gender identity - The African Mirror

Mar

2023

LGBTQ+ rights: African Union watchdog goes back on its own word

THE primary human rights watchdog in Africa recently made a decision that departed from its existing practice. The African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, an independent expert body within the African Union (AU) framework, used sexual or gender identity as the reason it rejected applications for observer status from three non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Author FRANS VILJOEN, Director and Professor of International Human Rights Law, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria The commission said that “sexual orientation” was not an “expressly recognised right” in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It also said that protecting and promoting…

May

2022

By The African Mirror

LGBTI refugees seeking protection in Kenya struggle to survive in a hostile environment

LGBT+, LGBTQIA+

KENYA is now the second biggest refugee-hosting country in Africa. Of its over half a million refugees, over a thousand from neighbouring African states have sought asylum on the basis of persecution over their sexual orientation or gender identity. For instance, approximately 400 asylum claims by Ugandans were registered with the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) in Kenya between 2014 and 2015. This surge followed state-condoned violence against gays and lesbians in Uganda during the 2014 debate of an ‘anti-homosexuality bill’ which initially included the death penalty for ‘practicing homosexuals’. Author KATE PINCOCK, Researcher, Overseas Development Institute Uganda is one of…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

ANALYSIS-Sex education becomes battlefield in U.S. culture war over LGBT+ rights

LGBT+

SYDNEY BAUER SEX education is emerging as the next battleground in a U.S. culture war over LGBT+ rights, as some conservative state legislators seek to keep discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity out of the nation's classrooms. Lawmakers in three Republican-led states backed legislation this year to let parents take children out of classes covering LGBT+ identity - a step critics said will deprive gay and transgender youth of vital information and fuel discrimination. The governors of Arizona and Arkansas later vetoed their bills, fearing legal challenges, but Tennessee's sex education law came into force in May, with conservatives…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Schools around the world must teach LGBT+ acceptance

EDUCATION

MANOS ANTONINIS IT is alarming how many LGBT+ students are bullied at school. Globally, four out of 10 LGBT+ youth say they have been “ridiculed, teased, insulted or threatened at school” because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, primarily by their peers, according to UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report. In many Arab countries and also in sub-Saharan Africa, the report found that roughly the same proportion of students also reported feeling rarely or never safe at school. This is likely to have a huge impact on these students’ mental health and learning, and consequently on our societies. Of course,…