A Cameroonian human rights lawyer has described how courts in the African country use gender stereotypes to convict suspected gay people.

Michel Togue told the ThinkProgress blog that he had defended dozens of people charged with gay sex but very few were actually caught in the act.

Cameroon punishes gay sex with up to five years in jail and a fine, and according to human rights groups arrests more gay people than any other country.

Togue said once an accusation was made, police relied on stereotypes to arrest suspected gay people. He said cross-dressing or having a job that was not stereotypically performed by your gender, such as a male hairdresser, could be used as evidence of homosexuality in court.

Togue recalled one case in which a client was convicted for his feminine mannerisms and drinking Baileys Irish Cream, which the judge felt was a woman’s drink.

He said anti-gay stigma fueled accusations, many of which were made by neighbors, family members and even ex-lovers, even though in one case the lover was also jailed.

A Cameroonian man died in prison in January after he was jailed for sending a text message to another man that said ‘I’m very much in love with you.’

Togue said catching two gay people having sex would be an invasion of their privacy.

He said, ‘To catch people having sex, to catch them in the act, you have to break the law. You have to violate their privacy, which is an offense.

‘But the police will not focus on the offense of breaking the privacy of someone, but they will focus on the fact that they saw two people of the same gender having sex.’

Togue said stigma was also scaring gay men from having HIV tests.

He said, ‘They can’t go to the hospital for the treatment or even for a test because they’re afraid.’

He said he knew of one case in which a man told a nurse he had had gay sex and was reported to the police.