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Connecting the Food Shortage Dots in Sub Saharan West Africa - Minority Africa
Ndubuaku Kanayo
October 3, 2022
The unprecedented food shortage in the Sahel and West African region can be attributed to various factors, which include climate-induced conditions, events of conflict, displacement and inflation.
According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the number of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa has quadrupled over the last three years with current estimates hitting around 41 million.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prices have surged between 30 and 50 per cent in many places – and even doubled in some markets. Russia and Ukraine make up top global exporters of maize, sunflowers and barley and account for around a third of global wheat exports. While African countries like Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania and Sudan source more than 40% of their wheat imports from Ukraine and Russia, Nigeria, the fourth largest importer of wheat receives a quarter of its imports from Russia.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global food commodity markets, fuel supply chains and trade flows to Africa are being disrupted thereby increasing the already high food prices in the region.
Currently, local prices of wheat (per ton) in Sudan recorded an increase of 180% when compared to a similar period in 2021.
Furthermore, the National Bureau of Statistics’ Selected Food Price Watch report in Nigeria for July 2022, revealed that the average price of 1kg of beans rose on a year-on-year basis by 24.17%.
The report further showed that on a year-on-year basis, the average price of sliced bread (500g) increased by 31.80%, and wheat flour (2kg) also recorded a 35.23% increase.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting global prices for food and fuel even as the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD) estimates at least 40 million people around the world will be pushed into extreme poverty. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) believes that the invasion has created a heightened risk of famine and malnutrition due to its impact on food security. The soaring costs of food and fuel prices are likely to exacerbate poverty.
In search of greener pastures, thousands of families are leaving their homes as the pressure on the already limited resources continues to heighten.
As of 2020, an estimated number of 7 million persons across 104 countries and territories were displaced by disasters. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) views this as a “highly conservative estimate,” as it does not capture those living in displacement because of disasters prior to 2020.
By the end of 2020, 40.5 million new internally displaced persons were recorded across 42 countries and territories because  of violence and conflicts, while 144 countries and territories were displaced due to disaster-related events.
Out of these new displacements, 30.7 million people, which constitute 76% were caused primarily by disasters while an estimated number of 9.8 million who make up 24% of the reported population were caused majorly by conflict and violence.
Countries in the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa were the most likely to have large numbers of IDPs displaced due to conflict and violence.
Somalia and Ethiopia have  the largest number of disaster displacements respectively, even as heavy flooding and rains in Somalia continue to drive many into displacements.
While many youths in underserved communities migrate for economic reasons, including working in both the informal and formal sectors, women and their children face several challenges and risks, both during migration and following arrival in destination countries.
Migrant women from and within the sub region face several challenges and risks, from violence and sexual exploitation during migration journeys to unfavorable working conditions in refugee camps.
Extreme weather conditions and climate change, which are propelling displacements, are further affecting the livelihood of millions of people in the region while increasing stiff competition for natural resources.
As water points and pasturelands continue to dry up, rural and pastoralist communities in the region are witnessing the death of livestock and the loss of livelihood.
Aside from the socio-economic and environmental impacts of food shortages on refugees, so many of them also suffer from poor health and malnutrition.
According to the United Nations Children Emergency Fund, an approximated number of 45 million children under the age of five are suffering from low weight-for-height, a form of malnutrition that indicates severe weight loss as a result of not having enough food to eat or having an infectious disease that leads to so much weight loss.
Due to a chronic lack of essential nutrients in their diets, around 149 million children under the age of five are reported to have stunted growth and development.
Olga Oleinikova, a senior lecturer and director of the Social Impact Technologies and Democracy Research Hub (SITADHub) in the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, recommended that major NGOs and international financial institutions must quickly act to address the urgent humanitarian needs in response to the global consequences of the Russian invasion.
Although there is a high risk of famine and malnutrition as the food security situation continues to deteriorate, some efforts by major NGOs and international financial institutions have been made to quickly address the urgent humanitarian needs in some affected regions.
Women, children and adolescents who constitute the most vulnerable population make up a large chunk of refugees in most parts of the world.
By addressing local community food needs for women and children, even in less perilous times, food banks are well positioned to respond to food crises by ramping up in times of scarcity and dispensing food when conventional supply chains are disrupted.
Over time, food banks have primarily provided a long-term solution to addressing food insecurity. Across emerging and developing markets, food banks remain the first (or sometimes only) point of contact for those facing hunger.
Lisa Moon, President and CEOof Global FoodBanking Network (GFN), noted that food banks are early warning systems for emerging food crises as they offer a window into understanding the full extent of the coming food crisis, while also remaining a key solution in combating food insecurity.
Meanwhile, in the search of a roadmap to food shortage in Nigeria, the Lagos Food Bank Initiative (LFBI), a non-profit, private-driven initiative in Nigeria committed to fighting malnutrition and hunger, is providing food and nutritional assistance to pregnant women and their infants, students in public primary and secondary schools, and youths in underserved communities through a series of targeted programs.
Speaking on the motivation behind the initiative, Michael Sunbola, President and CEO of LFBI recalls his first-hand experience with food insecurity.
Growing up in Lagos, the food systems activist remembers how, to afford a day’s meal, he and his siblings carried planks of wood from the local sawmill and foraged fruits that had fallen from trees. There were also times when he would sell his blood to a local blood bank so he could buy food. “It was such an unpleasant experience,” he says of that time.
“This has been my drive, to be at the forefront of helping the most vulnerable families put food on the table, because I know what it feels like to not have that.”
Initially, the initiative started with the Temporary Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) where food and nutritional interventions were provided to vulnerable women and children across underserved communities to help fight starvation and hunger while addressing malnutrition across various communities.
Over 50,000 residents across 130 communities within and outside Lagos have benefited from the program, even as Sunbola explained other community projects under the initiative.
“Many people came to know the Lagos Food Bank through the TEFAP program, but that is not the only community project we offer. In fact, we have six community-based projects that are making positive impact across different far-to-reach and underserved communities,” he noted
One of these community projects is  the Education Enhancement Intervention for Food Insecure Students (EDUFOOD) that feeds children at low-cost primary schools three times a week. The program is meant to reduce the number of school dropouts due to food and nutritional factors and has reached out to over 3000 pupils across 21 schools.
The Lagos Food Bank Initiative also has the Nutritious Meal Plan Intervention for Vulnerable Mothers and Children (NUMEPLAN) as one of its community-based projects. Through this initiative, they partner with primary health centres (PHCs) across underserved communities to provide mothers and their babies with nutritious food relief and a diet plan.
Around 400 vulnerable mothers and babies across 30 PHCs have been reached in underserved communities, even as the food bank initiative has also provided job placements for the unemployed in indigent communities. The initiative also created the option of family farming for women in remote communities to grow their own food for commercial and consumption purposes and a community program for diabetic patients.
Navigating a complex and dynamic food chain and tackling food shortage will involve the mobilization of new systems and technologies, behavioral change, collective responsibility, public awareness and engagement.
By investing in new systems and technologies, farmers can connect with institutions and gain information that can help mitigate risk and reduce uncertainty.  Also, while building interventions to address food insecurity, policies should be tailored toward influencing a change in consumer behavioral patterns by raising awareness of healthy diets.
Although the food bank initiative has reached out to many vulnerable people in underserved communities, the initiative is also looking at expanding and engaging with other NGOs that are into the provision of food relief and hunger intervention across different communities within and outside Lagos.
“We figured that for more people to benefit from the hunger intervention program of the Lagos Food Bank Initiative, we had to collaborate with other NGOs that are within our niche to help make the project a success,” Subola explains.
“The most engaging part remains that these NGOs we are working with understand the terrains within the communities they operate; they know the people who are in dire need of these food relief(s). So they help us reach out to these vulnerable people, and the general aim is achieved. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

created: October 3, 2022

author: Ndubuaku Kanayo


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Amidst coronavirus fears, Nigeria’s pregnant women turn to remote consultation and online groups - Minority Africa
Torinmo Salau
May 10, 2020
Lagos, Nigeria (Minority Africa) — At 30 weeks pregnant, Esther Adamu is terrified of visiting the hospital for her regular antenatal care.  She is also skeptical about having her baby in the hospital as the health facility which should be a safe place might no longer be so.
Her fears are not far-fetched, a number of private hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria have been shut down as a result of exposure to the COVID-19 infection. Other health facilities that are not exposed have shut their doors to patients in a bid to avoid contracting the virus, while they respond to only emergency cases.
Conceivably, Adamu has had to think up an alternative. In this case, maintaining contact with her doctor over the phone.
“My expected delivery date is roughly a month away and I have been in touch with my doctor,” she says. “He has been reassuring me that I have nothing to fear and the baby will be fine.”
For how peculiar this seems, Adamu is, however, not alone.  Many pregnant women feel greatly pressured by the uncertainty the coronavirus pandemic has created in its wake.
A lockdown that was announced by Nigeria’s government more than a month ago to curb the spread of COVID-19 in different parts of the country, including Lagos, the epicenter, has amplified the difficulties involved in seeing a doctor even for the periodic medical checkups.
“I have not been going to antenatal clinic since the lockdown started because I am afraid of possible infection, coronavirus no dey show for face,” says Cynthia Nwosu, another pregnant woman who is in the early stage of her second trimester.
“I am just taking my drugs and maintaining personal hygiene because it is better to be safe than sorry.”
As of publication time, Nigeria has reported 4151 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 128 deaths. While it is one of the countries in Africa with the highest number of COVID-19 cases, its figures pale in comparison to other countries outside of the continent.
Yet for many Nigerians, this global context has done nothing to minimize their fears.
Like Adamu, Nwosu has adopted remote consultation too, but not using phone calls. Nwosu instead communicates with her doctor through the messaging platform, WhatsApp.
“If there is anything I observe, I send a message to [my doctor] right away and he responds to all my questions,” she says.
According to Dr. Adeniyi Afolalu who is a specialist in Family Medicine, there is currently no evidence to show that pregnant women who get COVID-19 are more at risk than other adults.
“Pregnant women are not in any particular danger because of their condition,” he says. “[We] enforce the use of PPE such as masks and gloves by health care workers attending to them [and] we strongly emphasize social distancing between health workers and the women.”
A Harvard Health study of nine pregnant women who were infected with COVID-19 and had symptoms showed that none of their babies was affected by the virus and the virus was not present in the amniotic fluid or breast milk.
In April, a pregnant COVID-19 patient was delivered of a baby by a team of Nigerian doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). The hospital said in a tweet that the “40-year-old mother and 3.3kg baby are doing fine.”
Nigeria has a maternal mortality ratio of about 814 per 100,000 live births and in 2015, the West African country with 58,000 deaths accounted for 19% of global maternal deaths.
Some experts like Dr. Adeolu Olusodo who is a General Practitioner at New Bambo Hospital in Lagos, believes that the fear of COVID-19 shouldn’t supersede the need for vital maternal care.
“It is not advisable for pregnant women to stay away from the hospital because antenatal checkups help to identify and reduce potential risks to you and the baby,” he says.
Dr. Olusodo advises pregnant women to continue to show up for antenatal but employ protective measures including the use of masks and washing their hands.
Others like Dr. Afolalu are instead offering remote care to patients who are afraid to show up at the hospital.
“My personal and hospital numbers are available to my patients,” he tells Minority Africa. “I also have a number of my patients on WhatsApp who can message me whenever the need arises. I try to make myself accessible to my clients so that they can reach me easily.”
Nigeria’s government announced the “phased and gradual” lifting of the month-long coronavirus lockdown in its capital, Abuja, and the economic nerve center of the country, Lagos from May 4th.
The President also ordered new nationwide measures against COVID-19, including a night-time curfew and mandatory face masks to allow some economic activities to resume while a ban on social and religious gatherings remains in place.
The news of easing the lockdown has been received with mixed reactions. While a number of people are hopeful that economic activities will gradually kick-off, others worry that lifting the lockdown is premature.
For Nwosu and many other pregnant women, returning to the hospital is still not an option despite the limitations of remote consultation.
“[WhatsApp] cannot be compared to going for the antenatal clinic where the development of the baby will be checked to ensure there is no problem,” she tells Minority Africa.
Adamu equally acknowledges some challenges with phone consultation.
“The downside of consulting with the doctor over the phone is the delay in responding to me,” she says. “His responses are not in real-time.”
Her concerns mirror some of the fears experts have about the growth of telemedicine in Nigeria where weak internet connectivity and high costs of data remain a stumbling block.
Nonetheless, Nigeria’s pregnant women are turning to technology in other ways during the pandemic. Several support groups across WhatsApp and Telegram are helping them stay connected with each other and also offering advice and tips on best practices to stay safe.
Bolatito Idakula is the Founder of Pregnant and Free, a Telegram support group for pregnant women which she describes as, “a safe place for [them] to speak openly about their journeys and encourage each other.”
“Pregnancy has always been a personal challenge for me,” Idakula says referring to her previous pregnancies. “I felt alone and didn’t have others to speak to.”
“I finally decided to do something about it when I got pregnant [again] as I had fears and anxiety I was struggling with at the beginning of the pregnancy,” she adds.
Idakula’s response was to start the group which now has over a hundred members.
She says, “I knew a solution was to create a community where no one felt isolated in their pregnancy.”
This seems to have worked so far.  Damilola Phillips, a member of the Pregnant and Free group on Telegram, says the online group has been greatly resourceful.
“I am a first-time mum and I was struggling with fear and anxiety concerning my pregnancy,” Philips says. “My major concern was COVID-19, then I discovered the group. The pregnancy tips and advice shared by other members have been reassuring.”
While Philips says messages on the group can sometimes be overwhelming and correspondingly hard to keep track of, she adds, “It is an exciting place to be and I am grateful for the community.”
This story was published in collaboration with Maternal Figures.
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Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Torinmo Salau is a Writer and Journalist. Her works have been published online and offline in local and international publications including Quartz, Roads and Kingdoms, The Guardian amongst others.

source: news-minorityafrica

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Torinmo Salau


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Could carbon offset schemes become a hindrance to women’s land rights in East Africa? - Minority Africa
Anastasia Mbatia
July 28, 2022
The 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP27 will be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in a mere four months. During that conference, the issue of carbon offset schemes in Africa will be raised. Carbon offsetting can be particularly beneficial to smallholder farmers and at Farm Africa, we have seen some of the benefits of carbon sales flowing directly to rural communities. But for women, offsets could present a barrier to land rights. Simultaneously, a meteorological drought last seen 40 years back will put over 28 million on the brink of starvation in the East and Horn of Africa.
Africa, despite its low contribution to climate change, is grappling with its impacts. The continent hosts a third of the world’s most vulnerable to hunger. Africa’s population is reported to constitute 25% of the world’s population by 2050. But after a decade of working to achieve the promises of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the world is not on track to achieve SDG 1: End Poverty and SDG 2: Zero Hunger. Global efforts to avert the climate crisis are urgent but if we are not careful, what will they translate to for African women?
Carbon offsetting refers to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions or an increase in carbon storage that is used to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere. Carbon offset schemes will benefit smallholder farmers through land conservation practices that increase their resilience to climate shocks. However, there’s a risk that carbon offsets ignore the challenges of women land owners. The value of land is likely to increase when the carbon offset schemes gain traction.
Consider Wamwari, a widow and mother of four living in Embu, Kenya. She inherited one acre of land from her late husband’s five-acre estate. In African communities, land is a large determinant of wealth creation yet women own less than 10%. Access to, ownership and control over land are essential to secure livelihoods in rural areas. In traditional setups, women were excluded from land ownership and allowed access through family ties. Land ownership for women translates to income growth, better household nutrition and higher education attainment by girls. The rise in land value presents a risk for women like Wamwari: disinheritance.
Despite being excluded from land ownership, women in rural East Africa provide more than 62% of the farm labour and are burdened with 80% of household food security needs. Agricultural productivity for female farmers is 20%-30% lower compared to that of male farmers because of gender gaps in resource access. Research shows that farm productivity will improve by 28% if women are involved in farming decisions and have control over land. Land laws and policies to safeguard women’s access to land, control over and preventing exclusion have been stipulated but women’s land rights tend to stay at plans and policy levels, hardly implemented.
Women’s tenure and access to land are important for reducing rural poverty, enhancing food security and stimulating agricultural development. Carbon offset programmes may present a threat to women’s equal land rights if policies are not enforced to protect women’s ownership and control. The triple wins for environment, development and business is a popular narrative within carbon offsetting. The narrative risks neglecting groups who will pay for carbon offsetting by losing land access and becoming invisible.
Carbon offset programmes should strive to empower women but the land requirement constitutes a barrier. Achieving women’s land rights is a key part of the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Commodification and financialization of land in today’s world will exacerbate the undermining of women’s access to land, productive resources and human rights. Principles and standards derived from international human rights instruments should guide carbon offset legislation, policy processes and programming.
Carbon offset laws should complement the national constitutions in recognizing women’s equal rights in access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources. If well implemented, women will have an equal and independent right to acquire, control, use and transfer land. Proven success in Farm Africa’s Bale Eco-region REDD+ project in Ethiopia that introduced gender-inclusive bylaws resulted in increased women’s participation in both forest conservation and decision-making over carbon credits spend. When gender-inclusive carbon offset laws and policies are implemented to safeguard women from discrimination and exclusion in land rights, widows like Wamwari can fully realize the triple wins promise of carbon offsetting.
This article is published as part of the Op-ed Project.
Edited/Reviewed by Cassandra Roxburgh, Uzoma Ihejirika, and Caleb Okereke.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Anastasia (Ana) M'bati is a Public Voices Fellow on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls with the OpEd Project.  She serves as an agronomist and a senior Technical Manager for Agriculture at Farm Africa, an organization that works with vulnerable communities in East Africa in agriculture and environmental protection. Ana is a champion for sustainable agriculture and has supported agriculture development in various roles in South Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda.

author: Anastasia Mbatia


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Dangerous stages: Gendered harassment in Uganda’s music industry - Minority Africa
minorityafrica.co
February 16, 2024
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Editorial.

created: February 16, 2024


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Deaf women in Uganda and their struggles with abusive relationships. - Minority Africa
minorityafrica.co
April 6, 2024
Gender-based violence (GBV) disproportionately affects women and girls who are deaf, partly because of communication barriers compounded by a legal system that is frequently inadequate to meet their needs.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Editorial.


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Dear lesbian, we see you - Minority Africa
Shade Mary-Ann Olaoye
April 28, 2020
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Shade Mary-Ann Olaoye is a gender and queer rights reporter whose work has appeared in Sahelien, AZ magazine, The Daily Dot, Media Diversity Institute and elsewhere.

author: Shade Mary-Ann Olaoye


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“Despite the barriers”: The Nigerian journalists trying to change an ableist media landscape - Minority Africa
Tijani Abdulkabeer
May 17, 2023
In 2018, Gbenga Ogundare, a veteran journalist, started a news media platform Equality Reporters following the discrimination he faced after he lost his sight. Before going blind from complications arising from glaucoma in 2009, Ogundare says he used to be treated with respect by his colleagues and the people he encountered along his professional journey. In the end, he had to resign and forge his path.
“Living with a disability in Nigeria often means a sentence to a lifetime of stigma and discrimination, including employment inequality,” he says. “And personally, I suffered from these forms of negative social stereotypes the moment I lost my sight.”
Precarious work environments continue to put journalists living with disabilities in a hard to navigate position. Equality Reporters primarily focuses on stories about people with disabilities. The platform also presents a safe space for all reporters, living with or without a disability to practise their profession without discrimination. For Ogundare, who has been practising journalism for the last 20 years, barriers are meant to be a leverage to greater exploits.
“[I can] see how the voices of persons with disabilities have suffered neglect in mainstream newsrooms in Nigeria over the decades, and this was the injustice I sought to redress when I carved out my niche reporting strategy,” he tells Minority Africa.
In 2019, he exposed how an under-staffed Lagos judiciary has been unable to guarantee timely justice for rape survivors in the state. He has also investigated and exposed how communication barriers aggravate the gender-based violence experiences of women and girls with auditory disabilities in the police stations and courts in Nigeria. Away from disability reporting, he has equally exposed how a conglomerate poisons an entire community with its mining and cement production business in a southwest state.
Like Ogundare, Hamzat Abaga, an investigative reporter living with a mobility disability with WikkiTimes, has published numerous stories that hold the government to account.
Abaga, who started as a campus journalist, notes that working as a physically disabled journalist has affected him in so many ways. “You know in Nigeria when you are physically [disabled], there is this ideology that you can’t be productive. People look at you and say you can’t do the work compared to those who are fit. ”
From reporting for national dailies to freelancing with international platforms, he explains that the passion has kept him growing, adding that “the growth is immense, as well as the impact.”
According to Media Diversity Institute, journalism is about people and if journalists like Abaga are abandoned in the newsroom, they would not be able to measure up. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that approximately 15% of the global population have some form of disability but while there are no relevant statistics that capture journalists that live with disabilities like Abaga, they are still determined to tell important stories.
As a teenager in secondary school, Abaga was involved in an accident which claimed his legs. He believes that the way  “to challenge misconceptions about journalists living with disabilities is to do [the work] rightly.”
“When I am doing my job, I don’t see myself as disabled. I see myself as someone who can do whatever those that have two feet can do,” Abaga says. He works from home and uses fixers anytime he has to pursue investigative stories.
In July 2022, Abaga did a special report for WikkiTimes about a community in Niger State where nothing works, spotlighting the challenges of the people. In October, he reported on how inadequate equipment and drugs mar the federal government’s Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) delivery in Niger State. In November, he told the story of how women living with Vesicovaginal Fistula (VVF) and Obstetric Fistula (OF) in Bauchi State are being neglected by their families amid stigmatization by the public and, in January 2023, he also did a story of how a Nigerian-based radio is raising awareness around injustice for International Journalists’ Network (IJNET).
“I want to stand out in my doings. I travel long-distance to investigate.  I can’t sit at home, who will feed me? I stand up on my feet and do what I have to do, despite the barriers.”
Yusuf Adua, a freelance journalist with the International Center for Investigating Reporting (ICIR) and the News Editor of a local media and a strabismus patient, like Abaga and Ogundare, says he doesn’t see himself as disabled. “It has gotten to a point where I like the blacklash that I get.”
Adua, who has a sight impairment, started as a full-time investigative journalist in 2022 and is telling important stories. In October 2022, for ICIR, he published an investigation on how a multi-million bus project has been abandoned as residents continue to grapple with a transportation crisis in a southwest state. This January he also exposed how a radio project in the southwest has been abandoned by two successive governments despite continuous budgetary allocations. All these “even as people [continue to] look at you like why are you even doing this. You should be in your house and all that,’’ Adua says. To date, Adua has authored five investigative reports across national dailies.
But not all journalists living with disabilities have had success in their careers. Tomisin Adeyefa is a visually impaired journalist and sound engineer in the broadcast space who despite her talent has found it difficult to get a job. “I have tried all things possible to no avail. Sometimes I’m called for interviews, commended for doing well but refused the job because of my disability. You will hear statements like we do not have provisions for people like you.”
“I’m forced to ask them to allow me [to] work for free for a while,” says Adeyefa. At present, she freelance with a local media that pays her N2500 ($5.43) per episode that she attends on a show and “the money could hardly cover for my transportation.”
Adeyefa, not wanting to give up says, “I just keep on out of passion and hope that one day, I will get something substantial.”
The editor of the International Centre for Investigating Reporting (ICIR), Bamas Victoria, says that the ICIR has consistently worked with journalists with disabilities to propagate its inclusiveness policy.
“[We propagate our] inclusiveness policy by ensuring that it carries along a diverse range of people;  religion, gender, PWDs in its recruitment process,” she says, adding that the centre “also actively encourages the representation of women and minority voices as well as hold sessions and trains its staff on the need for inclusiveness.”
Victoria further notes that journalists that fall under this category should prioritize looking for media houses or grants that are focused on inclusiveness. “These kinds of grants are more likely to take into cognisance the challenges faced by such journalists and make provisions to mitigate it.”
Yakubu Muhammed, the head of the newsroom at WikkiTimes, says that the organization goes for serious work. He notes that irrespective of the physical challenge, they prioritize potential.
“We go for serious hats. Once we are able to identify you in telling good stories, we give them [journalists] every support they need,” Muhammed affirms.
And respect for their work as professionals is what journalists like Ogundare are seeking. In 2020, Ogundare was awarded the overall prize as the Judiciary Reporter of the Year 2020 at the Diamond Award for Media Excellence and the Child-Friendly Reporter of the Year 2016 in the same award. He also picked the Etisalat Prize for the Most Innovative Reporter of the Year 2012 at the Nigeria Media Merit Awards (NMMA).
Ogundare is not deterred. He continues to tell these stories despite colleagues looking down on him. “Majority of them wouldn’t understand why a blind person like me would insist on remaining a journalist. Some even sit beside me and refuse to say hello because they erroneously think that being blind also means that you are deaf and can’t recognise voices.”
Edited and Reviewed by PK Cross, Uzoma Ihejirika, and Caleb Okereke.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

author: Tijani Abdulkabeer


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Do not look the other way - Minority Africa
Shade Mary-Ann Olaoye
May 17, 2020
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Shade Mary-Ann Olaoye is a gender and queer rights reporter whose work has appeared in Sahelien, AZ magazine, The Daily Dot, Media Diversity Institute and elsewhere.


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Edwin Chiloba, my first love - Minority Africa
Muriithi Kariuki
May 12, 2023
When I first met him, there would have been no way to know that years later, I – and the world – would lose him so tragically. Due to the long wait at the bus terminal at our initial meeting, I was already irritated when he stepped out of the bus.
He stood at 6’2”, wearing a shirt with fur-like imprints on the collar, straightened black trousers and heels a few inches tall. He was a breathtaking figure and a sight that easily made me forget the hours of waiting.
I had little time for pleasantries as I was meant to travel to the countryside on a night bus that same day so we took the first tuk-tuk to my place, a humble bedsitter with a bed, cooking gas and a few utensils, where I fixed us supper before heading out to get the bus to Nairobi then try to get another bus to the countryside.
We did not talk much in the house, then. We could not find words, I dare say, to what our bodies sang to each other. We kept looking at each other on the bus to Nairobi, his smile — that singular value that he would never lose for all the years I would come to know him — was the most welcoming gesture.  And so, when we found the space, alone at the back of that bus heading from Thika to Nairobi, our tongues could hardly not meet. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and, being the novice I was, I moved my lips and tongue, closed my eyes and let myself breathe in the air that came out of his nostrils.
For a moment, the world only contained me and him. We found the action, but not the words, to express how we felt. That action was my first kiss and that young man was my first love.
That young man was Edwin Kiprotich Kiptoo.
That night, there was no way that I would have known I would lose him so tragically. That night, when I missed the bus traveling from Nairobi to the countryside, I was not sad that I missed it. I had no reason to be.  Back in the house when we laid together, our bodies sang to the best of Essex Hemphill’s poetry: “I place my ring/on your cock/where it belongs/No horsemen/ bearing terror/no soldiers of doom/will swoop in/and sweep us apart.”
There would be no way on earth that we could have been separated. But years later, after so much love and friendship, after the relationship had become no longer tenable and only the rapport of people who had once been together remained, that was what happened.
On January 4,  2023, Edwin’s body was found stashed in a metal box along the Kipkenyo-Kaptinga road in Kapseret, Uasin Gishu County. So far, five people have been arrested and arraigned in court over the murder, among them was his year-long lover, Jackton Odhiambo.
The news of the arrest of the prominent suspect Jackton Odhiambo was received with anguish and disbelief within the queer community. Samuel Githaiga, a gay and HIV/AIDS activist, posted: “And like I always say…. Your very closest friends will one day kill you….. yes…your very closest.”
Of course, not many queer people thought another queer person would be capable of doing what had been done to Edwin and there was hardly a single incident so prominent and publicized in Kenya and around the world that had come close to that of Edwin.
The disbelief and horror at the main suspect being Edwin’s lover was quite understandable. Queer people, beaten and shunned by the outside world tend to take each other as safe havens and whatever spaces we create for each other, be it in organizations, clubs or our houses, we think of what the writer Kai Cheng Thom calls Queerlandia – a place where we are free from the oppression of the often violent and neglectful families and communities where we were raised.
However, that is not always the case. Sometimes, the realities of real life and the myths of Queerlandia clash. The attacks come from within the created Queerlandia hence breaking the myth surrounding it.
January 6, 2023, Citizen TV, a Kenya TV station reported that, in 2022, Chiloba survived an attack by unknown assailants who roughed him up in public, leaving him with serious injuries on the face. Later, the same station reported that it was not a homophobic attack but allegedly an issue of intimate partner violence. As reports further emerged from Edwin’s friends and as alleged by Denis Nzioka, a gay and sex workers rights activist, Edwin’s relationship with Jackton had been a toxic one, one that led to his death.
Amid this, many questioned why Edwin had not spoken up before and tried to distance the issue from homophobia, nevermind that they are closely connected. Yet like Edwin, I understood the repercussions of going public over incidents and cases of intimate partner violence (IPV), especially as a queer person.
In early 2021, I got involved with someone who abused me in public, in front of friends. A month later, when I gathered his history of violence, I ended the relationship. He responded with threats to cause chaos where I lived and even went ahead to send death threats.
Survivors of violence go silent out of fear of further violence from the perpetrators – be it their intimate partners or any other abuser. In a mental health research conducted among sexual and gender minorities individuals in western kenya, 42.5 % of participants reported that they had undergone Intimate partner violence. However, owing to the neglect of queer intimate issues, of this percentage, little is ever reported.
Victim blaming and fear of further violence create an environment in which survivors of domestic violence are gagged even before they can speak. Two years ago, when I tried to get help from organizations to whom I had reported the violence and death threats from my ex-partner, I was told I had to go to the police, get an OB (occurrence book) number then proceed to get help from the organizations before they could help me move out. The need for a police report, a condition these organizations gave me, put me off getting help. Reporting to the police, for most victims of intimate partner violence, means opening up to state homophobia, denigration, shunning and self-incrimination.
And so ultimately, intimate partner violence is compounded by homophobia both within the police structures and in communities.
While state-backed homophobia plays a big role in silencing survivors of intimate partner violence, it becomes more lethal when linked with societal and cultural norms of heterosexuality. Discriminatory laws force queer people into the closet, making their intimate dealings and arrangements private.
The act of making of the sexual and intimate lives of queer people a phenomenon that needs to be kept a secret makes it difficult for cases of abuse and violence to be brought forward since the relations are already invisible, unspoken and pushed into the closet, therefore non-existent even in the neighborhoods queer people live in.
Maybe, as is alleged, the murder of Edwin Kiprotich Kiptoo was a case of intimate partner violence. However, the events that led to his murder cannot be divorced from homophobia. What if Edwin did not have to fear law enforcement officers? What if the laws were different?
Currently, the Kenyan penal code criminalizes homosexual sex. If one is caught, one is liable for up to fourteen years of imprisonment. The Kenyan laws, part of state-sanctioned homophobia, creates an environment of silencing victims and survivors of intimate partner violence.
The last time I met Edwin, I was in a white T-shirt emblazoned with rainbow colors. Tired from class work after months of being away from physical classes due to Covid-19, I slowly made my way through the Thika Superhighway in November 2020. By then the flyover connecting Garden City Mall and Homeland Lounge was still under construction.
“I can’t see you, where are you?” I asked him over the phone.
“Come to the other side of the road, towards the Homeland Lounge”.
As I silently made my way to him, there was still the smile, bright in the lights on the highway and the lights outside of Homeland Lounge’s parking lot. A few seconds later, our bodies met in a hug, that long hug that we knew from meetups and hours of travel between Eldoret and Nairobi when we were together.
“I missed you so much,” he said.
Those words, said as our chests met in that long embrace, are ones I still remember. Edwin’s death was tragic – one that no one saw coming. His death is also evidence of things not spoken; about the myth of Queerlandia and how homophobia plays a part in intimate partner violence.
Süper Tekne, Göcek Tekne Kiralama,
Edited by: Caleb Okereke and Uzoma Ihejirika.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Muriithi Kariuki is a writer and gay rights activist based in Nairobi, Kenya.

author: Muriithi Kariuki


text:
Embracing the Lady and the Boy: How this Kenyan singer is engaging queerness through music - Minority Africa
Job Tapera
November 25, 2023
There is nothing novel about the concept of art as liberation.
All across the world, social and cultural groupings have leveraged the power of creation to offer accounts of themselves, their communities, and their aspirations for liberation. In Africa specifically, art has been a central pillar of some of the most consequential movements for social change, from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa through musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim and Miriam Makeba, to the End SARS movement in Nigeria through artists such as Burna Boy and Falz. Art has also generated comfort in visibility for many – through writers such as Chinelo Okparanta and Nawal el-Saadawi, a range of communities have found characters and stories in which they have grown to see themselves, experiencing, for the first time in many instances, validation of their identities and experiences.
A third form of social justice is one that, in its intimacy and vulnerability, is easy to overlook. It is a form of art that does not promise answers to the question of liberation or solutions to the problem of oppression. It is a form of art that says one thing: “Here I am. This is me.”
In his debut album, Lady Boy, Kenyan singer-songwriter Jarel Nduba joins in that tradition, offering a poignant account not of oppression, nor the promise of liberation, but of himself. In it, Jarel narrates the experience of living as a gay man in Kenya – the microaggressions in being told to “not be so effeminate” and to “not use so many flamboyant hand movements,” the deplatforming of his experiences and the experiences of other queer individuals by radio and media, and above all, the question of self-identification, and of being forced to identify with a restrictive, inaccessible binary.
In Jarel’s own words, “We all have the femme and the masc in us.” Lady Boy is an ode to embracing both the lady and the boy inside. It is, to Jarel, both a radical departure from the gospel of the binary, and “a middle finger” to those that oppose his right not only to exist but to exist on his terms.
For much of his life, Jarel has been surrounded by music. Growing up in the coastal city of Mombasa, Jarel was immersed in the rhythms of Bango and Chakacha, which are the heartbeat of the city. When he moved to Nairobi, he got lost in the vibrant, live indie music scene of the city. Jarel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance degree that he obtained after he dropped out of law school at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in pursuit of his true passion for the arts.
Lady Boy is a labour of love. The idea of the album first emerged in 2018 through demos, private workshops, and experiments in live shows. When, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, Jarel saw an ad for the New Arts New Audiences Grant, funded by the British Council, the concept of Lady Boy was concretised. With the aid of the grant, Jarel recorded the 12 songs that would form the album.
“It was a very therapeutic process,” Jarel says. “There were many moments where I asked myself if I was truly on the right path. It got ugly very often.”
By the end of it all, however, there was a marked shift from uncertainty and internal conflict to certainty and security. “Look at yourself!” Jarel recalls saying to himself. “Look at the person you are, and the things you’re now so unafraid to talk openly about!”
It was, as he puts it, “a soul-changing experience.”
Looking forward, he hopes to pursue a new project that will “borrow from and fuse with AfroPop music” from the late 90s to the early 2000s. “I’d like to incorporate these sounds into something fresh and interesting,” Jarel remarks, gleaming with excitement as he describes how he hopes to draw inspiration from the likes of Yvonne Chaka Chaka and The Cleptomaniacs in his upcoming work. More than anything though, Jarel remains radically committed to “openly owning” himself through his work, his communities, and his life.
Lady Boy opens with ‘In the Fire,’ an uplifting autobiographical anthem. Jarel’s smooth baritone, singing “Bara bara bara bara bara bara,” bursts out of the mysterious choral-cum-percussive backdrop that opens the song. There is a sense of comfort that Jarel’s voice brings – a reassurance that everything is going to be okay as Jarel guides you from “up in the mountains,” through “the fire inside my soul.” The song is over before you know it, and soon you’re thrust into ‘Dua’ – a prayer.
Jarel is not religious, and yet prayer seems to be the only recourse available to the question of “the burdens I wear.”
As ‘Haya Mwanangu’ plays, you can’t help but sway to the Dodo and Chakacha-inspired rhythms of the raunchy tune. This is Jarel at his spiciest – we are witnessing him embracing his fullest self in ways that say rejecting the past is not an option. Mombasa and Jarel’s past will always be part of him and his music, and to him, rejecting the binary does not necessitate a rejection of the past in its entirety. By the time ‘Mabawa’ rolls around, Jarel has become Lady Boy, and unashamedly so. “Took my time to be who I be,” he croons to the backdrop of the danceable shanty. “I am my own responsibility.”
And so, as Jarel holds the final note of the song and the album, we sit mesmerised by the transformation we have witnessed. We are assured that Jarel is better off as Lady Boy and that we are better off for having witnessed his metamorphosis.
Download Lady Boy by Jarel via this link.
Edited/Reviewed by PK Cross, Caleb Okereke, and Uzoma Ihejirika.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Job Tapera is a writer at Minority Africa. He is Zimbabwean and covers social justice, the environment, decolonial politics, arts and culture.

created: November 25, 2023

author: Job Tapera


text:
Eswatini’s LGBTQ community is “mounting and waving their flags” - Minority Africa
Phathizwe Zulu
February 11, 2024
Editor’s Note: This story contains references to sexual violence.
MANZINI, Eswatini – On the evening of July 2 2018, Mapezu Kunene was filled with anxiety and anticipation for the Pride march happening the next day at the Prince of Wales sports ground in Mbabane, Swaziland. The thirty-one-year-old found herself caught in the uncertainty about the reactions of authorities. However, she held on to hope.
“[That] night I posted my outfit on social media showing everybody who cared that I was ready,” Kunene recalls. “I couldn’t wait for tomorrow!”
On the morning of the march, she received numerous calls from fellow LGBTIQ friends and allies as early as 6 o’clock offering transport to the venue.
“I arrived early in Mbabane. I met excited Pride members and allies. We hugged and kissed and hurried to Prince of Wales where we mounted our flags and banners,” Kunene narrates.
Kunene, an activist and member of the LGBTQ+ community, embarked on her journey of advocacy shortly after finishing high school. Witnessing the enduring stigma and discrimination faced by LGBTQ+ individuals, she felt compelled to take action and sow the seeds of change.
“I told myself that such an attitude should change. And I was determined to be part of that change,” Kunene says.
She has built up a defence against the barrage of hateful homophobic remarks developing a tough exterior like that of a ‘crocodile.’ Motivated by the need to confront prejudice Kunene made the firm choice to participate in the march of 2018.
“As a physically built masculine woman,” Kunene narrates, “each time when I’m shopping in town, I hardly come back without getting a negative comment, a stern look or an insult from strangers.”
Kunene’s experience is not unique.
Melusi Simelane, age 32, a former Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities (ESGM) Executive Director and a board member at Minority Africa, is no stranger to the violations against minorities in Eswatini. As part of the organisers of the pride march of 2018, that moment held a personal meaning for him.
Today, he serves as the Board Chairman of ESGM, and Civic Rights Programme Manager at Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC).
“I am now an openly gay man but my journey was paved by pain and struggle,” he recalls candidly. “In the midst of anti-gay sentiments from the church, tradition and state authorities, I had accepted that I will never talk openly about my sexuality.”
Raised in a conventional Christian household that seldom allowed discussions about sexuality, Simelane contemplated how he found solace in his family’s unawareness of his sexual orientation. Despite being an open secret among many of his siblings and cousins, Simelane was content with the unspoken understanding within his family.
“But things changed when I got to boarding school for the very first time. I experienced some form of confidence and was proud of who I am,” he says. Just when things seemed to be getting better for him, Simelane was raped by a close friend. He remembers the pain and shame he suffered in silence.
“I started to learn about shocking experiences fellow LGBTIQ community go through and the dire experiences they are forced to endure. That set in motion my journey in activism and advocacy,” says Simelane.
After working together at Rock of Hope, where they fought for the rights of LGBTQ+ people Kunene found herself caught in a whirlwind of emotions when Simelane suggested the groundbreaking concept of arranging Eswatini’s Pride parade.
“Before hosting Pride, we used to host the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) in our private, enclosed spaces which had a lot of fear on its own,” Kunene says, adding, “Imagine getting a backlash from that small thing…then boom! Melusi came and told us that we’ll host Pride March!
“I asked myself: Is Melusi serious? Is he ready for all the consequences? But the excitement came back later when we mounted and waved our flags. I was emotional when I saw my community coming from all corners of the country [and] filled the Prince of Wales sports ground. Some even came from South Africa.”
Even though, Eswatini TV, the national broadcaster, did not televise the march, the event received coverage from mainstream print media as well as international news agencies such as AFP and Reuters.
As expected, the government made efforts to downplay the event. In an attempt to minimise publicity, the organisers were given less prominent and behind-the-scenes routes through the streets of the capital city.
“Rather than granting permission to march in the central business district (CBD) or the bustling streets near the bus rank terminus where crowds gather, we were allocated less significant streets,” Kunene recalls.
However, the permission to march on its own, was a sign of hope towards the acceptance of the LGBTIQ community to the broader Swazi society.
Simelane was excited to see the fruits of his labour becoming a reality. The day’s event was without issues. It was characterised by the waving of rainbow flags and costumes depicting Pride colours. Face paints, the dances, the laughter and chatter amongst friends and lovers beautified the day.
“We struggled considering the politics of Swaziland being an authoritarian, absolute monarchy,” says Simelane, adding, “It was not easy to bring Pride, because anything that has to do with human rights in Swaziland, there is always trouble with it.”
ESGM’s success in hosting the 2018 Pride march, of course, was not a solo effort but a partnership with other stakeholders.
“We were able to work with many partners. And not only diplomatic corps but also the Human Rights Commission and the few other local lawyers who made sure that we had the successful  Pride,” says Simelane.
Unfortunately, the continuity of this tradition was disrupted. In 2019, the organisers hosted an event at the Theatre Club in Mbabane instead of organising a march like the previous year. In 2020, ESGM and its partners were unable to commemorate Pride due to stringent COVID-19 regulations that prohibited public gatherings. The June 29 civil unrest in 2021 further impeded their plans as “Marshal law” banned any marches in the cities and towns.
One of the partners is Rock of Hope, an organisation that since 2012 has been fighting for LGBTIQ rights.
Rock of Hope’s outgoing Executive Director, Sanele Sibiya acknowledges the regression in the gains that the Pride march of 2018 had made.
“We couldn’t get a street to march. But I have noticed that the resistance has become more subtle.” Sibiya says. “They’re going to cite a law or regulation that doesn’t allow a certain entity to do certain things, we have seen that around Pride, you going there to negotiate, but they won’t say it to your face that ‘We don’t want you to march because you are LGBTIQ,’ it’s either they will use a clause in the Public Order Act or they will always have something that you will have to contend with.”
In 2022, ESGM’s activism took another heavy blow when the judges of the high court rejected the organisation’s bid to officially register as an LGBTIQ organisation.
Judge Mumcy Dlamini ruled that the real purpose of the organisation was to spread information about same-sex sexual practices, and condemned the publicity of such issues.
Simelane and Sibiya expressed their disappointment that resonated throughout the LGBTQ+ community as the ruling came at a time when there was hope for progress within government institutions. Despite this setback ESGM has appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court and is awaiting a verdict.
Meanwhile Simelane and other advocates for rights in Eswatini are facing increased challenges especially considering the situations in African countries. Simelane specifically emphasises his profound disappointment with Uganda’s government criminalising homosexuality. He anxiously anticipates that conservative regimes, such as Eswatinis might be influenced by Uganda’s actions.
“It is also saddening to see developments in the region where there is that backlash whether it’s Kenya or Namibia because there is a pending Supreme Court judgement or Ghana where there are still debating a bill that seeks to further punish LGBTIQ people,” Simelane says, “Or worse Uganda where we saw President Museveni enacting that bill into law that gives a death sentence to what they are calling ‘aggravated homosexuality’ and one shudders to think what exactly would ‘aggravated homosexuality’ mean.”
While in pursuit of attaining recognition and friendly laws, ESGM still has an arduous task ahead to fight policies and laws that trample on minority rights.
The government of Eswatini is currently making changes to the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths Bill of 2022. The Parliament has allowed the transgender community to offer their suggestions and participate in the proposed revisions to the bill.
According to Simelane there is a topic being discussed between the trans community and the parliament’s portfolio committee. It revolves around including intersex individuals, in birth certificates and gender change procedures. The debate mainly focuses on whether the designation of intersex should be mentioned on birth certificates or if it should remain with the existing choices of male or female.
Sibiya commends the Senate for giving the LGBTIQ community an opportunity to express their concerns even though they faced a setback in a case the previous year.
“We have seen some openness on the side of the government to work with the LGBTIQ community,” Sibiya says. “We were consulted [by the government] when this gender policy was reviewed. But we still have the legislative and the judiciary on the other side of the fence but the executive is trying to involve us and we have seen a lot of positive movements.”
However, the proposed bill does show shades of a pushback. Some stakeholders submitted that Intersex should be classified as a disability.
“I think that is a sad reality,” says Sibiya. “Even if you look at the history, [being a member of the] LGBTIQ community was once classified as a psychological disorder, but what gets me thinking and worrying is the fact that when you talk of intersex persons, it’s a biological reality! It now brings us back to the issue of ‘Do you want us now to play God?’ If Intersex persons are born like that, why does society think we have a right to choose for that person? No one should play God at the end of the day.”
Simelane agrees and also argues that freedom of expression is a basic right. “I think we as an LGBTIQ community are calling for freedom of expression, freedom for everyone to be who they are.”
The journey for minority rights is still long and winding. However, many members of the LGBTIQ community like Kunene acknowledge the contribution of the Pride march of 2018.
According to her, the march left fond memories to cherish for a lifetime. It left Kunene with that important sense of familyhood and belonging. It also reignited the valour to “fight on and fight on until ultimate victory is achieved.”
“As a human rights activist, that event triggered the necessary discussions in the broader society on living with the LGBTIQ community,” she says. “I saw a potential of success in terms of visibility and awareness. Considering that society has heard all along that there is the LGBTIQ community, but that day they saw that we exist and live amongst them. And that we are human beings fighting for our rights.”
Edited/Reviewed by: PK Cross, Uzoma Ihejirika, and Caleb Okereke.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

created: February 11, 2024

author: Phathizwe Zulu


text:
Evaluate the need to consistently distance oneself from queerness - Minority Africa
minorityafrica.co
July 29, 2020
It’s important that we question the reason as to why an individual can feel obligated to refute an identity that wasn’t mentioned in the first place. “No Homo” is propped by a need to deny something, used to dissociate oneself from the possibility of being a homosexual.

It functions on the misguided premise of the fragility of masculinity in which expression of emotion automatically translates to mean, “gay,” and implies more worryingly, that there is something wrong with being gay such that it has to be refuted and reiterated that one isn’t.
The framework within which conventional masculinity exists is fitted with an impossibility for men to show affection towards men and so “homo” in this sense is used not just as a derogatory term to refer to gay men but also as a way to reinforce a widely held belief that gay men are less men than heterosexual men by virtue of being romantically and sexually attracted to each other.
Never use it.
Perhaps the most worrying thing about blanket statements like this is that it weaponizes homophobia to further perpetuate homophobia and that it does all of this under the guise or camouflage of allyship.
Acceptance that comes with a list of do’s and don’ts is not acceptance at all, but apparent acceptance that extends to creating and bolstering a stereotype of gay people as predators is in actuality homophobic.
The notion that gay people walk around imposing themselves on others has its roots in a view of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder and gay people as people with a sexual desire that is beyond the sphere of their control.
Aversion therapy was born from premises like this; a practice common through the ’50s and ’60s in which gay men, for instance, were forced to view pictures of naked men while electric shocks coursed through their body so they can associate the pain of electrocution with what was considered abnormal sexual arousal.
When people who sometimes think themselves allies resort to saying “homosexuality is being forced down our throats,” what in many cases has inspired this stance is the howbeit minimal representation that is just beginning to exist for queer people in media.
This train of thought is illogical for several reasons, one of which is that for something to be shoved down your throat, it implies that it doesn’t belong there in the first place. Many allies are fine with the system as is, one where heterosexuality is the norm and homosexuality deviance which they are now graciously starting to tolerate.
They thus feel threatened by whatever appears to distort this framework, their allyship is reserved only for queerness that knows that its place will always be outside of the norm, outside of “mainstream spaces,” they do not know what to do with a queerness that is incredibly fierce and that wants to be so included so it does not bear repeating.
Their go-to in instances like this, therefore, is to paint a picture of an adult who might be fine with gay people but is not fine with, in their opinion, being forced to gulp “gay content.”
You must understand nonetheless that it cannot be shoved down your throat because you should be drinking it anyway. This logic can only be possible in a mind that perpetually believes heterosexuality to be the default and there is no reasonable or sustainable form of acceptance that sprouts from viewing a person as deviant.
We hear this often when a gay person comes out. It is said as praise, to mean that the person has done something right in hiding parts of themselves so much that they have to be lauded for it.
While it might not be said maliciously, you must recognize the way in which what you might think of as a compliment is in actual sense oppressive.
Invisibility is a defense mechanism, not something to be praised. Never forget that.
This post is published as part of our Abolishing Oppressive Language Series. To read more from these series,click here. For comments and feedback, email: language@minorityafrica.org.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Editorial.


text:
Failure To Protect: Disabilities and Gender-Based Violence In Nigeria - Minority Africa
Opeyemi Rasak-Oyadiran
November 17, 2022
Abuja, Nigeria — (Minority Africa) When Bunmi, who was born with a visual impairment, announced to her relatives that a ‘brother’ in her church had shown a willingness to marry her, the news was received with enthusiasm. Many did not hesitate to tell her how lucky she was to have found such a “good man.”
Her marriage was barely six months old when she began to complain to close relatives that her husband and primary caregiver frequently beat her during disagreements and constantly called her an ingrate. He accused her of being ungrateful after he had taken pity on her by marrying her. Her relatives advised her to ‘work harder’ to please her husband and save her marriage. Things however took a turn for the worse when Bunmi suspected that her husband had diabolic intentions towards her.
“He would sometimes rub strange objects on my head and down my body whenever he thought I was asleep, and I could hear him whispering strange things I didn’t understand,” she says. Not long after her husband’s strange behavior began, Bunmi confronted him about it. He did not receive this well and he attempted to strangle her to death. Though she was rescued by neighbors who believed that the couple was having a spat, many women and girls living with disabilities are not so fortunate.
Women and girls living with disabilities are more likely to be victims of gender-based violence than those not living with disabilities. They are even more vulnerable to different forms of violence if they are poor. The violence is usually at the hands of assailants already known to them like their partners, caregivers, family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors and so on.
“Most men who are married to women with disabilities often believe that they are doing the women a favor, and sometimes see the women as [defective]objects that they own,” says Ummi Bukar, a gender rights activist with PAGED Initiatives, an NGO focused on inclusivity and equity, especially in marginalized groups. “The situation is worse when the woman is poor, this kind of sensibility is already enough to make a woman in that kind of marriage a target for abuse.”’
Women and girls living with disabilities face the likelihood of abuse at a very young age. This is because of their special needs and dependency. A UNFPA Evidence Brief in 2020 showed that “women and girls with disabilities report higher prevalence of violence experienced before the age of 15.”
In Nigeria, women like Halima and Bunmi often have their constitutional rights violated and have nowhere to get help. While Section 42 of the Nigerian Constitution caters to the right to not be discriminated against because of the circumstances of birth, there are no specific provisions addressing the rights of people living with disabilities. The Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, which provides inclusive free education, provision for special communication at hospitals, situation of risk and humanitarian emergencies, amongst other things, acts as the primary law for people living with disabilities.
According to estimates by the World Bank, Nigeria has a population of 221.4 million. Nearly half of the population is women, and the World Disability report of 2011 estimates that 20% of women is Nigeria live with a disability.  These figures, though abstract, are made up of real women living with disabilities and their marginalized realities, which continue to visibly play out, while the law fails them. On the international level, Nigeria ratified the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) in 2007 and its Optional Protocol in 2010.
The convention, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, highlights the need to move from “viewing persons with disabilities as ‘objects’ of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing them as ‘subjects’ with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.”
Even though Nigeria is a signatory to this convention, there are still problematic issues that affect how people living with disabilities may not be fully able to enjoy their constitutional rights or even be protected under the law in the instances where those rights are rendered non-exercisable or infringed upon.
According to Dr. A.K.A Kolawole, a lawyer whose practice centers on human rights, there is a glaring vacuum regarding the protection of the rights of people living with disabilities. She also says the stigmatization of people living with disabilities leads to economic disadvantages, which inadvertently build up to political disadvantages.
The Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, which is the body responsible for the submission of Nigeria’s country report to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is yet to do so to date. States that are signatories to the convention are required to submit reports two years after ratifying the convention and every four years to show steps that have been taken to ratify it. Nigeria’s first report has been due since 2012. Dr. Kolawole says this shows the level of unseriousness Nigeria has toward the structural implementation of disability rights.
According to a study cited by the International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), the Ministry of Women Affairs, which is responsible for the welfare and rights of persons with disabilities, “understood disability within a discourse of welfare and charity.”
After her attack, Bunmi reached out to a friend who came and took her to the hospital to treat her wounds. The friend also convinced her to take legal action. Bunmi was taken to a local police station to file a complaint.
“The officers kept asking me questions about if I was blind when my husband met me or if it happened after our marriage,” she says. “They also made comments about how I could prove he had beaten me when I couldn’t see him, they said many annoying and insulting things about how women my age who could see didn’t have husbands, but I wanted to send a good man to jail because of small marital challenges.”
Edited by Cassandra Roxburgh, Caleb Okereke, and Uzoma Ihejirika.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

created: November 17, 2022

author: Opeyemi Rasak-Oyadiran


text:
“Fear of another attack”: This Nigerian initiative is encouraging displaced parents to re-enrol their children in school - Minority Africa
Abdulwaheed Sofiullahi
May 11, 2023
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in November 2021, Nusaibatu Aliyu, 34, was napping when news of bandits raiding the community primary school her three children attended jolted her awake and caused her to run barefoot around Brijingo, their community in Goronyo Local Government Area of Sokoto State.
The raid came three weeks after an attack that had cost the community lives and several properties. Luckily, Aliyu’s children weren’t kidnapped, but they had to flee the community due to insecurity. Aliyu vowed not to allow their children to attend school again.
“What happened that day was unexpected; nobody thought they might go and attack the school.  I promised that none of my children would ever again attend a school or any form of Western education,” she says.
Since 2019, due to Nigeria’s ten-year conflict with northern Islamist insurgents, over 2,295 teachers have been killed and 1,400 primary and secondary schools have been destroyed.
In Sokoto State, in northwest Nigeria, attacks by bandits have become frequent, especially in Goronyo, where over 50 people were abducted and 43 people were killed in 2022.
In addition to displacing almost 2 million people, the crisis has seen the population of out-of-school children increase by more than 60% in the last 13 years to 1.8 million.
Beyond the loss of homes, properties and businesses that made learning accessible for their children, the crisis has left parents with horrible memories, leading them to stop their children from attending school.
Nana Girls and Women Empowerment Initiativea nonprofit organization, is helping parents overcome their fears by organizing town-hall meetings with displaced parents to explain how education is essential to their children’s future and why they should be allowed back to school.
“We decided to act when we realized women who are displaced by banditry find it difficult to survive. Their children were no longer attending school years after they had witnessed the terror attacks from their previous areas,” says Dr Fatima Adamu, Executive Director, Nana Girls and Women Empowerment Initiative. “Some women stopped enrolling their children in school due to the fear of another sudden attack. They were also no longer financially stable enough to make learning provisions for their children.
“So, firstly, we organized ‘educational advocacy for wage-group women’ in those communities, educating them about how education is important for their children’s future and why they should overlook their past horrible experiences and allow their children to return to classes.”
Uraimatu Muhammadu’s two children were in the community primary school at Boyakai in Goronyo LGA of Sokoto State, which was raided in October 2021. She had traveled when the attack occurred, and came back to find out that her 15-year-old son, Ibrahim, was missing after the attack. While  Muhammadu’s daughter survived, they were displaced as their home and properties had been destroyed in an earlier attack on their village.
“We are left with nothing,” Muhammadu says. “The attack that occurred some weeks before the death of my child at school made us lose our property. Our house was scorched, and the bandits carted away all the cows and sheep my husband used for business.”
Like Aliyu, Muhammadu also vowed not to allow her only daughter to attend school again. However, last year the NGO organized an educational summit in the Manna Babba community, where internally displaced people (IDPs) from Goronyo live. They began to understand why their children needed to return to school and, with full support from the organization, allowed them to return.
“We listened to Nana’s organization after they explained what may be the great outcome of our children’s future if we shun our past experiences and allow their children back to school. They freely enrolled my daughter two years after we were displaced here,” says Muhammadu.
Beyond taking on the financial burden of education by sponsoring the children to school, Nana Girls and Women Empowerment Initiative is working with the local governments to enroll children in schools closer to displaced communities.
“Over 200 displaced children across some rural areas in Sokoto have returned to school with our full support. We worked with the LGA Education Secretaries, who helped us process the admissions in schools closer to the children,” says Dr Adamu. “We make provisions for their uniforms, school bags, books, and other learning materials. We try to source from philanthropists and sew the children’s uniforms. We are also working on ways to continue mentoring these children so that we won’t be affected socially or economically. We want them to succeed in life, and we are trying to organize extra lessons.”
She shares the challenges that her organization has been facing in their efforts to provide education to underprivileged children, saying, “The demand was so massive beyond the organization’s plan. We want to ensure that affected children get back to school, but we are facing a lack of enough funds to enroll more children.”
To address the situation, the organization has been reaching out to philanthropists for support. “We are asking them to help us with some pairs of uniforms so that we can enroll more children,” Dr Adamu says. The organization’s dedication to these children extends beyond just getting them back in school. “We want to continue mentoring those children so that they won’t be affected socially or economically.”
However, they face another challenge: many of the children have been out of school for so long that they need extra lessons to catch up with their studies. “We want them to succeed in life, and we are trying to organize extra lessons if we have enough funds,” she adds.
Beyond the work of organizations like Nana’s empowerment initiative and UNICEF to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Sokoto State, the state government has declared a state of emergency concerning its education system. The last two years have seen the number of out-of-school children in the state reduce by half, due to government initiatives like the Better Education Services Delivery (BESDA), which built 41,000 non-formal learning centers, 76 post-literary skill acquisition centers and provided learning materials worth over 30 million naira.
While a lot is being done to re-enroll children, from convincing parents to allow their children back to school to providing support to parents and children, the security challenges affecting some areas of the state continue to pose a problem in enrolling children in affected areas.
Edited by Samuel Banjoko and Uzoma Ihejirika
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

author: Abdulwaheed Sofiullahi


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Fishing groups are making fisherwomen feel safe in Uganda - Minority Africa
minorityafrica.co
March 7, 2022
In Uganda, women are forming fishing groups for safety and protection. The widely male dominated fishing industry poses a challenge for women who participate in it as they are exposed to various forms of abuse and violence, these groups want to prevent that.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Editorial.


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Formal education is a farce for blind and visually impaired people in Cameroon - Minority Africa
Kesah Princely
August 14, 2022
In 2016 when I enrolled in university to study journalism and mass communication, my very first class ended on a very poor note. The lecturer told me that journalism, my program of choice, was not for blind people like me and that I was the first blind student in the almost three decade history of the university. He went ahead to say that my decision to study was a “mere waste of time” and that I was coming to be a “burden to people’s children.”
I have been aware of how difficult it is for blind and visually impaired people to get a formal education for most of my life. Some of this was due to the narrative government officials created that providing accessible education for people with visual disabilities is a waste of resources. Most of it, however, was that while in school in Cameroon myself, I would come to experience this firsthand.
Everyone who goes to university hopes to create a fruitful future for themselves. Due to the government’s failure, many blind and visually impaired people (PVIs) in Cameroon cannot obtain this future. Blind people in Cameroon are treated as objects of charity that depend on donations for survival. We are stigmatized and told we have nothing good to offer the country.
Things have improved in present times, though. Many of us pride ourselves on having degrees at various levels of tertiary education. However, despite these degrees, many remain unemployed due to negative societal perceptions.
Unfortunately, there is limited data on the unemployment rate of visually impaired people. However, given that the National Institute of Statistics, Cameroon (NIS-CM) has previously reported that 31% of people with disabilities are unemployed, we can make reasonable assumptions about the unemployment rate of visually impaired people. This is compared to Cameroon’s 3.87% unemployment rate in 2021.
In addition, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has extensively reported the barriers people with disabilities experience in entering the labour market.
The ILO has identified education as one of the most prominent barriers. Persons with disabilities are twice as likely as those without disabilities to have less than a basic education level. They are also half as likely to have a university education. This has a significant impact on their subsequent labour market outcomes, since employment rates for both persons with disabilities and those without increase with the level of education. One of the main factors that would improve job opportunities for people with disabilities, and subsequently PVIs, is the improvement of access to higher qualifications like university degrees.
Finding data on the challenges experienced by PVIs in Cameroon is an impossible task. Globally, the World Health Organization places the number of people with visual impairments at 284 million and the number of blind people at 39 million. In Cameroon, it is difficult to get accurate information on the exact number of PVIs. Recent estimates place the population of PVIs at 600 000 people. There is no accurate data, but data trends show one thing: PVIs in Cameroon experience a large amount of discrimination, especially in the education system.
Only a few people with visual impairments end up acquiring a university education. Tertiary education in Cameroon is plagued by many of the same barriers to accessibility as experienced by PVIs globally. These barriers include inaccessible libraries, high tuition fees, the financial burden of privately acquiring assistive devices, inadequate braille transcribers and lack of assistive devices such as screen readers.
I experienced these barriers while at university. I never had access to the university library due to the library being designed for non-visually impaired students. Like many other visually impaired students, I had to devise other means to succeed. A large part of this relied on a supportive community of fellow students. This process was incredibly tedious, and being ignored by my government upon graduation made the process challenging to comprehend.
Another incident, which has been burned into my memory, was when two blind journalists were denied recruitment into the state-owned broadcasting company Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV). They had emerged victorious in a competitive entrance exam launched by the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms in 2021 but were denied the jobs.
These conditions created a boiling pot of tension that exploded at June’s end. Dozens of disgruntled graduates with visual disabilities flooded the streets of Cameroon’s capital Yaounde to voice their grievances. This protest was met with stiff resistance from the police. At least 25 protestors were apprehended, several others were injured, and the police broke many white canes. The protestors committed no crimes, yet the Cameroon government branded the protestors as criminals.
We struggle through a daunting academic process, plagued by several barriers to success, to get our degrees, but are turned into beggars upon graduation by our government. Our government would instead break our bodies than work with us to improve the living conditions of visually impaired people in Cameroon. The government of Cameroon, much like other African governments, lacks the will to address the concerns of graduates with visual impairment.
We are no longer objects of charity without any skills to provide for our communities. We are graduates who want to use our skills to build a better future for all Cameroonians. No one chooses to be blind – the government needs to stop discarding our concerns to the side. We have voices, and we deserve to be heard.
Edited by Cassandra Roxburgh, Uzoma Ihejirika, and Caleb Okereke.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Kesah Princely is a fellow at Minority Africa. Princely is a Cameroonian Journalist and a disability advocate and is the founder and Executive Director of TWIF NEWS, a digital news website which aims to shine a light on disability in Cameroon. He spends time advocating for the inclusion and participation in mainstream activities of persons with disabilities through his journalism for change.

author: Kesah Princely


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Four Ugandan women talk about their hair - Minority Africa
minorityafrica.co
April 17, 2021
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Editorial.


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From a mobile app to Facebook groups, Kenyan women are organizing around breastfeeding - Minority Africa
Marie Mulli
November 5, 2022
Nairobi, Kenya (Minority Africa) — In 2019, 31-year-old Kenyan Ann Mogaka returned to work six months after having her daughter. Given its benefits, Mogaka wanted to continue breastfeeding her child. Pumping presented a solution.
However, as a first-time mother, Mogaka did not have a pumping schedule. “I didn’t know I had to have [had] a pumping schedule while I was on maternity leave, so [when it was time to resume work], I didn’t have a lot of milk,” she says. “After going back to work, I would pump one side as the baby would be breastfeeding on the other in the evening. It was difficult.”
Luckily, two years later, when Mogaka gave birth to her second child she came across a Facebook post about Nyonyesha – a mobile application designed to educate women about breastfeeding – and decided to try it. The app sends notifications every two hours to remind mothers to pump. According to Mogaka, the app made pumping easier for her as she was able to pump at regular intervals, resulting in a consistent supply of breastmilk.
“When I was on three months maternity leave, the alerts would remind me to pump regularly, so I had a lot of milk stored in the fridge for the baby to use by the time I went back to work,” she says.
Nyonyesha is an innovation by award-winning Kenyan journalist Janet Otieno, whose breastfeeding story resonates with that of Mogaka and many other women, especially first-time mothers. Although Otieno had been shown what to do at the antenatal clinic, breastfeeding a real baby was not as simple as the demonstrations indicated. “I couldn’t breastfeed, so the baby [who was preterm and birthed at seven months] kept crying. I felt helpless and emotionally drained,” shesays.
Otieno did not want to use formula because the clinic had stressed the importance of breastmilk, especially since it helps with the baby’s brain development. So, she tried and failed again. Eventually, she called a friend who was a pediatrician for help.
The doctor came and diagnosed the problem: incorrect breastfeeding position. Once the problem had been identified, she started breastfeeding effortlessly. However, the experience left a deep impression on her.
Several years later, in October 2020, this experience inspired her to create Nyonyesha, a Swahili term for breastfeeding. Primarily for Kenyan women, the content of the app is in English, Swahili and sign language and has over a hundred downloads. With enough funding, she hopes to expand it to women across the African continent. Otieno is not looking to make money from it; she explains that the app is free because she wants many women to have access to it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stipulates that a mother should breastfeed a child exclusively on breast milk for the first six months. It also explains that if breastfeeding is scaled up to near-universal levels, about 820,000 children’s lives would be saved.
Working mothers who want to breastfeed exclusively have to pump regularly. Josephine Munene, the co-founder and honorary secretary of the Kenya Association of Breastfeeding (KAB), explains the importance of doing this. “The way lactation works is you need to remove milk to make milk. I tell working mothers to start pumping four weeks before going back to work, so they have milk put away.”
Along with the pumping schedule, Mogaka also enjoyed other features on Nyonyesha, such as articles and videos about breastfeeding. “I found the articles on how to store milk after breastfeeding quite helpful. I even recommended the app to one of my friends who was having problems breastfeeding.”
Michelle Gachuhi, a 29-year-old  tech-savvy Kenyan mum, who recently interacted with the app, also found the articles interesting. “As a first-time mother, the articles grabbed my attention, like the one about how husbands can support breastfeeding mothers,” she says.
Nyonyesha is the first Kenyan app targeting breastfeeding mothers, but digital platforms with the same idea have been around much longer. In 2015, Thitu Kariba Garang, a stay-at-home mum and counseling psychologist, created The Pregnant and Nursing Mums Support  group on Facebook.
“When I was expecting, I would share the experience with my Facebook friends. Then as my posts became popular, some of my friends who were also pregnant suggested we create a Facebook group to support one other,” she tells Minority Africa.
The group has about 400,000 members and has been running for eight years. Over the years, the group’s activities have expanded from providing emotional support to one another to contributing money to help poor mothers around the country.
Facebook groups like Garang’s help encourage women to breastfeed exclusively despite the challenges. The discussions are the most popular feature of the Facebook page, Garang explains, adding that “most of the questions are about the first hundred days of a baby’s life, which includes breastfeeding.”
In the beginning, Garang would share with the group the information she received from her doula (midwife). But over the years, she has also brought experts to speak to the mothers. Members are also free to post their opinions, but incorrect information is immediately flagged by Garang and the other moderators and corrected. This ensures members always get the right information.
Josephine Munene says the most common challenge is the lack of (or little) breastmilk, which can deter women from breastfeeding exclusively. “Most mothers don’t know what to expect when they start breastfeeding; it is not just about giving birth and putting the baby on the breast,” says Munene, adding that “mothers need knowledge and support.”
Freida Kimanga, a 35-year-old mother who lives in Nairobi and is a member of The Pregnant and Nursing Mums Support group, posted about the misconceptions surrounding the breastfeeding of twins. “When I was pregnant, I found out I was having twin boys. Some friends scared me by saying I would have to spend about $500 a month to buy baby formula for them because I would not be able to produce enough milk.”
After giving birth, she had problems breastfeeding in the hospital, but that changed when she left. “At home, my mother and sister helped with the children, so I was not stressed. I also ate a balanced diet – with lots of vegetables and drank a lot of water. I pumped regularly and was able to breastfeed for 7.5 months.”
This story resonated with so many women that her Facebook post received about 500 comments and over 1000 likes. In addition, breastfeeding mothers often message her directly to ask for advice. This is the kind of support digital forums like Nyonyesha and Pregnant and Nursing Mums promise.
After giving birth, Esther Njoroge, a 26-year-old mother who lives in Kirinyaga county, a fairly urban area, which is only two hours drive from Nairobi, found and joined a WhatsApp group of mothers who had given birth around the same time. “I noticed my baby was not sleeping through the night, so I went to the group to get advice from other mothers,” she says. “They said the baby was not getting enough milk and told me the food I could eat to improve the milk supply. I did it and managed to breastfeed exclusively for seven months.”
Facebook groups have been encouraging women to breastfeed exclusively for some time and now, Nyonyesha has added its voice to the conversation. Otieno has plans to spread Nyonyesha’s content to even more people, especially those without smartphones. “I would like to work with mobile telecom service to reach women in rural areas using short messages,” she says. She hopes to create Nyonyesha 2.0, a plan to partner with like-minded institutions or individuals to develop the app further so that it can reach these women.
Mogaka is happy she used the app. “I was able to have a regular supply of milk because I used the pumping schedule. Also, the articles on the app demystified myths about breastfeeding. For instance, my mother would insist that I give the baby water and I was able to confidently say no because I had read articles that supported exclusive breastfeeding.”
Today, Mogaka’s daughter is one year old and the mother has continued using the app for months to wean. “When I started weaning, I thought the baby would enjoy pureed mango, avocado and banana but she refused to eat.” Luckily, the app had articles that helped diagnose the problem and information on how often to wean and how much food to give, she says.
Edited by PK Cross, Khadija Sanusi, Uzoma Ihejirika, and Caleb Okereke.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

created: November 5, 2022

author: Marie Mulli