While the news out of Britain might be encouraging for gay men and lesbians (see article this page), the situation across large sections of Africa is anything but.
Late last year, two Malawian men – Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga – were arrested in their home after they tied the knot in a traditional engagement ceremony known as a ‘chinkhoswe’.
The two men were charged with sodomy and public indecency.
After months behind bars, a judge has ordered the men to stand trial where they face up to 14 years in jail.
In January, another Malawi man was arrested for disturbing the peace by putting up a poster that said ‘Gay Rights Are Human Rights’.
Then, during a February anti-gay crackdown, a 60-year-old was arrested for sodomy.
Meanwhile in South Africa, in what is allegedly becoming a disturbing trend, a man has gone on trial accused of raping a lesbian to ‘turn her into a woman’.
Andile Ngcoza, 43, of Gugulethu, is accused of dragging the 30-year-old woman into his shack, beating and repeatedly raping her.
Charity ActionAid said women in Johannesburg and Cape Town were suffering an increase in homophobic attacks and sexual assaults, which are seen as a form of punishment or ‘cure’.
Figures suggest there are an estimated 500,000 rapes in South Africa every year, and for every 25 men accused of rape in the country, 24 walk free.
In positive news however, South Africa, has recently introduced a spate of gay-friendly legislation.
In 2006 it became the first country in Africa to approve same-sex civil unions and has also come to the fore in guaranteeing gay inheritance rights.
Meanwhile in Uganda, Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi has told critics of the country’s anti-homosexuality bill that it won’t be withdrawn.
Proposed in October 2009, the bill would broaden the criminalisation of homosexuality and introduce the death penalty for those who have previous convictions, are HIV positive or engage in homosexual sex with people younger than 18.
In a world first, those who are aware of homosexual activity and fail to report it face up to three years in prison.
The bill would also criminalise working for gay rights, with a possible sentence of up to seven years.
Gay sex is already illegal in Uganda, one of forty African nations where this is the case.
Elsewhere, Senegal’s Prime Minister Souleymane Ndiaye Ndéné last year called homosexuality ‘a sign of a crisis of values’, one supposedly caused by the GFC, and that government ministries as well as society as a whole should ‘fight against it’.
Steven Carter
