's push for influence and Russia's manipulation of social media all affected the people I met on a bus or at a restaurant. It drove the exploitation that is undercutting rights for minorities and women.

There were also moments of community that I cherished, such as an LGBTQ+ dance party in an industrial warehouse, an affirming church service in the courtyard of an HIV clinic, or beers in the back corner of that one bar that LGBTQ+ people have long claimed as their own.

It reminded me of how movies portray queer life in North America in the decades before societal tolerance – hidden, but vibrant. I missed my own chosen family in Ottawa achingly.

My advice to future Travers fellows:

  • Make enough time to meet the contacts of the first people you interview. If they have traumatic things to relay, try to see them a few times.

  • Be open to stories you hadn’t anticipated and be nimble enough to adjust if you have to drop one of your main stories, or your permission to visit a refugee camp is revoked.

  • Bring battery packs and memory cards for the times when you have spotty Internet and electricity.

  • Take time to sit in the moment with your sources. And try to build in aftercare for processing what they tell you – a nice meal or an excursion in nature can help ground you.

  • Try to ask local correspondents what sources might expect when they speak to you, such as whether a small gift is expected or might cause offence, and how to convey that you can’t compensate sources without violating an ethics policy. The most common way I met with people was through paying for meals and being clear that I couldn’t pay them or help them emigrate.

  • Expect a lot of messages after you get home. Some people want to get to know you and are curious about how you craft journalistic reports. Others might ask for financial help and contacts, even if you already explained the limits of how you can help.

  • Review what you learned in hostile-environment training, particularly how to prevent and navigate being asked for bribes, and what you’re comfortable having on electronic devices at border crossings.