Johannesburg - A transgender woman publicly humiliated on national TV when police undressed her and made fun of her. A gay man sodomised with a hammer and repeatedly struck on the head with it by a man who had pretended to take an interest in him. And a bleeding transgender woman forced to travel many kilometres to another province to seek help for her injuries when her local clinic refused to treat her.
These are some of the harassment, violence and abuse that many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people continue to be subjected to in many African countries.
These stories came out on Monday in Parktown, Johannesburg, during the launch of Amnesty International’s report titled “Making Love A Crime”, which looked into the criminalisation of same-sex relations and the rise of homophobia in sub-Saharan Africa.
Clare Byarugaba, from the Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Uganda, said her country was so homophobic, it was normal for police to subject men believed to be gay to anal examinations to check whether they had engaged in sex with other men in a ploy to dehumanise them and also blackmail them.
“Last year, a transgender woman who is also a sex worker was humiliated on TV when police decided to go after her and not other sex workers. There was a film crew nearby and they filmed as the police undressed her and made fun of her, removing the socks in her bra and saying she is misleading people into thinking she was a woman. It was terrible,” Byarugaba said.
Kenya was no better. Jackson Otieno, from the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, said three gay men were attacked last week and one had to walk for a kilometre with his hand on his neck to stop the bleeding after his throat was slit.
The man was later rushed to hospital after he collapsed.
Another was hacked with machetes while walking on the street.
“The other had gone to a motel to meet a man for a date but did not know he was walking into a trap. That man sodomised him with a hammer and also struck him with it.
“Gay people in Kenya live in fear of being found out and harassed, and as a result, they suffer a lot from socio-social trauma as they have no one to talk to,” the 30-year-old man said.
Nthabiseng Mokoena from Transgender and Intersex Africa said the constitution of South Africa may state that everyone had rights, including the LGBTI community, but the reality was different.
She said a transgender woman from Mpumalanga was attacked at a tavern but had to seek treatment in Pretoria because the nurses at her clinic told her: “We don’t treat people like you”.
Widney Brown from Amnesty International said that whenever they plead with governments to prosecute the perpetrators of violence against the LGBTI community, they were told the same story about lack of legal resources.
The only way to get rid of homophobia was to start at home with parents teaching their children not to hate those different from them, Mokoena said.
The Star