In the coastal town of Ouida, one of the cities in West-Africa, I operate a discreet safe house for women who live on the margins, lesbians, many of them young, all of them afraid. This house is more than shelter – it is resistance for us. In the Benin Republic, where same-sex relationships are not criminalized by law but are violently condemned by culture, being a lesbian means learning to survive in silence.
I write this article not as an essayist or an activist with a platform, but as someone who has opened her door and her heart to women fleeing psychological torture, physical abuse, forced marriages, and community exile. Our country is often lauded for its relative political stability and tolerance, but that image hides a painful contradiction. While the law may not imprison us, our conservative society does.
The stories that echo in our safe house are painfully similar. Girls beaten after being discovered writing love notes. Women dragged to prayer camps to be “corrected.” Families disowning daughters who dare speak of love not defined by a man. We live in a space where female sexuality, already policed under patriarchy, becomes even more dangerous when it veers from heteronormative expectations.
The house in Ouida is a sanctuary with two rooms, and walls thick enough to hold secrets. It operates without fanfare. We don’t advertise. We whisper. Here, women cry, then begin to dream again. We organize skill-training workshops, provide mental health support, and just as importantly, we listen.
Many arrive thinking they are alone, cursed, or broken. They leave knowing they are part of something larger: a sisterhood that defies erasure. I am aware of the risks. We live with the fear of exposure, of raids, of neighbours growing suspicious. But the greater risk is doing nothing. Too many young lesbians in Benin live fragmented lives pretending during the day, hiding at night, building double selves to navigate families, workplaces, and churches that would sooner see them dead than free.
International conversations about LGBTQ rights often overlook places like Benin not because we are irrelevant, but because our stories are hidden. But I believe that humanism, if it means anything, must mean seeing the unseen. It must mean extending solidarity to those living between fear and survival. We do not need saviours. We need recognition. We need support for grassroots spaces like mine, modest but vital. And above all, we need the global humanist movement to listen not only to those who can march, but also to those who must whisper to survive.
Being a lesbian in Benin is not a crime, but it is a sentence. Through this essay, I hope someone out there hears us not just our pain, but our courage too.
By Stephanie A.