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Nigerian Islamic Police on Manhunt for TikTokers - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
March 13, 2024
Today, we start in Nigeria, where displaced women are creating their own support groups and safety nets through money clubs. Then, travel to Bangladesh, where the ongoing human rights violations are forcing many families to flee the camp. And finally, we stop in India to see thousands of poor people denied food due to an AI algorithm.
But first, in Ethiopia, where, despite claims from the federal government, the threat of famine is growing more imminent, especially in Tigray.
In November 2020, a massive fallout between the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan forces led to an armed conflict, also called the Tigray War, that lasted for two years. This conflict resulted in humanitarian crises such as food shortages and the displacement of more than two million people from their homes, with thousands fleeing into Sudan.
Although a ceasefire was signed in 2022, the effects of the war have reduced Tigray to extreme poverty. Before the conflict, food security in Tigray was already a critical point, and now, with fertile farmlands being seized and the ongoing drought, the possibility of famine is becoming more of a reality daily. There are already reports of hundreds of children dying from starvation in remote areas, and the USAID’s famine early warning system and the UN World Food Programme predict this situation will worsen in 2024.
But, in addition to the need for more haste from the Ethiopian government to adequately address this escalating issue, Tigrayans also have to worry about the large-scale schemes to steal the already limited food aid meant for them. Last year, an investigation report revealed that 186 regional and federal government officials were caught diverting food meant for Tigray.
While Ethiopians hope the food crisis eases soon, it’s clear that the government has a lot of work cut out for them. The first crucial step is acknowledging the situation’s urgency and implementing robust measures to safeguard food distribution and aid.
Nigerian Islamic police in manhunt for TikTokers
Money clubs help displaced Nigerians create their own safety nets
This Nigerian anthology on queer joy wants to make you “Feel Good”
Queer suffering is serially platformed and disproportionately critically acclaimed across a range of media forms. A new book wants to change that.
Much has been said in criticism of the fetishization of queer suffering. For a long time, queer characters in books, films, and art have been robbed by their writers of the fruits of human existence. From Ijeoma in Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015) to Dumisani in Tendai Huchu’s The Hairdresser of Harare (2010), queer characters are often left to reconcile with endings that are, at best, bittersweet and at worst, tragic. Tenderness, companionship, spirituality, sensualism, and joy seem devastatingly out of reach for many queer media characters.
Queer joy, as a movement, seeks to radically depart from the doom and gloom historically associated with queer media to tell stories that uplift and inspire. Proponents of the movement present queer characters falling in love, enjoying healthy familial relationships, and wholly accepting themselves and their identities.
Peace and reconciliation remain “a pipe dream” for genocide survivors in Zimbabwe
As the end of the ten-year tenure of the body that was meant to bring peace and healing to survivors and families of past atrocities in Zimbabwe draws close, those who had invested hope in it feel cheated.
The unveiling of a new constitution in 2013 brought fresh hopes to different Zimbabweans.
For Duncan Maseko, then 41, the inclusion of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC), a statutory body tasked with searching for truth and ensuring past injustices are remedied, gave him hope. He could finally know the truth about his father, who had been abducted from their home three decades ago.
Maseko was not alone in investing his hopes in the NPRC. The NPRC also appeared to be an answered prayer to tens of thousands of others who had suffered various injustices and were searching for truth and closure. But as the ten-year tenure of the commission draws close, Maseko and the others are thoroughly dejected.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to Mount Nyiragongo, a stratovolcano with the world’s largest lava lake. The lava lake is continuously active.
Life On The Spectrum: Misdiagnosis Gap Affecting Autistic Women In Nigeria
Autism diagnosis is hard to come by in Nigeria, especially for those with high-functioning autism. However, for women on the autistic spectrum, the journey is far more complex, making diagnosis even harder to get.
Mirabel Andrew’s* life has been riddled with a lot of sensory issues, especially in her childhood, as she couldn’t stand noises such as thunderstorms and certain fabrics. She also preferred solitary activities over group ones. Even when she’s not reading or playing video games, she hardly interacts with others.
“In primary school, I developed an interest in the Pokémon franchise, which became a lifelong special interest, and it’s socially fine when you are 9. It later became a bit of a faux-pas, so to speak, by the time I got to secondary school.”
At that time, she had started falling behind on assignments.
I didn’t know how to talk about anything more than the three niche interests I had, and I struggled with eating because of the sensory issue. I tend to go nonverbal when stressed out, though sometimes, it happens with no apparent trigger. So sometimes I would go from an hour to two days without saying a single word, not because I didn’t want to but because I physically couldn’t, like I had forgotten how to speak.”
Bangladesh Police Abuses Rampant in Rohingya Camps
Earlier this month, a Rohingya woman in a refugee camp in Bangladesh reported that a police officer had been stalking her for a year. She said that on the night of 7 January, he entered her home under the pretext of a search operation and attempted to rape her.
The Bangladesh Armed Police Battalion (APBn), deployed to provide refugee camp security, has yet to investigate the case. A neighbor said that when the 22-year-old mother of two shouted for help, some local residents stepped forward but were stopped by two men in civilian clothes claiming to be members of the security team. The men only left after more people had gathered. The woman’s husband said he has since received anonymous threats on the phone and fears that he might be arrested or his family killed. “I think we will leave the camp and either go to Myanmar or take a boat to Indonesia,” he told Human Rights Watch.
‘The Bangladesh authorities should promptly and impartially investigate the matter. To provide genuine security in the camps, they need to take refugees’ accusations of police violence seriously.
How an algorithm denied food to thousands of poor in India’s Telangana
Hyderabad and New Delhi, India – Bismillah Bee can’t conceive of owning a car. The 67-year-old widow and 12 family members live in a cramped three-room house in an urban slum in Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. Since her rickshaw puller husband’s death two years ago of mouth cancer, Bee makes a living by peeling garlic for a local business.
But an algorithmic system, which the Telangana government deploys to profile its more than 30 million residents digitally, tagged Bee’s husband as a car owner in 2021 when he was still alive. This deprived her of the subsidized food the government must provide the poor under the Indian food security law.
Thus, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging in India and her husband’s cancer had peaked, Bee was running between government authorities to convince them that she did not own a car and that she, indeed, was poor.
The authorities did not trust her – they believed their algorithm. Her fight to get her rightful subsidized food supply reached the Supreme Court of India.
Two of the greatest female surfers stepping back from the sport
Surfing is about to experience a seismic change in 2024 as two of the standard-bearers of the sport are stepping away from the board and waves.
Eight-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore is taking a break from competitive surfing – for a year, at least.
Australian Gilmore, widely regarded as the greatest female surfer of all time, announced that she wouldn’t be competing in the 2024 World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour season, instead focusing on enjoying other things in life.
“I am planning to take this time as a refresh for myself physically and mentally, and enjoy following swells and free surfing in new places,” Gilmore said in a statement released by the WSL.
The news comes just days after Team USA Olympic champion and five-time world champion Carissa Moore announced she was stepping away from the sport after she defended her Olympic gold in Paris 2024.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.


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Nigerian woman jailed for ‘blasphemy’ for 18 months over WhatsApp message - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
March 12, 2024
But first, we stop in Kenya, where the stigma and legal ambiguity over abortions is driving many women to underground clinics. Kenya’s abortion law is a complicated one as its penal code prohibits the procedure and criminalizes not only the women seeking abortion but also the person performing it and those who supply the materials required.
In 2004, Dr. John Nyamu, along with two nurses, were arrested and charged with the murder of two fetuses – a crime that carries the death penalty. But after being held for 12 months at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Nairobi, they were acquitted and released. Although this case paved a legal avenue for abortions in certain situations, such as life-threatening pregnancies or those from rape or incest, it hasn’t particularly encouraged women to seek safe terminations, especially in public health facilities. There is also a culture of silence amongst doctors on the issue of legal abortions.
The complexities around abortions in Kenya continue to push thousands of young women to get care from backstreet clinics, where they usually suffer from post-abortion complications. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, around seven girls die daily from unsafe abortions. In 2012, the government published guidelines and training initiatives for health workers on safe abortions, however this was suspended after a year with support from anti-abortion campaigners and religious bodies.
Despite this, there’s growing support for abortion rights in Kenya. In March 2022, the High Court recognized abortion as a fundamental human right. It also declared the arrests of healthcare providers illegal, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to address the concerns of women in need of this care.
Kenya abortion: Women go to backstreet clinics amid legal ambiguity
Away from threat of Islamist violence or floods, health risks for pregnant women in Nigeria’s refugee camps remain high
Uganda is nicknamed the “Pearl of Africa” due to its rich landscapes, natural beauty, and lush vegetation.
“It is like slavery”: Tanzanian bar waitresses speak up on sexual abuse in the industry.
Despite being a major problem in the sector, sexual abuse is not considered a safety issue by regulators in Tanzania when opening a new club or bar. For this, alongside other reasons, many women working in bars and clubs are vulnerable to violence from both their employers and customers. Now, they are speaking out.
While working as a bar waitress in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 25-year-old Ester Steven Mashaka was often touched inappropriately by customers. Then, it was understood that accepting gifts was a sign of willingness to have sex with customers. Talking to Minority Africa, Mashaka recalls a specific incident where a customer offered her beer and later wanted to take her home. She refused. Her manager, however, insisted that she went with the customer to secure her job.
This was not the first time Mashaka was offered this kind of proposition. Often, she obeyed and did what the customer wanted, going where he wanted and having sex with him.
“Doing things out of one’s wish is painful, you know, it is more like slavery,” Mashaka says. “It depends on the understanding of the customer; sometimes you may be forced to go, and the customer understands that you do not want to, and he leaves you.”
The pressure to conform: How queer Nigerians navigate marriage expectations during the holidays
Questions and remarks about marriage are uncomfortable for queer Nigerians like me, who already find it difficult to find love and constantly face homophobia.
At twenty-six, my hometown and family gatherings have become places where I have been subjected to gossip and suspected of being a ritualist. A far cry from what it was for me growing up: a place to meet all my extended family members, smile at my grandmother, and see people who are one. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, raised by relatives, and attended a missionary secondary school. I have had to battle the internalized homophobia I learned from religion and school. But growing up loving Igbo traditions and learning that, unlike culture, religion is unchanging, I became more drawn to my culture as I came to accept my sexuality.
But once you reach a certain age in Nigeria, marriage conversations become recurrent. Since I refused to get married, I have had to avoid my relatives and family gatherings, trying to evade conversations about marriage. These conversations start with relatives giving subtle remarks or asking, “What are you still waiting for?” “Hopefully, you’ll be inviting us for a naming ceremony soon,” or, “I think I have found a perfect girl for you. I know how you like them.”
‘As a gay man who fled Rwanda, I’m horrified by the UK government’s asylum plan.’
Innocent Uwimana, a gay man from Rwanda who came to the UK 20 years ago, reacts to the UK government vowing to move forward with its plan to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda – even after the Supreme Court deemed it unlawful.
“I was deeply shocked when I learned that the UK government was planning to deport LGBTQIA+ people seeking asylum to Rwanda, knowing that they would be persecuted based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
I have faced discrimination in Rwanda; I know how it destroys the lives of thousands of people. Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalized, but there are no laws protecting LGBTQIA+ people. Every day, LGBTQAI+ people face discrimination and violence, such as arbitrary arrests, forced marriage, beatings, humiliation, and denied access to education and employment. Not only are LGBTQIA+ people rejected, tortured, and discriminated against by family and society, but the government doesn’t do anything to help them.”
Nepal registers first same-sex marriage hailed as a win for LGBT rights
Nepal has registered its first same-sex marriage, which activists hailed as a victory for LGBT rights.
Authorities in the western Lumjung district formally registered the union of Maya Gurung, 35, and Surendra Pandey, 27, on Wednesday. It came five months after the Supreme Court issued an interim order allowing same-sex couples to register their marriages. Taiwan is the only other place in Asia that has legalized same-sex marriage. Ms Gurung told the BBC that their registration was a “big day” not just for the couple but all sexual minorities. “The fight for rights is not easy. We have done it. And it will be easier for future generations,” she said. “The registration has opened doors to many things for us.” The couple said they wanted to open a joint bank account and share ownership of their bought land. But their biggest dream is to adopt a child once their finances are more stable. They have been together for almost a decade. The couple wed in a temple ceremony in 2017 and had sought legal recognition of their union this year.
Ms Gurung is a transgender woman who has not changed her gender on official documents. Mr Pandey was born and identifies as male.
Nigerian woman jailed for ‘blasphemy’ for 18 months over WhatsApp message
For sharing a message among her co-workers that criticized a mob action last May 2022, Rhoda Ya’u Jatau has spent the last year in police detention on charges of blasphemy towards Islam.
The healthcare administrator with the Warji local government in Bauchi, northeastern Nigeria, was arrested a few days after forwarding the video condemning the burning to death of Deborah Yakubu, a university student in Sokoto, another state, over alleged blasphemy. Prosecutors allege that by sharing the video, Jatau, then 45, committed multiple offenses of inciting disturbance, contempt for religious creed, and cyberstalking.
Last Monday, a Bauchi state high court rejected her “no-case submission.” Kola Alapinni, lead counsel at Abuja-based nonprofit Foundation for Religious Freedom, who is familiar with the case, told Al Jazeera that the defense team is expected to make a case when the court sits again in December.
If found guilty, Jatau, a mother of five and Christian, could be sentenced to a few years in prison, he said.
The queer artist whose controversial street performances are taking on the Russian government
With a painted white face and head, wearing an all-white ensemble save for long black gloves and gigantic black platform stiletto boots, Gena Marvin teeters as she balances on snow-covered rocks. She poses for a photograph, the sea rippling gently in the background behind her contorted figure, frozen still in the arctic chill.
It’s a striking scene that opens the new documentary “Queendom,” which follows the queer Russian performance artist as she creates artwork that challenges societal expectations and political situations — and the backlash she faces for it.
Wearing ethereal costumes made of found materials such as wire and tape and donning striking, alien-like make-up, Marvin pushes her body to extremes in her performances, often in public places on the streets of Moscow and in defiance of the Russian government. Yet the performances, and Marvin’s very existence as a queer person, are not without their risks, including physical violence, threats and homophobic abuse.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.

source: news-minorityafrica

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

author: Toluwani Omotesho


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Outed on TikTok in Ethiopia: ‘How a dance nearly cost me my life’ - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
March 12, 2024
But first, in Kenya, four women living with HIV have been awarded $20,000 each in damages for being sterilized without their consent.
The sterilization procedure is called a bilateral tubal ligation (BTL), where a woman’s fallopian tubes are sealed or blocked off by either cutting, burning, clipping, or being partly removed. This prevents fertilization of eggs from occurring, and it’s considered a permanent method of birth control.
One of the women, Penda*, narrated her experience. She explained that shortly after having her twins at Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi, she was advised not to breastfeed the children to avoid transmitting the virus through breast milk but to use formula milk instead exclusively. She was assured that she could get free food if she showed proof of using family planning and was referred to a clinic where personnel from Marie Stopes ran a family planning programme. At this clinic, she was given a form to fill out, which was unknown to her, as she could not read, was a consent form for a BTL.
The three other women also had a similar experience with Pumwani Maternity Hospital, with one of them, Furaha*, becoming a widow. When her husband found out she had been sterilized, he became a drunk and was eventually killed by a moving vehicle.
After nine years of legal battle, the High Court of Kenya ruled in their favor, primarily because of the lack of informed consent from the women. The damages awarded will be paid jointly by Marie Stopes International,  Pumwani Maternity Hospital, and the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Sexual violence still a major threat as Sudan’s conflict grinds on
Afghanistan: Taliban Schools Also Failing Boys
Uganda’s “role model” men are working to end violence against women
Can training men help tackle GBV? This Ugandan group thinks so
Women continue to experience various forms of violence across Uganda. Can training men help to shatter cultural perceptions of gender and correspondingly work to prevent abuse?
Five years ago, Harriet Okello, 37, a resident of Kuru-Otit village, Omoro District in Northern Uganda, and a mother of five, left home and divorced her husband, Richard Okello, citing physical and alcoholism-related violence. It was the third time that she had returned to her parents in just a space of less than twelve months. The physical violence and psychological torture from her husband seemed not to end.
“He would come back in the middle of the night drunk and beat up everyone for no apparent reason. This would happen every day until I took a stand,” she recounts.
To reconcile and salvage their marriage, Richard Okello assembled a team of men from his family and clan. However, these efforts were futile. Harriet’s parents insisted on tangible proof of transformation before they could re release their daughter.
“Even my parents were tired of my repeated trips to their house. They were tired of my husband’s repeated apologies,” she adds.
At that point, they had sired three children who, according to her, were the reason she was enduring.
“We look out for one another”: Queer, Hausa, and Woman in Nigeria
For queer Hausa women, living authentically means challenging societal norms and risking rejection from their families and communities. Maryam remembers watching her girlfriend overdose.
It was 2018, and 24-year-old Maryam and her girlfriend of two years, Safiya, had agreed to come out to their Hausa families. The couple met in Zamfara State while both students at Federal University, Gusau. After school, they returned to the city and eventually moved in together. Coming out didn’t go well for either of them, but Safiya took a harder hit. Her family publicly disowned her and informed her homophobic employer, who terminated her contract. In the blink of an eye, she lost her job and her family. This triggered a depression that led her down a path of alcohol and drugs until Safiya overdosed one day, causing convulsions and prompting Maryam to take her to the hospital.
She was declared dead on arrival.
“Safi was very beautiful and cheerful; she was always full of life,” says Maryam. “I felt very guilty [because] I was the one who pressured her to come out; I didn’t know it would go this way. I try not to think about it so much or blame myself, but sometimes, it’s hard not to.”
For queer northern women like Maryam and Safiya, acceptance by family is often difficult. Found predominantly in northern Nigeria, the Hausa people are one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups. They have strong cultural and religious values that hinge on strict gender roles.
Period poverty: How air pollution in Kenya could make periods heavier, more painful, and more expensive
Every month, Alice Shikuku has to choose between buying enough food for her family and sanitary pads for her daughter. Her family moved to Korogocho, one of the poorest slums in Nairobi, Kenya, four years ago when the father of her children died. Not long after, she was forced to sell her sewing machine, her only source of income, so that she could get treatment for an infection in her leg.
“Life became extremely difficult,” Shikuku tells CNN while sitting outside her sheet-metal home alongside her children. “Today, I have nothing. There is a material I was given to sew, but I don’t have a machine to do so.”
On a good day, Shikuku can make around $1 (150 Kenyan shillings) washing clothes and cleaning houses, but the cheapest pads available in Korogocho cost 33 cents (50 Kenyan shillings). That means her 14-year-old daughter, Mercy, often must go without. Last month, Mercy was sent home from school after her period caught her by surprise. And she regularly stays home if she doesn’t have pads to avoid embarrassment.
Outed on TikTok in Ethiopia: ‘How a dance nearly cost me my life’
When a clip of two men dancing at a party in Ethiopia was posted to TikTok, it unleashed a torrent of homophobic hatred and eventually forced one of them to flee the country.
The pair were unaware they were being filmed. The videos were initially posted to Instagram, where someone took a screenshot of them to make a viral TikTok post.
“I didn’t want to come out [as gay], but social media pulled me out,” Arnold, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, tells the BBC. “Now everybody knows who I am and my sexual identity,” the 20-year-old Ethiopian student says.
Homosexuality is illegal in Ethiopia and punishable by penalties that range from 10 days to three years in prison, according to the UN. Arnold says opening up about identity or sexuality can be dangerous, with a culture of neighbors taking the law into their own hands.
Colombian Disability Rights Activist Honored
Mariana Lozano, a young activist from Colombia, is the 2023 recipient of the Human Rights Watch Marca Bristo Fellowship for Leadership in Disability Rights, Human Rights Watch announced today on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, celebrated on December 3.
Lozano has been an emerging advocate for the rights of young people with disabilities in Colombia. She has been a part of the organization Different Minds Multiactive Cooperative (Cooperativa Multiactiva Mentes Diferentes, Coopmente), which supports people with intellectual disabilities and their families. Her vision is to represent young people with disabilities and promote their autonomy, rights, and inclusion in society. As part of her university studies, Lozano has been learning about legal mechanisms crucial to protecting the rights of people with intellectual disabilities.
As a woman with an intellectual disability, Lozano has overcome stigma and exclusion and developed important life skills, such as financial literacy and personal safety, which have been central to her independence and autonomy
Need Therapy? In West Africa, Hairdressers Can Help.
An initiative to train hairdressers in mental health counseling is providing relief to hundreds of clients in a region with the world’s least access to therapy.
Joseline de Lima was wandering the dusty alleys of her working-class neighborhood in the capital of Togo one day last year when a disturbing thought crossed her mind: Who would take care of her two boys if her depression worsened and she was no longer around to look after them?
Ms. de Lima, a single mother who was grieving the recent death of her brother and had lost her job at a bakery, knew she needed help. But therapy was out of the question. “Too formal and expensive,” she recalled thinking.
Help came instead from an unexpected counselor: Ms. de Lima’s hairdresser, who had noticed her erratic walks in the neighborhood and provided a safe space to share her struggles amid the curly wigs hanging from colorful shelves and the bright neon lights of her small salon in Lomé, Togo’s capital.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.


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“Small Animal”: How Language Reinforces Climates Of Sexual Violence In Uganda - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
April 19, 2024
But first, in Uganda, the Constitutional Court has rejected the petition against the anti-gay law. On Wednesday, April 3, 2024, the court announced its ruling not to nullify the Anti-Homosexuality Act. However, it’ll be scrapping two sections and two subsections that restrict healthcare access, criminalize renting premises to members of the LGBT community, and make it compulsory to report alleged acts of homosexuality.
The judges maintain that the anti-gay law does not violate the fundamental human rights of LGBT people but instead protects children from recruitment and targeting.
Despite the disappointment, the ruling doesn’t come as a shock to many people. Still, it’s unfortunate that the court’s decision further legalizes discrimination against the LGBT community in a country already struggling with widespread homophobia.
Following the enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in May 2023, Uganda has been under pressure from the United Nations (UN), human rights organizations, and foreign governments. In August 2023, the World Bank suspended new loans to Uganda because the anti-gay law contradicts its core values. Many activists believe that Uganda is merely tweaking its anti-gay law as a ploy to restart funding from donors and are calling for more restrictions until the law is entirely revoked.
In the meantime, petitioners are not backing down but will appeal the ruling to Uganda’s Supreme Court.
South Africa election 2024: ‘You see skeletons’ – the deadly migrant crossing
Taliban ban on girls’ education defies both worldly and religious logic
“Small animal”: How language reinforces climates of sexual violence in Uganda
Thinking back to her first intimate encounter with her husband, Jane, a mother of four in Kampala, Uganda realises the impact of language and culture on attitudes towards sex. She recalls the jumble of thoughts that rushed through her mind regarding how to handle intimacy.
As Jane, a Muganda by tribe, navigated conflicting messages during her upbringing, she faced the challenge of balancing the importance of protecting her “sweet” (a term for female private parts) with advice from her Ssenga, a paternal aunt tasked with educating girls about sex, on how to satisfy her future partner.
In society’s eyes, openly showing desire was considered inappropriate for a woman, yet she was still supposed to be alluring in private. Her struggles with being the ideal partner coloured her experiences.
Luckily, Jane’s husband empathised with her unease and provided support by urging her to accept her sexuality. After years of exploration, their bond has strengthened, resulting in a fulfilling intimate relationship. Uganda has a rich cultural and linguistic diversity, where words hold great power to inspire or harm. Sexuality plays a crucial role in this situation. Several linguistic traditions in the country, deeply ingrained in the culture, inadvertently contribute to narratives that sustain sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
How football games between persons with albinism and vitiligo are helping fight stigma in Kenya
While pursuing his bachelor’s degree at Moi University in Kenya in 2008, Tom Radido noticed patches on his body.
His family came up with a theory: they concluded he had stepped on ash burned during a traditional rite following the death of twins. To reverse the condition, Radido was given ash to lick, with some smeared on his face. Nothing changed.
It was instead the onset of vitiligo, a skin condition affecting about 0.5 to 2% of the world’s population. It also marked the beginning of a series of discrimination against Radido.
“You go for interviews and from the receptionist, no one wants to look at you twice,” he tells Minority Africa. “There is this interview that I was invited to attend, and I had not stated in my resume that I was disabled. During the interview no one dared to look me in the face, even the CEO, they asked me questions while looking down.”
30-year-old Radido is now one of nearly sixty persons who are part of Royal Patches, a group using soccer to foster the inclusion of persons living with vitiligo in Kenya.
“I feel more confident, and relaxed when I am around [other persons living with vitiligo],” he says. “I am able to express myself freely, I don’t get worried that people are staring at me due to my skin patches.”
Deaf Women In Uganda And Their Struggles With Abusive Relationships
The story is huge news here – and the move by the police has elicited some praise, though others are questioning why there have been no arrests. The priest in question, Nuumo Borketey Laweh Tsuru XXXIII, is a much-respected member of a community that lives in the Nungua area of the capital, Accra.
Sometime in 2019,  a boy was brought to the Amina Dyslexia Center by his mother for possible dyslexia because he kept failing his exams at school.
Anita Nchat Kelvin, a dyslexia therapist who runs the centre in Kaduna, North West Nigeria, suggested that they pull him out of regular school for a year so he could get enough neurodivergent-conscious tutoring to catch up with his peers. She further suggested that the boy’s father come along to discuss it.
However, when the father came, he got upset and threatened the mother with a divorce if she dared to bring their child to a school ‘for disabled children’. When the situation started to escalate, Anita suggested they go back home. Only with the input of other family members did the father reluctantly allow it later on.
Anita recalled that in a span of four months, two remarkable things happened.
“One, the boy was able to read short words such as two- and three-letter words as well as put them in short sentences. Two, his writing became more legible, and the father slowly started to show interest. In fact, the father later brought along a friend whose son showed similar symptoms.”
Hong Kong LGBTQ activists upset at revised ID card gender rules
Hong Kong will allow transgender people who have not completed full sex reassignment surgery to change gender on their ID cards, the government said on Wednesday, but activists are upset by strict new surgical and hormonal requirements.
The Court of Final Appeal last February unanimously sided with appeals launched by transgender activists that barring transgender people from changing their gender on their mandatory ID cards unless they undergo full sex reassignment surgery violates their rights.
The court ruling for activist Henry Tse and another appellant identified as Q was hailed as a victory for transgender rights in the Chinese-ruled city. Wednesday’s announcement comes two weeks after Tse launched a legal challenge over the delay in allowing him to change his gender on his ID card.
Citing the February 2023 judgment, the government said in a statement that if people had not completed the full sex reassignment surgery but “satisfied the revised criteria and requirements, they may apply for a change of sex entry on their Hong Kong identity cards”.
Members of Bangladesh’s transgender hijra community, who were disallowed from attending other prayer services, have been welcomed at a new mosque in the Muslim-majority nation with the promise of worship without discrimination.
The humble structure, a single-room shed with walls and a tin roof, is a new community hub for the minority, who have enjoyed greater legal and political recognition in recent years but still suffer from entrenched prejudice.
The mosque near Mymensingh, north of the capital Dhaka, on the banks of the Brahmaputra river, was built on land donated by the government after the city’s hijra community was expelled from an established congregation.
“I never dreamt I could pray at a mosque again in my lifetime,” said Sonia, 42, who as a child loved to recite the Quran and studied at an Islamic seminary.
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The Effects of PCOS Go Beyond Fertility Issues For Women - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
March 13, 2024
But first in Malawi, where the government recently expelled the refugee rights group – INUA Advocacy from the Dzaleka refugee camp.
The Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi is one of Africa’s largest. For the last three decades, it has been a home for refugees and asylum seekers fleeing from political instability and violence in their home countries. The Malawian government’s partnership with INUA Advocacy granted the group access to the camp to scrutinize the human rights situation. However, the recent termination of this partnership raises eyebrows at the already deteriorating situation in the refugee camp.
In March 2023, the Malawian government gave a directive to enforce its encampment policy, which ordered all refugees in cities, villages, or towns outside the camp to return. In May, the police began rounding up thousands of refugees across Malawi, temporarily detaining and forcefully relocating them back to the Dzaleka camp.
As expected, not long after, the forceful relocations birthed numerous challenges in the camp, such as out-of-school children due to overcrowded schools and the shortage of food, shelter, water, health services, and sanitation facilities.
The Dzaleka refugee camp was initially meant to host 12,000 people but currently accommodates around 50,000. And despite President Lazarus Chakwera’s promise in June to improve the living conditions of the refugees in the camp, there has been no significant progress.
The Effects Of PCOS Go Beyond Fertility Issues For Women
Afghanistan: Taliban sends abused women to prison – UN
Homosexuality predates colonialism. It is homophobia that’s new
We see and acknowledge the support and allyship from some of our white brethren towards gay people on the African continent. We are however sensitive to the ways in which this support can exclude certain things from the conversation.
Many times when white people and former colonial countries refer to homosexuality on the continent, it is often from a lens of casting Africa as “unprogressive,” “close-minded,” further feeding the narrative of whiteness as “evolutionary” without taking into account the era of colonialism and how it in many ways created and bolstered the current homophobia many gay Africans experience.
There is a recasting that is happening of colonialists as “saviors” quick to render a hand to as always “close-minded” and “monolithic” Africa, a recasting that is more than just worrying, also incredibly dangerous. It is important for us to approach every conversation with context and understanding, homophobia in Africa is no different.
“I have been treated unfairly”: The harmful traditional practice suppressing women in Nigeria
Across the Idoma, Igala, and Ekureku people of Nigeria, certain traditions are keeping tabs on women’s fidelity, income, and their choice to bear children.
One Tuesday morning in April 2016, the Easter celebration was around the corner when, at about 3:34 AM, a thunderous knock startled 52-year-old Janet* and her six children. As she struggled with the door bolt, she whispered a prayer to herself, “Lord, not again.” At the door was Oche*, her 77-year-old husband, who had come home drunk as usual in the company of a strange woman. As soon as he saw Janet, his jaw tightened and his hand curled into a fist. “I told you not to get a job but you are adamant!” he snapped.
Janet was only 17 when she was forced to marry Oche who was 42 in 1987. She had written her Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE), the final lap in Nigeria’s basic education system, hoping to be a nurse. Oche, a civil servant at the time, didn’t allow Janet to learn a skill or further her studies. “Anytime I tried to seek a job, he would threaten me with Aleku, the spirit of justice,” she says.
This prominent traditional practice is prevalent amongst the Idoma people of Benue State, Igala people of Kogi State, and Ekureku people of Cross River State in Nigeria. The Idoma people believe in Aleku to maintain justice in the land. The Igala people believe in Ibegwu to uphold justice, while the Ekureku people believe in Edu-ekolo to protect the family. The common feature in this tradition is that the spirit oversees women and keeps a tab on whether they are loyal to their husbands or not.
Did you know that the Great Rift Valley, stretching across East African countries like Kenya and Ethiopia and even reaching Lebanon in Asia, is often considered the cradle of humanity? Scientists have found many ancient fossils within the Rift Valley that have shed light on the origin and evolution of humans.
Kyrgyzstan: Domestic Violence Against Women, Girls with Disabilities
Women and girls with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan experience abuse, including rape, beatings, neglect, and humiliation, often by those closest to them as said in the Human Rights Watch report. Kyrgyzstan has taken positive steps in recent years to tackle domestic violence and to uphold the rights of people with disabilities and should act now to protect women with disabilities from such violence.
The 63-page report, “‘Abused by Relatives, Ignored by the State’: Domestic Violence against and Neglect of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Kyrgyzstan,” documents how violence by family members or partners often goes unreported and unaddressed due to widespread discrimination against people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan, especially women and girls.
Families often perceive their existence as shameful and hide them from society. Law enforcement and judicial bodies often ignore or downplay reported cases, and a shortage of shelters and other services for survivors of domestic violence who have disabilities makes it harder for them to escape abuse.
Italian court jails parents for life over ‘honour killing’ of Pakistani teen
An Italian court has given a Pakistani couple life sentences for killing their 18-year-old daughter because she refused an arranged marriage.
Saman Abbas’s body was found at a farmhouse in northern Italy in November 2022, 18 months after she disappeared. Her father, Shabbar Abbas, was arrested in Pakistan and extradited to be tried for her murder in August.
Her mother, Nazia Shaheen, was convicted in her absence. She is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. Shabbar Abbas had earlier made an impassioned plea to the court, asserting that “never in my life did I think of killing my daughter”. The teenager’s uncle, Danish Hasnain, was given 14 years in jail for involvement in the murder, but two of her cousins were cleared. Saman Abbas’s so-called honour killing by her family in late April 2021 shocked Italy. Following her disappearance, Italy’s union of Islamic communities issued a fatwa – a religious ruling – rejecting forced marriages.
Sisters in support: Decriminalising sex work from inside Kampala brothels
In Uganda, sex workers face stigma and abuse. But a sisterhood within the brothels is helping them navigate multiple challenges.
Down a muddy alley in a slum in Wabiduku on the eastern edge of Kampala, past vendors hawking bits of fried fish and rubber flip flops, sits a bright, pink shipping container. It is painted with cartoon condoms and banners advertising the importance of HIV/AIDs testing.
This unexpectedly colorful place in the Ugandan capital is operated by the Lady Mermaid Empowerment Centre. It is an organization led by sex workers fighting to decriminalize their profession while documenting violations and providing free contraceptives and counseling.
Eight-year-old chess ‘phenomenon’ wins women’s first prize at European Rapid and Blitz Championship
An eight-year-old British schoolgirl “phenomenon” won the women’s first prize in the Blitz category at this year’s European Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship in Zagreb, Croatia.
The “super talented” – as the competition described her – Bodhana Sivanandan scored 8.5/13 points in the 13-round Blitz competition, which attracted 555 players, including 48 grandmasters (GM) and 50 international masters (IM), according to Chess.com, to claim the women’s first prize on Saturday in the Croatian capital.
Sivanandan beat one IM and one FIDE Master (FM), Chess.com reported, noting that she finished in 73rd place overall with 8.5 points and scored a rating performance of 2316, ahead of several GMs and masters.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.


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What Does 2024 Hold for Minorities? - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
March 13, 2024
I hope it isn’t too late to say Happy New Year🎉
2023 came with its fair share of highs and lows, and we touched on some of these in our year-in-review newsletter. As we step into this new year, you can be sure that we at Minority Africa will continue to keep you up-to-date on minority issues across Africa and the world at large.
To kick off the first Minority Roundup of the year, I’ll be sharing some already emerging news in 2024 around LGBTQ+ rights, Europe’s plans to find new countries for asylum seekers, and critical trends likely to leave millions in need of medical care, food, and shelter this year.
But first, in Nigeria, where the enforcement of the Disability Rights Act will finally take effect in January 2024. In 2019, Nigeria’s National Assembly’s former President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Disability Rights Act into law. This Act criminalizes all forms of discrimination against persons with disability, and offenders will be liable to pay a fine or face six months imprisonment. The Act would also ensure equal access, social justice, and inclusivity across various sectors.
However, the legislation wasn’t fully implemented, but with the recent announcement from James David Lalu, the executive secretary of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD), the Act is expected to be in full effect in all states by January 16, 2024. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Beta Edu, and other relevant stakeholders are key players in ensuring the smooth integration of this law across the country.
Trends driving humanitarian need in 2024 (and what to do about them
Here are seven key trends likely to leave millions of people needing food, medical care, shelter, or other humanitarian aid over the next year, plus some ideas on what governments, aid groups, or individuals might do differently so 2025 looks a little better.
We publish this list against a backdrop of ongoing conflicts and violence – in Gaza, Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; in Sudan, Haiti, and Myanmar; and in so many other places where humanitarian needs are growing or have become a way of life for many. We also publish it with the knowledge that women and children, as always, will bear the brunt of the impacts.
In 2024, Europe to hunt for new partners to offload asylum seekers
From Ghana to Georgia, Rwanda to Albania, the EU is looking for nations that will hold vulnerable people on its behalf.
Eight years after the image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying facedown on a beach in Turkey shocked the world, pictures of asylum seekers’ lifeless bodies washed up on the coast of Italy’s Calabria region in February once again stirred global outrage. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen responded to the tragic shipwreck just metres away from the coast of Steccato di Cutro by promising to “redouble our efforts”.
“Member states must step forward and find a solution. Now,” she said.
Yet as 2024 begins, activists and experts told Al Jazeera that 2023 has seen Europe reach for ever more drastic solutions to curb NGO search and rescue operations and outsource its border management to other nations.
Feminist Manifesto: 11 things women want to see in 2024
At one point or another, most feminists have been informed that “Actually, women have never had it so good.” While there’s truth to that statement – most of us aren’t the literal property of our husbands anymore – true gender equality still feels far away.
The fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 serves as a painful reminder that our freedoms are hard-fought and easily lost. Earlier this year, a woman in England was imprisoned for illegally inducing an abortion during lockdown. While her sentence has since been suspended, it’s still extremely worrying that abortion is criminalized at all in the UK – not to mention that religious zealots are still protesting outside abortion clinics thanks to the new laws around buffer zones not being enforced.
What’s At Stake for LGBTQ+ Rights in 2024?
Anti-trans politicians will undoubtedly be busy once again this year, but LGBTQ+ activists and advocates have no plans to back down.
After a year of legislation that relentlessly targeted LGBTQ+ Americans, the community is already facing another potentially record-breaking legislative session in 2024. More than 500 bills were put forward in 2023 seeking to restrict rights and protections for queer and trans people in arenas, from public restroom access to gender-affirming health care, and LGBTQ+ advocates do not expect that historic pace to slow down with a presidential election on the horizon.
Embracing Change: Key Trends Shaping the Future of Work for People with Disabilities in 2024
As December is here, our focus shifts to the upcoming year. The unpredictability of recent years has taught us to expect the unexpected, yet certain emerging trends in our field are guiding us into 2024.
The landscape of remote and hybrid work is permanently altered. The debate around remote work and office returns has been constant, with individuals with disabilities being prominent advocates for this flexibility. This demand for flexibility, long championed by the disability community, has gained irreversible momentum.
“My personal secret”: Accessing family planning beyond religious boundaries in Zimbabwe
Being part of a sect whose doctrine prohibits the use of modern medicines for any sickness, these apostolic women share how they are navigating family planning challenges.
At 15, Catherine*, a member of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Sect (JMAC), one of an estimated 160 Apostolic sects in Zimbabwe, got married to her husband of the same faith.
Three years later, she welcomed her first child, beginning a pattern of almost yearly pregnancies. Catherine, now 37 years old, refrained from seeking medical advice due to the gendered inequalities embedded in the doctrines of the JMAC regarding contraception.
The central tenet of the JMAC is encapsulated within their Apostolic text, known as “Umboo Utsva hwa Vapostori” (The New Revelation of the Apostles). The book is revered as a canonical addition to the Bible. According to their Apostolic book, the JMAC maintains a religious culture against the idea of contraception.
Uganda’s anti-gay bill is about everything but protecting children.
A quick scan of the new bill shows a much more lenient sentence for abusers and a vague description of what comprises abuse. In that sense, the only aim of this bill is to target adult homosexuals living their lives and loving each other. Uganda’s children are just collateral.
I first heard the term “homosexual” in 2009. I’d undoubtedly heard of it before but hadn’t given it much thought. It was at this time that talk of Uganda’s first anti-homosexuality bill began. When one of the boys in my class branded me a homosexual in such a hissy and mocking tone for being “girly,” I knew something was wrong. In fact, I took it upon myself to discover more about this “homosexuality” thing.
What I discovered was a slew of misinformation, ranging from horror stories of ruptured behinds to gay pampers stories and the occasional HIV/AIDS infection story thrown in to amp up the scare aspect. Because I had no access to better information, I feared and hated myself and gay people for the longest time.
Tanzania’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights: “The government is making [us] hide”
The tragic death of Mliembe Suleiman, an openly lesbian woman, alongside a series of arrests and sentencing, has highlighted the ongoing challenges faced by the LGBTQ community in the country.
On April 22, 2023, Milembe Suleiman, a 43-year-old Tanzanian lesbian, was brutally killed and mutilated in a suspected homophobic attack. Suleiman’s death has its roots in a long history of discrimination, which started with getting arrested in December 2017 for proposing to her girlfriend.
“She was married to a Rwandan man, but they separated due to abuse. She later married another man and had a child with him. They also separated, and she continued with her life,” Paulina Seleman, Suleiman’s sister, says about Suleiman’s challenges in the pursuit of a life true to her identity.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.


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‘A book famine’: In Nigeria, copyright laws mean visually impaired people can’t access many books - Minority Africa
Ope Adetayo
August 29, 2020
Lagos, Nigeria (Minority Africa) — When Jamiu Jubril, 23, gained admission to study English at a university in north-central Nigeria, he knew little of the uphill task he was about to embark on for the next four years. Being a blind student, the journey was steeper than initially envisaged and on many occasions, he was broken.
“My passion was to go to school and study English. It kept ringing in my head even when it seemed impossible,’’ Jubril tells Minority Africa.
The ‘impossible’ he refers to is the reality of the Nigerian education system for many visually impaired students. A major hurdle Jubril had to overcome was getting his hands on accessible format copies to make learning possible for him.
“In the department of English, in any school, you will be given a lot of books to read… which include novels, plays and poems and even course materials. A lot of books are usually prescribed and they are all in hard copies. They were all inaccessible to me,” he says.
Only 1 – 7% of the world’s published books make it into accessible formats and in Nigeria, disability rights activists estimate this number to be less than 1%. Conversion of books into accessible digital formats for visually impaired people is illegal according to extant copyright laws in the West African country.
If Jubril were to make an accessible digital copy for himself through scanning or other means, he could face legal consequences.
“I used to seek out those who had the habit of reading aloud. Sometimes, some of them were only reading aloud, they had no idea I was going along with them,” Jibril says. “This drew me back a lot. I was always at the mercy of my mates.”
As of 2008, which is the most recent statistic, 42 out of every 1000 Nigerians had a visual impairment, a number that experts say must have risen.
As Jubril was navigating the maze of academic complexities, he had no idea delegates, diplomats and marquee publishers were having a series of meetings in Geneva at the United Nations, arguing for and against what would eventually be The Marrakesh Treaty, which was eventually signed in Morocco on 28 June 2013 and later became effective on 30 September 2016.
The Marrakesh Treaty (formally known as Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities) grants more access to published works for people with visual impairment and other print disabilities.
Fatai Waleey,  a Lagos-based lawyer, explains that it grants exceptions to extant copyright laws and enables disabled people to access published works in a format accessible to their disability without being found wanting of copyright laws.
‘What the copyright laws do is to protect the interests of copyright holders. That is the general explanation of the copyright regime in Nigeria,” Waleey says. “What the Marrakesh Treaty seeks to do is to create an exception to this general position of the copyright law.”
While Jubril pled with other students to squeeze part of their time to read class notes and materials to his hearing, David Okon, two-term president of Nigeria Association of the Blind [2006-2015], was making arguments as a delegate of the World Blind Union at the United Nations to give visually impaired people the legal right to demand or reproduce books in formats accessible to them as long as it is not done for commercial purpose.
“We noticed that there was a book famine for blind and visually impaired people and other reading disabled persons in the world,” Okon, who is the current chairman of the association’s committee on education and the Marrakesh Treaty, says. “As it was, there were legal obstacles to books being published in an appropriate format for blind and visually impaired people including those who have reading disabilities.”’
Okon, who is equally blind adds that the treaty is simply asking for exemptions to be made for visually impaired people to the laws that forbid reproducing the intellectual property of an individual in any other form, even when it is not being done for commercial purposes.
“For you to [reproduce], you have to seek express permission from the individual or the right channel and the right owner has the right under the former law to say yes or no,” Okon says. “What we were saying is that the blind and visually impaired persons should be included in the exemptions, to be able to access books.”
SIGN THE PETITION TO DOMESTICATE THE MARRAKESH TREATY HERE
Despite the intervening years since the Marrakesh Treaty has been signed, it is yet to be domesticated into the Nigerian legal system.
The treaty, according to Okon, has faced bureaucratic sandbag in the form of the Nigerian government, which has not been responsive to the efforts made by the Nigeria Association of the Blind in conjunction with the World Blind Union.
“We don’t even know where the document is as we speak,’’ Okon says. “We don’t know if it is with the National Assembly or still with the Federal Executive Council. We are planning to use the Freedom of Information Bill to demand the whereabouts of the document.”
Waleey explains that there are two levels involved in adopting a treaty. The first level, he says, is ratification and the second level is domestication.
“For the Marrakesh treaty to be applicable within Nigeria then the treaty has to be domesticated in Nigeria,” Waleey says. ”The treaty must be placed before the National Assembly like every other bill in Nigeria.
“In addition to that general requirement of bill passage, the bill [which is] the treaty that has already been ratified at the international plane must also be accepted by the majority of the houses of assembly in the federation.”
Returning from Morocco, the National Association of the Blind, in conjunction with the Nigerian Copyright Commission started the ratification process for the Marrakesh Treaty.  The National Assembly ratified it in 2017 and the document was deposited.
The act was approved in 2018 by the Federal Executive Council and was supposed to go to the National Assembly for passage into law but since then, nothing has been done. All efforts to reach the council before publication were unsuccessful.
Nonetheless, Okon remains unfazed and continues to focus on the positive.
“On the brighter side, our activities geared the government to ratify other [unrelated] treaties that were not ratified for years,” he says.
The association is also in talks with the Copyright Commission about planning a webinar next month.
“If the country says it is the right of every citizen to have access to information and I don’t have that access, it is an infringement of my rights,” Okon says. “Because I am blind does not mean I should not have access to information.”
While Okon regards the apathy Nigerian lawmakers have shown towards the treaty as discrimination, Waleey says this might be difficult to prove in the court of law.
“Had it been the process has not been put in place, you can say the Nigerian government is discriminating against blind people by deliberately not putting it in place,” Waleey explains. “It is in place, even if it is slow. What the National Association of the Blind can do is to meet with the Government to expedite the process.”
This is a method the association has tried and continues to use, despite meeting dead ends.
Okon says, “Everyone we are asking is saying, ‘We are working on it,’ but how can you be working on something for two years, and you don’t know where it is?”
SIGN THE PETITION TO DOMESTICATE THE MARRAKESH TREAT HERE
Ayansiji Toyin*, a third-year student of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos, faces a similar struggle like Jubril.
As an undergraduate of Mass Communication, being subjected to equal conditions as sighted colleagues impacts on her academic performance.
“Almost all the lecturers sell books to us, it is the norm,” she says. “But these books are not relevant to [blind students] unless we have the soft copies and no lecturer would ever give you softcopies of their materials.”
Toyin says peer support, which she has heavily relied on in learning, is not always effective. Like other visually impaired students, she has adopted the conversion of materials into Braille or scanning the materials to be made into accessible digital formats.
While current Nigerian copyright laws allow the conversion of books into Braille, the process is cost-intensive and most visually impaired people cannot afford it.
Dubbed the poverty capital of the world, over 80 million of Nigeria’s citizens live in poverty and nine out of ten disabled people live below the poverty line.
“To convert a book to Braille, you can spend ten times the original price of the same book. For example, if a book costs one thousand naira originally for sighted people, making it into Braille can cost up to ten thousand naira,” Okon says.
He continues, “Now that we are in the digital age and we have more blind people who are using the digital medium to access information, we need the law to make sure visually impaired people can convert books to digital formats for their use.”
“This is where the Marrakesh Treaty is helpful. I should be able to tell the publisher that I want the book and get it at the same rate everyone else is buying it.”
While Toyin waits for a change that will give her a platform to be on the same pedestal with her sighted classmates, the systemic issue persists.
“Yes, it is an act of injustice in a way,’’ Toyin says when asked how she feels about the barrier she has to face in school.
For her, like many other visually impaired people, the fight continues.
“If resources were provided for me, things would be different. It would have made me compete perfectly with a sighted person with equal opportunities. I would be on the same page with anyone at any time. I would not have to depend on any other person,’’ Jubril tells Minority Africa.
In 2015, he was among the small number of blind candidates who sat for the Joint Admission Matriculation Board examination; a prerequisite for getting into university in Nigeria.
Only 192 visually impaired candidates were among the nearly 1.5 million students who sat for the exam in that year when it was fully digitized with the introduction of the Computer Based Test.
When he did get into university, Jubril wrote to the Librarian to demand that the university equip the library with accessible digital copies of books, then to the Vice-Chancellor about computer-based examinations; how visually impaired students relying on sighted students to write their exams wasn’t a viable model.
Nothing was done.
”They didn’t even bother to respond,” he says.
*Toyin’s name has been changed to protect her identity.
This post is published under Minority Africa Accountable: a Minority Africa vertical that investigates injustices against minorities from a solutions journalism perspective. Reach out to the editors with tips and ideas on investigations@minorityafrica.org. You can also send in anonymous tips here.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Ope Adetayo is an editorial intern at Minority Africa. He is a writing fellow at African Liberty. His work has appeared in Aljazeera, Humangle, Africaisacountry, The Stockholm Review of Literature, The Guardian NG, and elsewhere.

author: Ope Adetayo


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Nigeria’s criminal justice system is failing minoritized communities and women - Minority Africa
Zainab Onuh-Yahaya
October 1, 2020
Rebecca Baba* is a 37-year old midwife from Anyigba, a small community in Kogi State, North Central Nigeria. For ten years, she had been helping indigent women deliver babies at the community clinic. On March 9, 2019, tragedy struck when a child she had just delivered was stolen from the clinic. She was immediately detained and sent to jail where she awaited trial for six months.
“I’ve been working in the clinic for a long time. I’ve helped lots of women give birth and none of them had ever lost a child. But nobody listened to me or even asked me what happened. They just concluded I was a baby thief.”
A shudder that had nothing to do with the balmy September weather racked her tiny frame. Rebecca was wearing the days she spent in prison on her body – her eyes were sunken, her lips cracked and tiny bumps from what looked like insect bites were scattered around her arms and neck. Her fingernails were lined with caked blood from itching. Occasionally, she would start another itch, reopening a healing bite.
“Immediately they couldn’t find the baby, the mother started shouting. She said I had stolen her child. And before I could close my eyes and open it like this”—she closed her eyes for a few seconds and opened them back—“Police had come and carried me away. I slept in the police station and the next day, they brought me here. Since then, I’ve been here.”
“You have not been to court?” we asked. She shook her head, signifying a desolate no.
The Nigerian Prison (now Correctional Centre) is ordinarily supposed to be the last stop in the administration of criminal justice, which should include investigation, charging, arraignment, trial, and finally, judgment.
However, due to what has been described as a manifestation of the ‘Nigerian factor’, which strives to ensure that all set rules and guidelines are thwarted, pre-trial processes become subject to manipulation and stages of criminal justice administration moves from arrest to outright incarceration.
Rebecca is not alone as over 70% of prison inmates in Nigeria are pre-trial detainees who have not seen a day in court.
She gestured at us, “People like you come here at least every month. They say they’ll help us. We tell them our stories and they’ll write and write in their big books. But they never come back.”
“We will come back,” I almost said, but I didn’t.
The first rule of professional ethics, our coordinator had told us the day before, is to never promise anything, no matter how much you believe it to be true.
I smiled instead, in the reassuring way we were taught to.
“You people have to help me.” She spread her hands before us. “Look at me. I am a mother. I have two children and my husband is dead. My husband’s family, they hate me. I’m the only one my children have. I can’t steal a pin, talk more of a human being. I swear to God, I am a good person.”
We nodded. And again, I almost told her that she needn’t be a good person to be deserving of justice. And she needn’t strip herself of her secrets to be deemed worthy of aid.
Rebecca’s case typifies the plight of indigent prisoners, especially women, in Nigeria.
Women make up 1.9% of the Nigerian Prison population. An overlooked effect of this is that there is little to no gender-sensitivity in the prison service and the system mostly caters to the larger male population. A study has shown that women in prisons are sexually exploited by prison guardsmen in exchange for necessities and promises of freedom.
In Dekina prison where Rebecca was incarcerated, she was the only female prisoner. Essentials like pads and soap, she said, were not provided by the facility.
“I’m a midwife, so I know the kind of diseases one can pick up from here,” Rebecca lamented. “Whatever the end of this whole misfortune may be, I know I would never be the same person I once was.”
Equally worrisome for Rebecca was the stigma that would be associated with her when she leaves.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re guilty or innocent. What matters is that your eyes have seen the inside of a prison. Nobody will ever look at you the same.” She shrugged slightly and continued, “What am I even saying? I will be lucky to leave this place alive.”
For her and many others, the uncertainty and fear that comes with being a victim of the extremely flawed criminal justice system is a reality that has not only taken from them the dignity of a normal life but one that could very well kill them too.
Nigeria does not have a shortage of laws that protect and promote the rights of its people. Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution provides for right to dignity of person, freedom from discrimination…right to fair hearing…and legal aid.
However, indigent people across Nigerian communities do not have access to legal aid and are left to the discretion of the flawed system.
The Legal Aid Council of Nigeria was created in 2011 under the Legal Aid Act, which mandates that the Council shall provide legal aid, advice and access to justice to indigent parties. The essence of legal aid, according to the Act, is to provide pro-bono (free of charge) legal representation to the indigent, thereby ensuring that justice is delivered effectively to people who cannot afford to pay for it.
In Kogi State, the Legal Aid Council’s office is located in Lokoja, the state capital, over a hundred miles away from the state’s rural communities. This means that an application for legal aid by residents of these communities has to be sent to the state capital for consideration. Reasons for this, according to the Council, include lack of adequate funding, and an insufficient number of lawyers willing to migrate to these communities for pro-bono work. Whatever legal aid exists, it seems, is simply not enough to cater to the needs of rural communities.
This, however, is just one of the issues hindering access to justice in these communities. The Legal Aid Act, in stating the criteria for eligibility for legal aid, provides that legal aid shall only be accessible to a person whose earning does not exceed the national minimum wage.
The establishment of University-based law clinics to provide legal services for minority communities in Nigeria has not only improved access to justice for these groups but has also imbibed pro-bono culture amongst student clinicians. This is aptly captured in the Kogi State University Law Clinic’s motto – Promoting Social Justice While Learning.
The Kogi State University Law Clinic (KSULC), established by the Kogi State University Law Faculty in furtherance of public interest lawyering and the provision of free legal services to the indigent in the community, is closely linked to solving these inadequacies. Since its establishment in 2019, it has staged pretrial interventions, street law advocacy, gender-based and domestic violence campaigns and interventions and law reform advocacy to the State’s Ministry of Justice.
United under the umbrella of the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI-NIGERIA), over 18 campus-based law clinics in Nigeria have provided services to more than 100,000 indigent people, supplementing government efforts and ensuring that the rights and interests of minorities are protected. These services are funded by organizations such as Partners-Global, Open Society Justice Initiative, Open Society Initiative (West Africa), MacArthur Foundation, etc.
Interventions staged by law clinics do not only enhance access to justice, but it also serves to diminish unequal lawyer to citizen ratio in rural communities.
In Kogi State, the Kogi State University Law Clinic is in Anyigba, a rural community surrounded by about twenty other rural communities. Some of these communities neither have courts nor lawyers resident within them. Anyigba itself has a population of about 10,000 residents, including the student community, with a presence of just about 20 lawyers. The clinicians provide legal services to not just Anyigba residents but also other neighbouring communities.
Law clinics, as a tool for community building and organizing, create a link between the rural communities and lawmakers and enforcers, constantly weaving conversations around law reform and enforcement and both providing information on laws and breaking it down in a manner easily understood by minority groups. This is exemplified in an ongoing project by the Kogi State University Law Clinic, which is aimed at translating the Kogi State Administration of Criminal Justice Law into local languages.
The clinical legal education movement and the establishment of University Law clinics mould a new generation of public interest lawyers who have been exposed to societal responsibilities alongside professional duties.
Through all the recorded successes, however, law clinics in Nigeria are still widely unknown and unheard of outside of their immediate communities. This lack of notoriety becomes a hindrance to law clinics as they are denied access to spaces where they can be impactful – for instance, intervention visits to detention centres and courts are delayed because of long wait periods for approval from governmental authorities.
Law clinics, as a solution-based establishment aimed at supplementing the efforts of the justice system, work on the front line to tackle problems of access to justice in minority communities.
For Rebecca Baba, the Kogi State University Law Clinic (KSULC) has been pivotal in her fight for justice. So far, the clinic has facilitated her bail and handled her defence in court.
“My case is not over,” she says, a year later. “But at least it is ongoing, I am not in prison and that is better than I had before.”
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Zainab Onuh-Yahaya is a writer and legal researcher. She is currently a student at the Nigerian Law School.

created: October 1, 2020

author: Zainab Onuh-Yahaya


text:
“No legal prescription”: How trans women in Cameroon are accessing hormones - Minority Africa
Beng Emmanuel Kum
July 11, 2022
Image description: An illustration of the Cameroonian flag with a stethoscope in the first column against a green background, the medical snake symbol atop of which is the trans equality sign in the second red column, and a syringe in the last yellow column.
Yaoundé, Cameroon (Minority Africa) — When she was 21 years old, Chanelle Kouankep, a Cameroonian trans woman, was sent away from home by her father. Kouankep was forced to move in with a friend in an uncompleted wooden house, but she describes the experience as the price she had to pay for her liberty.
Today, after over ten failed suicide attempts, Kouankep, now 26, serves as president of an independent network Réseau Indépendant TransAfricain (RITA), and heads TRANSAMICAL in Yaoundé, where she fights for the rights of trans people in Cameroon, battling for access to adequate health care and safe Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).
“I receive complaints from members of the trans community every single day,” Kouankep tells Minority Africa. “What they go through makes them even question their existence on earth.”
Kouankep, like many other trans people in Cameroon, has created an informal network and is now adopting approaches to Hormone Replacement Therapy which they have pulled from other countries across Western Africa, such as Benin and Ivory Coast.
This involves them identifying select pharmacies which can provide hormones to trans people across Cameroon and equally communicating these networks to each other via social media.
The problem? This is done clandestinely without any regulations or specific medical prescriptions.
In recent years, there has been a growing clampdown on the rights of LGBTQ+ people in Cameroon, which continues to create an unfavorable environment for HRT, establishing the need for community-driven solutions such as Kouankep’s.
Last year, Cameroon sentenced two transgender women to prison on charges of ‘attempted homosexuality,’ in a country where same-sex activities are illegal.
“Hormone replacement therapy in Cameroon is not recognized,” says Kouankep. “We find hormones in pharmacies, but these are meant for women in menopause. It is [these] hormones that trans people take because this medication is similar to theirs.”
Miss Porshia, a 35-year-old trans woman in Cameroon and transgender human rights activist, admits that “having access to treatment as a trans person is not easy.”
She adds, “I have many times been [a] victim of stigmatization and discrimination based on my gender identity.”
Porshia is one of many trans people in Cameroon who are now getting their hormones through specific secret channels, whether through registered pharmacies or street drug vendors. In her case, she gets them from a friend who works in a pharmacy.
“I have no legal prescription as it should. So, I am aware that it can possibly cause some troubles with time,” she says. “And [I] know that self-medication can be dangerous.”
Trans people who intend to undergo hormone replacement therapy should see an endocrinologist, but this is not the case in Cameroon’s informal network. However, Kouankep believes that deriving and consequently sharing learnings with trans people in other African countries can be crucial to mitigating the potential of harm in the industry.
“We have benefited from [advice on] choice of medicine and accessibility,” she says. “They share their experience, knowledge, and names of certain drugs they can easily get.”
Hormone shortages, outright inaccessibility for transphobia, and widespread misconceptions about transgender identity are shared across the African continent.
In South Africa, a Covid-19-induced hormone shortage saw trans men turning to the black market and recording unusual side effects. Similarly, trans people in Burkina Faso reported self-medicating despite potentially leading to complications such as hypertension and cardiac arrest.
Yet many trans people say it is an easier choice to make than the violence they experience in the country’s healthcare system.
“I used to go to the hospital when I was sick, but honestly now I have stopped,” Porshia says. “First of all, because I was not welcomed, and secondly, I realized that the services were incomplete for me.”
Her perspective is re-echoed by a medical practitioner in Yaoundé who spoke to Minority Africa on condition of anonymity about the prevalence of discrimination against transgender people in the country’s healthcare system.
“To combat this, trans people have created centers where they manage their problems,” the practitioner says. “Some of them are well organized and equipped. They are well received here. But they have a setback. This is because they are restricted to certain treatments. This means that trans people are still forced to move to other public hospitals for treatment. That’s where the problem lies.”
In the last five years, strides have been made to remedy many of the challenges trans people face in Cameroon. This is significant because before now, trans people were lumped in the same group as gay men or men who have sex with men (MSM), explains Nickel Kamen Liwandi, an activist and executive director of the Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS).
“We were able to distinguish between trans [people] and [men who have sex with men], which the ministry of health recognized in 2018. Now [trans people] are recognized as an independent group,” Liwandi discloses. “Thanks to this distinction, we can be able to fight for some specific services for the transgender community. In Cameroon, that is the lone approach that we can use because there is no law on that yet.”
“We are trying to see how other countries adopted hormonal replacement therapy,” Liwandi tells Minority Africa. “We are working with friendly doctors to talk them into enabling a follow-up from backstage [and[ we are trying to build an informal network to help trans people while waiting for a legal way out.”
It has been three years since Kouankep started taking hormones, and she has noted many changes. She admits that “hormone replacement therapy, like any other medicine, has its side effects.”
“I have stretch marks. Physically, my body is more feminine than it used to be. Hormone replacement therapy has a lot of effects on nerves. You have frequent mood swings, hot flashes, and excess anger,” Kouankep explains.
She mentions being part of a France-based support group as instrumental to her navigating these challenges. Kouankep is particular about holding space for other trans persons in Cameroon in a similar fashion.
For Porshia, not minding the workarounds, the discrimination and exclusion from healthcare services still have far-reaching emotional consequences.
“It hurts when you are not understood and when there is no dedicated service for you,” she says. “When everybody is rejecting you or doesn’t understand you, you develop psychological trauma, depression, sadness, madness, and sometimes it [can lead to] death.”
Edited by: Caleb Okereke, PK Cross, and Uzoma Ihejirika.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Beng Emmanuel Kum is a Cameroonian Freelance journalist based in the capital Yaoundé. He is a holder of a bachelor degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Buea. Emmanuel's works have featured on New Frame, Global Voices, African Football HQ and GinaInforms. He is also a sport writer for Volcanic Sport and senior Data Collector for Afrecon.

author: Beng Emmanuel Kum


text:
‘No respect for our ancestors’: Traditional healers in Zimbabwe resist regularisation of practice - Minority Africa
Sharon Munjenjema
October 24, 2021
Image description: Three traditional rulers dressed in Zimbabwean attires sit frowning and facing a mat that has on it bowls used for the practice. The subjects on the left and right are both dressed in dark blue outfits with hints of yellow while the subject in the middle is dressed in a red outfit with touches of yellow too.
Harare, Zimbabwe (Minority Africa) — In Stoneridge, a relatively new suburb in Harare, a building stands out. In the yard is a hut with thatched roofing, an unusual occurrence in urban areas. In this hut, Loriet Magunje, a spirit medium and traditional healer, treats and consults with her patients. But this is just her ‘office’, she does not stay here.
On a regular afternoon, Magunje arrives at her work premises in a car and is met by a small group of women and men sitting on the veranda of an asbestos-roofing building opposite the hut, eagerly waiting to see her. In the driveway is another group of young men and women in traditional dance gear.
As she arrives, the group in traditional dance gear scurries to fetch their instruments. A few minutes later, they join Magunje, who is now also dressed in traditional gear, in the hut, singing along with her. This ritual is  done before she speaks to anybody.
Getting Magunje to talk about her work and history was quite a task.
“I don’t like talking about my history. I talked about it once and I will not do it again. It brings me a lot of pain to keep bringing the issue up. Even my ancestors would not be happy,” she tells Minority Africa.
Magunje said she did not fancy entertaining interviewers unless her ancestors allowed it because most of them asked her patronizing questions.
She revealed that she started communicating with her ancestors at an early age and was already healing people by around the age of 12 and then proceeded to talk about how traditional healing practice is shrouded in secrecy.
“Intricate details about the practice of traditional spiritual healing are not for public consumption. They are a mystery and should remain secret to preserve its sacredness,” she says.
Magunje is just one of many traditional healing practitioners in Zimbabwe who keep a tight lid on  their knowledge. This has been the norm amongst traditional healers for centuries, but only recently has it proved to be problematic.
Faced with the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the health system, authorities in Zimbabwe are looking to traditional medicines to find answers.
A committee of academics and researchers was set up by the government in February this year to facilitate research on traditional medicine through correspondence with traditional healers.
Their objective is to record information on herbs used by traditional healers to regularise and mainstream the practice.
But these efforts are hitting a brick wall as many traditional healers like Magunje are refusing full disclosure of their knowledge with researchers.
“We should never be likened to or expected to behave as pharmacists and conventional doctors because the basis of our skills is different,” she says. “I would never be willing to share my knowledge with these people and their colleagues. Often, they show no respect for our ancestors.”
Sophia Mataruse, 70, another traditional herbalist who practices in Masvingo, a city in Zimbabwe, also allayed similar sentiments. Mataruse sells herbs for ailments such as infertility, back pain, menstrual problems, among others.
“If I sell you these roots, that is where I get my sugar. Now if I tell you where to find it and you go and get it yourself, what will I eat?” she says.
“These conventional doctors learn their skills in schools where they pay to go, but they just want to come to us and expect us to dish out all the information for free? That is unheard of,” Mataruse adds.
Statistics from the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ), an organization responsible for regulating medicines and registering them, indicate that only two out of the 234 traditional and complementary medicines registered with the authority are from local practitioners; the rest are from other countries like China.
This is despite studies showing that Zimbabwe has over 5000 plant species, and about 1,800 to 2,000 of them have medicinal properties.
Joice Guhwa, Registrar of the Traditional and Medical Practitioners Council, a regulatory authority for the practice of traditional medicine said most traditional healers seem to be afraid that their knowledge will be ‘stolen’.
“Generally, practitioners are not so keen to share information. It’s still a mammoth task to get them to trust researchers,” she said.
“The best way to address the issue of fear of intellectual theft is to educate them more on intellectual property rights, and we are trying to do that. Some of the knowledge practitioners claim is theirs are already in the public domain,” Guhwa explains.
According to Guhwa, the overall objective of such exercises was to remove the practice from individuals and nationalize it so that traditional medicine practices can be more accessible to the public.
Despite being unregulated, studies show that over 80 percent of Zimbabweans consult traditional healers and rely on traditional medicines although many do so in hiding because of the stigma associated with the practice.
Furthermore, the International Religious Freedom report (2017) indicates that around 86 percent of Zimbabwe’s population are Christians whose faith frowns upon African Traditional Religion.
Only 2 percent of the population claim to adhere exclusively to traditional beliefs.
Professor Charles Maponga, a scientist who has been involved in traditional medicine research said that discussions around mainstreaming of traditional medicines have always been there.
Together with his team, Maponga has facilitated a traditional medicine certificate course at the University of Zimbabwe that is intended to teach traditional medicine practitioners about processes of regularising their medicines.
“[The course] trains traditional healers and natural therapists on processes like how to submit dossiers for registration and issues to do with intellectual property rights,” he says.
Mainstreaming and regularisation of traditional medicine practice are envisaged to make the work of practitioners easier, more recognized, and could eventually end the stigma associated with their practice. So why do most traditional healers seem to be uncooperative?
Traditional healer, Prince Mutandi, 53, who is also the secretary for education and research in the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA), a group of traditional healers and herbalists said authorities should change their approach and earn the trust of practitioners
“These researchers should first approach associations like ours so that we can engage our members. If they go directly to them they will not win,” he says.
“After the trust is established, information on our medicines can be revealed, it’s not forbidden. The issue is [that] we cannot be expected to be happy dishing out our knowledge for nothing in return.”
He added that processes of mainstreaming traditional medicines are often too slow and authorities should see to it that they speed them up so that the public can benefit from the knowledge.
Mutandi, who resides in Mufakose, a suburb in Harare, has been practicing traditional medicine for 25 years but the number of patients he received during the Covid-19 pandemic increased.
In the wake of inflation and the rising cost of living, most people in low-income communities like Mufakose cannot afford to seek conventional medical assistance.
According to Professor Maponga, the Covid-19 pandemic has ignited urgency to regularise the traditional medicine sector because it created an extra justification for people to look to nature-based remedies  for new approaches to treating the disease.
“Covid-19 came and there was no known treatment for it, but since it is an upper respiratory tract infection, we have always known, in the traditional sense, of managing such ailments using home remedies,” he says.
“We are saying to traditional healers, ‘You own your medicine but we just want you to be trained and registered under the existing rules.’,” Professor Maponga adds.
Features a roundup of fresh MA reports, announcements, events/workshop listings, and minority content curated from across the web.
Sharon Munjenjema is a multi-media journalist based in Harare, Zimbabwe. She has worked for local and international media, reporting untold stories in her community. Her stories mostly cover health, science, environment and political topics. Recently, she has taken an interest in telling stories of minorities from a solutions angle.

created: October 24, 2021

author: Sharon Munjenjema


text:
One Ethiopia, One Culture, One Religion: The Isolation of Queer Tigrayans - Minority Africa
Haben Araya
April 21, 2023
“So did you dump the strap-on?” I asked a friend over text.
I had expressed my worries after police started searching the homes of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. As a queer woman, I had begun de-dyking my space, which included getting rid of rainbow-colored paraphernalia, letters, my journal, books and films with queer themes, and anything else that was remotely queer-related. I had shared with her how difficult it was to get my hands on a strap-on; thus, I couldn’t find the strength to part with the one I had.
It was unclear what exactly the police were looking for during these arbitrary searches, but I worried it would be difficult and dangerous if I were caught with a strap-on. Explaining its use would have proved disastrous in homophobic Ethiopia, and it would, I feared, land my Tigrayan queer self in prison—if I was lucky.
Soon after our Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister Abiy Ahmed declared war on the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray in November 2020, our lives as ethnic Tigrayans in Addis Ababa became a living hell. Ethnic Tigrayans could be arbitrarily searched, arrested, detained, and killed. Our only crime was being Tigrayan in Ethiopia.
The government argued its fight was with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, an opposition party that was at the center of Ethiopian politics for 27 years before 2018. The government’s propaganda and actions indicated that its enemy was not just the TPLF. Our lived realities as Tigrayans made it clear that we were all considered suspects.
I had found out about the war from the same friend when her text woke me up in the middle of the night. Her message read, in part, I hope your family in Tigray is ok. We were both flabbergasted by our prime minister’s decision. We both agreed that war was not a solution and hoped that our government would come to its senses and immediately stop it. While we appreciated the complicated nature of Ethiopian politics and did not have a ready solution, we understood that all parties needed to negotiate and discuss to solve their political differences.
Little did I know at that point that my queer non-Tigrayan friend was in the minority both in her anti-war stance and in being supportive of a Tigrayan. Over the next few days, I was surprised to realize that virulent nationalism was the order of the day. It seemed that people had been completely sold on the war’s merits overnight.
As the war escalated and Tigrayans continued to be targeted, I assumed that, while the general population had gone into collective madness, I would find refuge in my fellow queer citizens. That hope continued to be squashed at every turn.
The first indication that I would not find refuge was when I spoke to a gay man who is a long-time LGBTQ+ activist. He said he supported the war because he wanted “one Ethiopia, one culture, and one religion.” It was an odd thing to say, given that more than 80 languages are spoken in Ethiopia, and at least three religions are widely practiced.
Another gay man defended the war, saying “we” needed to teach “them” a lesson. At this point during the war, I learned that “we” referred to an emerging ultranationalist Ethiopian identity that excluded Tigrayans. He was tacitly removing me from the “we.”
Perhaps the best example of this “othering” was at an LBQ (Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer) gathering held at the home of a queer woman. Toward the end of the evening, one of the women talked about how security guards had blackmailed a group of LBQ women. The guards had reason to assume the women were queer. Talking about one of the women who was being blackmailed, she said, “She was basically acting like a Tigrayan.” Two people challenged her on her stereotyping. Still, she doubled down and said she could not understand what was wrong with that statement, “as we all knew what she meant,” because “we all know what Tigrayans are like.”
The next day, she called the Tigrayans in the group to apologize, claiming that she had nothing against Tigrayans.
On social media, I witnessed queer people in the diaspora defending the state’s use of violence and force. The irony was that most of them had fled Ethiopia because of the persecution they faced from the government for being queer.
A lesbian couple I knew – a Tigrayan and a non-Tigrayan –  broke up because the non-Tigrayan felt that the Tigrayan was asking for “too much emotional support.” We Tigrayan queers leaned on each other for support, as most of us had not heard from our families for months because Tigray was under a complete communication blackout, as we couldn’t count on our community.
There were indeed exceptions to the rule. One queer woman who I was not close to found out I was from Tigray and texted me every week or two to ask how my family and I were doing. Another queer diasporan consistently spoke out against the war and served as a voice of reason on social media.
Minus these few exceptions, it was odd to watch a subjugated people align with the state as it subjugated an entire ethnic group. When I challenged people in the LGBTQ+ community, they found a way to justify their support for a state that had invited a neighboring country to kill its people. One can debate the politics of the war, but nothing can ever justify how Tigrayans, as an ethnicity, were treated.
Amidst all this, I realized I was never in a community with my fellow Ethiopian queers. The war and the support that those in the LGBTQ+ community provided for it made me realize that we had a fundamental difference in how we defined queerness.
Queerness, for me, is as much a political identity as it is about sexual practice and gender identity. Queerness is about liberation. Queerness is about rebellion. Queerness demands that we fight injustice wherever we witness it. Queerness asks us to stand in solidarity with anyone who faces discrimination and subjugation.
When the state came for me, their fellow queer Ethiopian, almost no one was standing with me. But, while I lost faith in the queer Ethiopian community, I managed to hold on to my beloved strap-on.
Edited and Reviewed by Caleb Okereke, 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: Haben Araya


text: Order Confirmation - Minority Africa


text: Order Failed - Minority Africa