ST. LOUIS — Olivia Nabulwala says her family in Uganda was so angry and ashamed to learn she was a lesbian that her relatives hurled insults at her, pummeled her and, finally, stripped her and held her down while a stranger raped her.
“I hated myself from that day,” she says in a sworn statement. “I disliked my family for subjecting me to such torture, and yet they felt this was a good punishment for me.”
Now, in a case that illuminates a relatively unexplored area of immigration law, the African immigrant is asking for asylum in the U.S. on the grounds she was persecuted over her sexual orientation. And a federal appeals court ruling last week in St. Louis has raised her hopes of success.
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