My Remarks As A Guest Speaker at a HRC Event

In the line of duty as a Fellow at the Human Right’s Campaign, one of the things I appreciate about this Fellowship is some interesting opportunities I get to participate in. Mid last month, I was invited to speak at HRC’s Major Donors Dinner. Below are my remarks.

“I’m from Nairobi, Kenya, and I want to share with you a little more today about the lived experiences of LGBT people back home.

Simply put, in Kenya, and certainly most of Africa, LGBT people live largely in fear. We are isolated by the burden of stigma, discrimination and other forms of human rights violations and targeted violence.

Viewed only from our perceived sexuality or gender, this has resulted to being ostracized by family, governments, religious formations and the society at large.

Same-sex conduct is criminalized in over 35 of Africa’s 54 countries, punishable by imprisonment for years if not for life. In some places – like Mauritania and Sudan – it’s punishable by death.

However, foreign evangelical fundamentalists, especially from the United States, have lobbied – and continue to lobby governments - to tighten and enforce stricter draconian laws, even in spite of our consensual same-sex relationships already being criminalized.  

Uganda and Nigeria are now enforcing new laws that not only criminalize being LGBT, but also those who simply organize or support LGBT rights. That’s right – even our allies are not safe. Simply belonging to an organization like HRC in these countries can mean imprisonment.

The wave of clamping down on the rights of LGBT people has now spread to Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the Republic of the Congo. Other heads of states like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, have threatened to lock up, exterminate and drive-out LGBT people out of their countries.

On the health front, LGBT people are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic, mostly due to the criminalization that stigmatizes our lives and hinders the provision of targeted prevention, care and treatment. Without the ability to disseminate accurate and objective information about HIV, LGBT people are being left out of public prevention and treatment policies.

Health services are being forced to silence all aspects of prevention and LGBT people do not seek medical care and treatment, as this may lead to persecution, denial or interruption of services, detention, blackmail or violence.

Just 2 weeks ago, Ugandan police raided the U.S. military-affiliated Makerere University Walter Reed HIV/AIDS clinic in Kampala – the capital city of Uganda. There they arrested the healthcare providers and ordered its closure, on allegations that it was promoting homosexuality.

Sadly, this kind of experience is a common occurrence. Similar raids continue to be reported in Zambia, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Russia and other numerous countries around the world.

Like they do here in the United States, anti-LGBT activists have branded themselves a movement based on “traditional values.” And as you heard from my colleagues earlier today, even while there are extremists from the United States fueling these so-called traditional value movements in Africa, they are advancing a dangerous myth that being LGBT is a western agenda and influence – portraying homosexuality as a threat to humanity.

Their operations to ‘safeguard traditional values’ are usually under the protective favor of well-established conservative governments and religious institutions.

But it’s not all gloom. In fact, it’s far from it. LGBT movements in Africa are braving the odds, resilient and steadfast in our struggle for equality. Partners and allies, such as HRC, are injecting much needed support and using their strengths, to catalyze activists’ efforts.

I traveled back home to Nairobi in March, to attend the Pan Africa ILGA conference, attended by over 150 LGBT African activists. I hosted a workshop on the role of allies in advocacy on LGBT issues across Africa. I highlighted HRC’s collaboration with dedicated advocates in furthering LGBT human rights efforts. Activists across the continent expressed their interest to reach out to HRC as an ally, as discussions on a possible African regional strategy to address equality and nondiscrimination continues.

As for the HRC Fellowship, it has presented me, and Tushar Malik, the other HRC fellow from India, with a platform to speak with U.S. policy makers and coalition allies on the diverse equality movements and how best to engage international partners.

When India’s Supreme Court re-criminalized homosexuality in India in December 2013, HRC amplified Tushar’s story from the point of an Indian LGBT activist. HRC also partnered with Ugandan and Nigerian LGBT activists during organized Global Days of Action, taking part in rallies and urging the U.S. government to strongly speak up and take immediate steps to protect the lives of LGBT individuals and reverse discriminatory laws against us. 

This fellowship program is a partnership between HRC and Atlas Corps. As such, I am not only a global fellow at HRC, I am also part of the Atlas Corps –- a group of non-profit professionals from around the world who are serving as fellows in various organizations in the U.S. In my role as a member of the Atlas Corps family, my fellowship is also having impact on the future of my continent.

There are many other Fellows from African countries, some of whom have never interacted with an African LGBT activist, or met an out lesbian like myself.

One particular Fellow from Sudan reached out to me as he was intrigued by my work, and the lives of LGBT people in Africa. He wanted a fresh perspective, different from the stereotypes and myths he had learned along the way. Now, I can confidently say that he is a brave ally who is using his journalism to put the LGBT rights agenda in public domain, even in conservative Sudan.

While foes to equality continue to spread hate and support for state-sponsored homophobia, activists from Africa, the Caribbean and other parts of the world, are reaching out to HRC to support their work toward repeal of punitive, retrogressive criminalization of same-sex conduct, ending stigma, discrimination and human rights violations against sexual and gender minority persons.

I am grateful to HRC for its collaboration and its partnerships with fellow advocates across the globe. And I’m grateful to all of you. Together, we are moving toward a society in which the freedoms, rights and equality of all are guaranteed.

There is still, a lot of work to be done, many conversations to have, but there is one agenda. This is the collective tenet of our shared humanity". 

African Women, Arise Again

The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women from which the Beijing Declaration came forth, was an international turning point on the participation and visibility of women worldwide. The declarations were embraced by participating governments and later ratified as best practices by others. Key among them was the determination to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity.

The declaration also states “…empowerment and advancement of women, including the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, thus contributing to the moral, ethical, spiritual and intellectual needs of women and men, individually or in community with others and thereby guaranteeing them the possibility of realizing their full potential in society and shaping their lives in accordance with their own aspirations”.

The fifty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will took place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 10 to 21 March 2014. Among the resolutions, was the reassertion of the Beijing Declaration. The Commission also reaffirmed that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other relevant conventions and treaties, provide an international legal framework and a comprehensive set of measures for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls and promotion of substantive gender equality.

Despite these notable achievements, the visibility of the African woman in the socio-political and economic scope over the last couple of years has gone to the dogs. Women continue to face obstacles, and in some cases, dealing with retrogressive oppressive policies and law.

While some African countries continue to face serious political crisis or situations of armed conflicts, women continue to be the main targets of violence, discrimination and stigmatization. They are used as spoils of war, their very bodies turned to war themselves.

Women in positions of power lack support, sometimes ignored and their voices drowned by dissidents who deem their opinions valueless. Women, despite comprising the highest population in the world, lack conducive platforms to skew impactful policies, economically, politically and socially.  

In March 2012 Amina al-Filali who was 16 years old, was forced to marry a man who had allegedly raped her. After seven months of marriage to the 23-year-old man, she committed suicide. Her parents and a judge had forced the marriage to ‘protect the family honour’.

Article 475 of Morocco’s penal code, first proposed by the country's Islamist-led government sanctions the exoneration of a rapist if he married their victim. Needless to say, Amina’s death sparked an international outcry that made lawmakers amend the law this March.

As if on cue, Mozambique has proposed a similar kind of amendment on a bill, propagated by the majority male parliamentarians. Article 223 of the Penal Code states that a rapist can avoid prosecution for his crime by marrying his victim - even if she is a child. The amendment is to be tabled in parliament. 

The ramifications of such a law are horrific. Instead of freeing and protecting rape survivors from their attackers, the law would essentially serve them up on a silver platter. The law does not punish proven rapists, deter potential rapists, or protect survivors and other women; it actually rewards rape and punishes the victim.

Uganda passed the Anti-pornographic Law under the façade that it is aimed at eliminating “sexual crimes against women and children including rape, child molestation and incest”. This law criminalizes “dressing into cleavage-revealing blouses ('tops') that excite sexual cravings in public, unless for educational and medical purposes or during sports or cultural events”. This law, was again, drafted and propelled by male lawmakers, and the women parliamentarians did not, and have not objected to its enactment.

The list is not, cannot even be exhausted, but these are just some of the many. WHERE ARE THE WOMEN VOICES IN AFRICA? Have we again, let down our guard and retreated to the background as the gains made are trumped upon in the name of “African-ness, culture, tradition, religion”? Have we AGAIN, lost control to all aspects of our health, in particular own sexuality, our fertility, that is basic to our empowerment?

We need to draw from the determination to the full enjoyment by women of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and take effective actions against violations of these rights and freedoms. These include backward, draconian, heteronormative and patriarchal policies and laws that are persistently increasing the burden of poverty on women and creating structural barriers to our well-being.

That amendment bill in Mozambique should be scrapped to oblivion, and you can contribute to that, in your own way. Write to a lawmaker, blog, sign petitions and tell someone about it. Speak out against oppression, against bigotry, embrace self-freedom, self-thought and unapologetically live by it.