Fiona's Story

My name is Fiona Pinoya.

I am a refugee from Uganda.

When I was fifteen years old I was abducted by a friend of my father and forced to marry him. I remember that day very well. It was the day I finished my high school exams. He picked me up from the gates of my boarding school. He told me we were going to meet my parents in Kampala. But my parents weren’t there. He kept me in his house for one month, telling me my parents were coming to join us soon. When my parents found me they thought I had run away with him, they were very angry. They thought I had brought shame on the family and forced me to marry him. This man was more than twice my age. I hated him, and I was afraid of him.

When I was seventeen, my husband was murdered by government troops.

One night, at two o’clock in the morning, we were woken by a banging on the window. A man called from outside and told my husband he was needed in the office straight away. They wouldn’t even let him change out of his pyjamas. He left. He said ‘I’ll see you later’ but I never saw him again. When he didn’t come back home I started looking for him. I went to where he worked and was told that twenty-eight people had disappeared from the city, and that they were probably in prison. My husband was abducted because he was a member of the former government of Milton Oboto. I kept asking questions to find out what had happened to him. Finally, one man at the prison said to me

‘all I can tell you is that a group of prisoners tried to escape. Most of them were shot, some were caught, some were buried alive, some were thrown in the water, some were burned in tyres. I don’t know whether your husband was one of those who was shot, or one of those who was buried alive, or one of those who were burned inside a tyre.’

When I was 18 I was abducted by rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army.

When I found out that my husband was dead I went back to my parents house in the village. One night rebel soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army came. They forced me to walk for nine miles with my six-month-old daughter on my back. But they didn’t know that my Uncle was part of another section of the Lord’s Resistance Army. So my younger brother got on his bicycle and rode fourteen miles as fast as he could to get my Uncle to tell them to bring me back. When he arrived he argued with the rebels, but finally they let me go. I knew I had to get out of Uganda. If I’d stayed I faced three possible futures: either I would be abducted by the rebels again and forced to live as a slave, or I would be taken by government forces and killed like my husband or I would have been inherited by my husband’s brother.

It is tradition in our culture that when your husband dies your brother of your husband will inherit you. Whether you love them or not they will take you as a wife. When you’re a woman you don’t have a say. If you refuse, they will take you by force and your family will not have a say. If you still refuse, they maim you or kill you. I went straight to the capital city, to Kampala. Through bribery I managed to get a passport and bought a flight ticket. I didn’t care where I went, I just had to escape. The ticket they gave me said Entebbe to Heathrow. I thought Heathrow could be in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi or Congo, any next-door country. When the plane transited in Nairobi I asked the airport staff ‘Where is this Heathrow?’ That was when I found out that Heathrow was not in Africa at all…it was in Europe, England.

I arrived at Heathrow in December wearing a thin chiffon dress. I was freezing.

The first few months were very lonely. When you come from an extended family and you come to a country where people don’t talk to each other - even your neighbour you may not know for months - it was very difficult to start making friends. It was cold, I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t know where to buy African food. Then one day a lady called Jackie McLoughlin came to my door. She said she was from an organisation called Refugee Network Sutton. She introduced me to some other Ugandan girls. I made friends and went on a trip organised by Refugee Network to the seaside. That was when I first tasted Fish and Chips.

Refugee Network Sutton helped me to study. Jackie enrolled me on an IT and English course at Carshalton College. Another lady noticed how I dress, that I always take care and look smart. She said ‘Fiona, you should be a fashion designer’ and I thought, yeah, I think I can do that. So she helped me to apply for Fashion and Textiles at Croydon College. I went on to do a BA in Arts and Fashion Design at the University of Sussex. Even then Refugee Network Sutton continued to help. They got me equipment like a sewing machine, a computer and portfolio to store my work.

The people at Refugee Network Sutton are like family to me. They supported me, they encouraged me, they gave me self-esteem.