What can the Commonwealth do for African LGBT activists?
Posted by AlexT - 03/12/09 at 10:12 am
In an interview with a Kenyan LGBT and human rights activist, the RCS hears the plight of the gay community in Kenya and Uganda and the potential role the Commonwealth could play in alleviating their problems. The interviewee claims she was attacked and ejected by Ugandan police officers from the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala, on account of her sexuality.
On the plight of the gay community in Kenya and Uganda and what the future holds
“There is a lot of homophobia within Kenya and Uganda. The Kenyan and Ugandan constitutions explicitly criminalise same-sex relationships and sexual encounters. In Kenya you can get fourteen years in prison. There is a lot of resistance. What we have managed to achieve so far is the integration of public health services for gay men, and slowly now incorporating gay women; so on reproductive rights, they are slowly trying to recognise and acknowledge the rights of LGBTI persons. But on issues of the legal context, there hasn’t been any fundamental change.
I like to believe it is only a matter of time before we can have the sodomy laws repealed, and the reality on the ground is that Kenya is currently going through a constitutional review process and civil society has tried as much as possible to highlight the plight of homosexuals. It’s a long process, but as much as we’ve been struggling, there have been opportunities to continuously create visibility on issues of LGBTI persons in Kenya. At the end of the day, there is so much resistance that the amount of work we put in, no matter how much it is, is still pushed back by the extent of homophobia informed by religion and culture and just by ignorance of issues of sexuality.”
On the potential role of the Commonwealth in the sphere of LGBTI Rights
“The Commonwealth as an international organisation should be a space where all these issues are highlighted and given the same hearing. The discussion of violations of human rights of LGBTI persons and women in the Commonwealth, is something that needs to go beyond just recognising the vulnerability of that woman, to securing safety for the promotion of women’s human rights.
I think also that the Commonwealth should take it upon itself to have an easier format for understanding its processes. For grass-roots activists, it seems like such a puzzle to work with the Commonwealth. We don’t understand what the entities are, what the structures are, we don’t understand the procedures of working with the Commonwealth.
I think it is very important that the Commonwealth, as well as the reaching out to civil-society networks it already does, builds capacity and assists on the ground to make it easier to report human-rights violations.”
Category : Human Rights
Tags: LGBT
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