Robin Hammond/Where Love Is Illegal

Imagine living in a country where it is, literally, illegal to just be yourself. That's the situation for more than 2.8 billion people on this planet who live in nations where it is against the law to be an out LGBTQ citizen. As in, you can be jailed, suffer severe corporal punishment or be put to death just for being you.

Award-winning documentary photographer and human rights activist Robin Hammond was shocked at how widespread this daily homophobic threat is, which inspired him to launch the "Where Love Is Illegal" project documenting this discrimination.

Hammond recently explained the inspiration to the New York Times: "I wanted to give those individuals a chance to say what they wanted to say, and be seen how they wanted to be seen, by collaborating with them in their portrait’s creation and allowing them to write their own stories. The results were often unexpected, insightful and almost always deeply moving."

He traveled to seven countries (Nigeria, Uganda, Malaysia, Cameroon, Lebanon, South Africa, Russia) where persecution of LGBTQ people is happening, tapping local activists to introduce him to survivors of discrimination that ranged from flogging, threats of death, arrest, torture, rape and even attacks from their own families.

Here are some of the moving stories Hammond has been telling on the Where Love Is Illegal Instagram account (click on names for their full accounts):

Lambert, Cameroon

"My arrest and my incarceration was a real nightmare for me and for my life. Since that day, humiliation, shame, contempt, insults and other evils are part of my daily life," said Lambert, a gay man from Cameroon, who was arrested and held for a year while awaiting trial for being gay. "Since my release, I never had a job, and if I did just for the time until my employer was informed about my situation."

Liz, Venezuela

"They took me to psychologists, psychiatrists and even a priest, searching for someone who could 'change' me. ... they saw me like a confused and rebel little girl," said Liz about her parent's reaction when they found out she is lesbian. Their relationship has improved since then, but it is still a work-in-progress. "It has taken us years of many long and hard conversations, but we’ve got to a point that 10 years ago I thought was absolutely impossible ... despite they don't love it, they respect it, and I couldn't ask for more. I am grateful, and I know this is a life’s work, not only with my parents but with the whole world."

Tiwonge, Malawi

Tiwonge, a transgender woman, was imprisoned in her native Malawi because her marriage to her previous husband was deemed illegal. Freed after international pressure, she fled to South Africa, the only country on the continent to offer refugee status based on persecution due to sexual orientation or gender identity. PASSOP (People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty) provided Tiwonge critical support in South Africa, including social and financial assistance. With PASSOP's help, Tiwonge obtained refugee status. Last month, Tiwonge and her husband were attacked because of their relationship, and PASSOP was there to help again.

Erina, Malaysia

"The First time my experience arrested by police in Kuala Lumpur, I stay in lock up for 2 weeks I was raped by the inmates. I told the police about my case but the police didn't anything," said Erina, who has been arrested twice because she is a trans woman living in Malaysia. The second time it wasn't prisoners who abused her, but the authorities.

Nurlan, Russia

"I prefer boys, but there something else ... when I look in the mirror I don't like how I look," said Nurlan of St. Petersburg, Russia. "Of course others 'normal' people bullying me in my everyday life. I live in fear. I can't be myself in My family, I fear and hate my father ... but I try to live, we have only one life ..."

K.C., Uganda

"'But are you even a girl?' My father asked me, one night, drunk, with disguist in his eyes. He had finally mustered the courage to tell me how he truly felt about me. It was a sad spectacle," said K.C., a lesbian from Uganda, who has had to hide her true nature to have access to school and avoid living on the street. "I have learned to wear the perfect mask and fake the brightest of smiles; do what i have to do to survive ... But the cost is overwhelming. Trying not to break is a daily struggle and giving up isnt an option. I think the worst kind of prisons are those with invisible iron bars and thats the life I live everyday."

Kamarah Apollo, Uganda

"I have been tortured several times by homophobic people and police officers by tying me with ropes and being beaten, pierced by soft pins, nicknamed, a lot of psychological torture by local leaders and police. I can’t forget when I was raped in the police cell by prisoners, after all that I decided to start an organization with some campus students," said Kamarah Apollo, a gay man and LBGT activist from Uganda. "I also appeared in local newspapers as a promoter of homosexuals so right now it’s hard for me to get a safe place to rent yet I am not working. I was fired from work because I am gay."

Pumeza, South Africa

"'What did I do to you, why are you shooting me?' He continued and shot her on the forhead, that third bullet threw my beloved daughter to the ground," said the grandmother of South African lesbian Pumeza, who was gunned down by a masked man in front of her grandmother and five-year-old cousin. Family, friends, activists, and the police, who all knew about the threats she'd received, say she was killed because she was gay.

(All images and text courtesy of Where Love Is Illegal and Robin Hammond.)