By Rosario Marina Photos: Presentes Archive/AG Angeline is a young Jamaican trans woman seeking asylum. She escaped from one of the most homophobic countries in the world and arrived in Buenos Aires, where she rented a room in Villa Soldati. On Saturday, June 29, when she was going to meet a friend, a group of men chased her and cut off three of her fingers, injuries that still cause her to cry every night. Angeline (a pseudonym we will use in this article to protect her identity) has been in the country since December. She does not speak Spanish. She escaped from Jamaica, the place where she was born and where her family lives. She did so because there were numerous attempts on her life for being trans. The first person who tried to kill her was her own brother. The Jamaican Penal Code prohibits "sodomy" and punishes it with 10 years in prison. According to an Amnesty International report, "gay people in Jamaica, or those suspected of being gay, are daily victims of being treated as if they were ill, subjected to police harassment, and even torture." Angeline has a temporary residence permit issued by the Ministry of the Interior of the Argentine Republic. She was born in September 1991. She is 27 years old. She applied for and was granted temporary refugee status a few months before Saturday night.

[READ ALSO: Behind the World Cup: In Russia she was persecuted for being a lesbian and took refuge in Argentina]

“Her situation is the same as all asylum seekers. They receive three months of basic humanitarian assistance from UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees],” Mariano Ruiz, project coordinator for the Diverse Families Association, explained to Presentes. Mariano was present during Angeline’s interview when she applied for asylum. After initiating the asylum process with CONARE (National Commission for Refugees, which reports to the National Directorate of Migration), they are referred to ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), which manages UNHCR funds. They receive assistance to cover lodging and food. Then, between six months and a year later, they obtain refugee status based on sexual orientation or gender identity, having been able to prove that they are persecuted in their countries of origin. In the last two years, about twenty people from the LGBT community have sought asylum because they face death threats in Jamaica, Russia, Ghana, Pakistan, and Egypt. Rainbow Railroad is a Canadian organization that helps them escape violence and persecution in their countries of origin. This organization helped Angeline leave Jamaica. The first attempt didn't go well, but the second safe route they assigned her ended in Argentina. Angeline cries when she remembers her life in Jamaica: when her father kicked her out of the house, when her brother tried to kill her, when she saw a friend die, when she lived on the street in a ravine, almost underground.

This is what happened on Saturday, June 29th in his country of refuge.

Last Saturday, in her room in Villa Soldati, Angeline got dressed to go to work at a club. Beforehand, she was going to stop by the house of Anthony, a Brazilian friend. Presentes spoke with both of them and reconstructed what happened. They met because Angeline and Anthony's sister used to live together. They talked on the phone while she was putting on her makeup. She ordered an Uber and went outside to wait for it. Her phone indicated that the car would be at the designated location in two minutes. While she was talking to her friend with her headphones on, she noticed three men watching her. She felt scared. She told Anthony. He tried to calm her down, but the men started to approach. At one point they left, but one of them returned on a bicycle. As soon as Angeline looked up, she saw them behind her, just six steps away. When she recounts the story, tears well up in her eyes; she tries to continue speaking but can't. She becomes agitated. It's as if she's reliving that fear. Angeline stopped almost in the middle of the street, but they followed her. They grabbed her purse, she screamed, “No, no.” The phone was still on, the headphones in her ears, and Anthony on the other end, miles away, desperate.

[READ ALSO: #Buenos Aires: The courts ordered protection for trans migrants in Once]

One of the men pulled out a knife and slashed her fingers. She fell to the ground. The car she was waiting for arrived at that moment. The men ran away because of the flashing lights. Her hand was bleeding. Angeline got into the car and, trying to make herself understood, said, "I need a hospital." She put Anthony on speakerphone so he could tell her where to take her because she couldn't speak. He told her to take her to Piñero Hospital. When they arrived, she filmed videos of her fingers and the blood dripping onto the floor. The doctor stitched two of them, but he couldn't save her pinky finger.

"I can't rent to you because you're a refugee."

The Tuesday before the attack, with the help of Anthony's sister, who is also a trans woman, Angeline went to see an apartment to rent. But when she arrived, she says, the man who was going to rent it to her refused. “When I arrived, the man was very, very, very discriminatory. Because of the way he discriminated against me, Anthony started crying. He told me, ‘I can’t rent you the apartment because you’re a refugee,’ and asked me, ‘Why are you seeking asylum in Argentina?’ I told him it was because I was almost killed in Jamaica; I’m transgender. I showed him the marks on my body,” Angeline tells Presentes. But none of that explanation convinced her to rent the place. So she returned to Villa Soldati, to her room, the same place where she was attacked. “I’m disappointed. In a country where I thought I would be safe, I’m not. It’s sad,” she reflects.

Living under the Jamaica ravine

A documentary Published in Britain's Daily Mail, the article tells the story of the Gully Queens in Jamaica. It explains that they are a group of homeless LGBT youth living in a storm drain (or "gully") in the country's capital, Kingston. Angeline knows about the documentary and recognizes the people pictured in the article. She names each one. She says she lived there for three years. She remembers and smiles. In those three years, she was stoned, stabbed, burned, and shot. "It was like being in prison. I had to hide who I was and who I wanted to be," she says. Some of them could have gone back home, but they chose to stay "under the gully" because, Angeline says, it's like living in a country where everyone is free to be gay. "When you're under the gully, despite it being an unpleasant place with dirty water, it was full of laughter. There were so many gay people there." “That was the only place where we were safe,” Angeline tells Presentes. It was a safe place until the police found them or someone decided to throw stones at them. And then they had to flee. From the place, from the city, from the country. After the attack, the ATAJO Access to Justice program—under the auspices of the Public Prosecutor's Office—reached out to her and is helping her with the processing of her documents.