LGBTI SWAZIS FACE DAILY ABUSE

LGBTI people in Swaziland are subjected to abuse in their daily lives and from police and medical workers, a meeting on human rights in the kingdom was told.

Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people are also harassed and stigmatised and some are denied educational scholarships because of their sexual orientation.

Pitty Dludlu, a member of the LGBTI community, said this during the annual Joshua Mzizi Memorial Lecture held in Ezulwini.

The Observer on Saturday newspaper reported (9 December 2017), ‘Dludlu appealed to the nation to embrace all individuals in their own skin than to label them with numerous name tags. Dludlu further said as a minority group in Swaziland they face a number of issues that include access to health care without the stigma and prejudice they are subjected to.’

The newspaper added, ‘Dludlu further decried the service they are subjected to in the hands of the police and health care workers as the worse abusers of the LGBTI community. The abusive situation is worse at the bus terminal station to the LGBTI community. 

‘Other challenges are that they are denied scholarship due to their sexual orientation. Dludlu further pointed that “qualified transgender community are unemployed as they are told point blank that there is no need to proceed with an interview once they see their sexual orientation and told embarrassingly that they don’t hire such people”’. 

There is a long history of discrimination against LGBTI people. In May 2016, Rock of Hope, which campaigns for LGBTI equality in Swaziland, reported to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review on Swaziland that laws, social stigma and prejudice prevented LGBTI organisations from operating freely.

The report, presented jointly with three South African-based organisations, stated, ‘In Swaziland sexual health rights of LGBTI are not protected. There is inequality in the access to general health care, gender affirming health care as opposed to sex affirming health care and sexual reproductive health care and rights of these persons. HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care services continue to be hetero-normative in nature only providing for specific care for men born as male and women born as female, thereby leaving out trans men and women as an unprotected population which continues to render the state’s efforts at addressing the spread and incidence of HIV within general society futile.’

The report added, ‘LGBTIs are discriminated and condemned openly by society. This is manifest in negative statements uttered by influential people in society e.g., religious, traditional and political leaders. Traditionalists and conservative Christians view LGBTIs as against Swazi tradition and religion. There have been several incidents where traditionalists and religious leaders have issued negative statements about lesbians.   

‘Human rights abuses and violations against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex population continue to go undocumented, unreported, unprosecuted and not addressed.’

It added, ‘There is no legislation recognizing LGBTIs or protecting the right to a non-heterosexual orientation and gender identity and as a result LGBTI cannot be open about their orientation or gender identity for fear of rejection and discrimination. For example, the Marriage Act, only recognizes a marriage or a union between a man and a woman. Because of the absence of a law allowing homosexuals to conclude neither marriage nor civil unions, same-sex partners cannot adopt children in Swaziland.’

The report made seven recommendations to the Swazi Government, including to review laws that undermine LGBTI persons’ rights in particular and human rights in general especially as they conflict with the Constitution; and to ensure prosecution of State agents who commit human rights violations against LGBTI individuals and their organizations.   

HOOP (House of Our Pride), a support group for LGBTI people, reported to the United Nation in 2011, ‘It is a common scene for LGBTI to be verbally insulted by by-passers in public places. [There is] defamatory name calling and people yelling out to see a LGBTI person’s reproductive part are some of the issues facing LGBTI in Swaziland.’

See also

SENATE SNUBS LGBTI HEALTH REPORT

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/senate-snubs-lgbti-health-report.html

 

LESBIAN AND GAY MURDERS IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/03/lesbian-and-gay-murders-in-swaziland.html

           

SWAZI MINISTER LIES TO UN ON GAYS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-minister-lies-to-un-on-gays.html

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/gay-prejudice-rife-in-swaziland.html

COMMUNITY POLICE BANISH GAY MEN

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/08/community-police-banish-gay-men.html

NO RIGHTS FOR GAYS: JUSTICE MINISTER

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-rights-for-gays-justice-minister.html

PRESS VILIFIED OVER LESBIAN’S DEATH

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/press-vilified-over-lesbians-death.html

LESBIAN AND GAY MURDERS IN SWAZILAND

The separate murders of a lesbian woman and a gay man in Nhlangano, Swaziland, have drawn attention to the prejudice faced by homosexuals in the kingdom.

On 15 March 2015, Kaylo Glover, aged 26, was killed with an axe by a man in a bar because she was lesbian, the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) group Iranti-org reported. A few months earlier a gay man known as Themba was also murdered in Nhlangano.

Jabu Pereira, the director of Iranti-org, which documents human-rights violations and advocates for the rights of lesbians and transgender people in Africa, reported Glover was killed by an enraged man who did not want to be in the presence of lesbians. 

Pereira reported, ‘He left the bar, fetched an axe from his car, returned and killed Kaylo. Kaylo was rushed to hospital and her killers followed them to the hospital and chased her friends with [an] axe. 


Kaylo’s friend ran as she heard one of the guys shout “let’s finish off these dogs”. Neither the nurses nor the doctors could reach Kaylo in time, she bled to death.’

Pereira said, ‘It seems Kaylo’s death has broken the silence around hate crimes in Swaziland. It is bringing attention to the poor human-rights situation in this country, where the monarch is so incredibly rich and its citizens are poor and where LGBTI persons live hidden, framed as “the other”.’

Swaziland has a poor history supporting LGBTI rights. In November 2011, Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, the Acting Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, said Swaziland would not give human rights to gay people, because they did not exist in the kingdom. 

Gamedze was responding to criticism of Swaziland by a United Nations working group on human rights that said the kingdom should enact equality laws for LGBTI people.

Earlier, Gamedze had lied to the United Nations when he said that gays and lesbians in the kingdom had not asked for repressive laws to be overturned. 

The official summary of working party of the Universal Periodical Review of human rights in Swaziland held on 4 October 2011 stated, ‘Mr Gamedze specifically addressed the issues of same-sex relationships and the death penalty [two separate issues]. He noted that while consensual same-sex relations are illegal in Swaziland, the Government does not pursue prosecutions. He also claimed that so far the LGBTI movement in Swaziland had not challenged these policies and clarified that the Government would only look into these issues if and when this happened.’

In fact, an organisation called HOOP (House of Our Pride) had submitted a report to the same UN inquiry that Gamedze was responding to. It listed a range of discriminations that LGBTI people in Swaziland suffered, including in faith groups, at work and through police harassment. 

In a list of recommendations to the government, HOOP included:

‘LGBTI activities should be decriminalized and given due recognition in the society.

‘The government of Swaziland should bring into place laws that protect LGBTI people’s rights at workplaces, social, faith and community gatherings and also protect their right to inherit their partner’s belonging, if willed to them on their partner’s passing away. The above law should be strictly enforced and culprits severely punished.’

In its report HOOP said, ‘It is a common scene for LGBTI to be verbally insulted by by-passers in public places. [There is] defamatory name calling and people yelling out to see a LGBTI person’s reproductive part are some of the issues facing LGBTI in Swaziland.’

‘Faith houses have been known to discriminate against LGBTI, advocating for the alienation of LGBTI in the family and society, while maintaining that these LGBTI are possessed by demons.’

In one of the first reports of its kind detailing sexual orientation discrimination in Swaziland, HOOP revealed, ‘LGBTI are hugely discriminated against in the community, as they are not recognized at community meetings and their points are often not minuted at these meetings nor are they allowed to take part in community services.’

Police often ridiculed LGBTI people if they report they have been victims of violent crime, Hoop reported.

Local communities in Swaziland also discriminate against LGBTI people. In October 2013, it was reported that community police banished two men from Lubombo because they were gay.

The Swazi News reported at the time, ‘A meeting was convened where the boys were called to explain their lifestyle. They confirmed that they were gay and that is when they were ordered to immediately leave the area.’

See also

           

SWAZI MINISTER LIES TO UN ON GAYS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-minister-lies-to-un-on-gays.html

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/gay-prejudice-rife-in-swaziland.html

SWAZILAND HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/swaziland-human-rights-report.html

 

COMMUNITY POLICE BANISH GAY MEN

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/08/community-police-banish-gay-men.html 

NO RIGHTS FOR GAYS: JUSTICE MINISTER

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-rights-for-gays-justice-minister.html 

PRESS VILIFIED OVER LESBIAN’S DEATH

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/press-vilified-over-lesbians-death.html

‘WE ARE NOT VICTIMS’ – SWAZI GAYS

We are not victims, says Swaziland’s gay movement

Kenworthy News Media, November 21, 2013 

SOURCE

“When we are talking about gay issues in Swaziland, people are uneasy. They know we are there but they deny it,” says Sibusiso Masango, Secretary General of Swazi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organization, House of Our Pride (HOOP). “There is discrimination and we struggle when for instance applying for jobs,” writes Kenworthy News Media.

“In Swaziland, LGBT acts are seen as ungodly, unacceptable, and illegal and there are no laws against discrimination against LGBT,” a report published earlier in the year by HOOP’s partner organization, SWAPOL, said.

Swaziland’s Prime Minister, Barnabas Dlamini, has called homosexuality “an abnormality and a sickness,” and LGBT people “who are open about their sexual orientation and relationships face censure and exclusion from the chiefdom-based patronage system, which could result in eviction from one’s home,” according to a 2012 report from the United States Department of State. In fact, the Times of Swaziland recently published a story of two young gay boys who were beaten and evicted because they were gay.

According to the SWAPOL report, 40% of respondents to a survey claimed that they felt like “outsiders where they live,” and less than 10% had discussed their sexual preferences with anyone beyond their immediate family. And the true numbers are probably even less encouraging as those who accepted to take part in the survey were mainly people integrated within Swaziland’s LGBT community.

But Sibusiso certainly doesn’t want to be seen as a victim. He wasn’t really interested in talking about the discrimination of LGBT persons in Swaziland when I interviewed him, as much as he wanted to speak about the role and successes of HOOP in challenging and eradicating this discrimination.

“We see that there are some changes and we do push. We see ourselves as a strong organization and we have tried to introduce the issue with the Minister of Health”, he says. “The ministry appreciated this and we are working together.”

HOOP was started in 2009 and has approximately 300 members. Amongst other things they have trained peer educators who have campaigned on the rights and provided support for LGBT people, started reporting on LGBT issues, distributed condoms and lubricants, and improved the access of LGBT people to health services.

But the clandestine nature of LGBT activities in Swaziland “may increase risk taking,” as they “feel they have no recourse to bring incidents of abuse to the authorities,” the SWAPOL report says whilst also pointing to the obvious fact that this is an additional health risk in a country where over a quarter of the population are HIV-positive.

This is why LGBT-organisations such as HOOP are so vital, both in attempting to stop the spread of HIV, in ensuring equal rights for LGBT people in undemocratic countries such as Swaziland, but also in ensuring day-to-day care and survival, medical and otherwise, for LGBT people who in many cases are discriminated against at by government-controlled institutions such as Swaziland’s underfunded medical clinics.

But a general lack of support stifles the work of HOOP and other LGBT organisations. Little support is given and almost no money is spent on programmes for LGBT people by national governments, amongst other things because there is a “lack of robust engagement by donors, implementers, and governments,” according to a recent report by Aids-research organization, amfAR.

So civil society needs to increasingly align itself with HOOP and organisations like them to ensure that everyone in Swaziland and elsewhere are allowed their own identity and to fall in love with whomever they choose without being treated as outcasts.

Because intolerance in one area allows for intolerance to spread to other areas, so when human rights organisations and civil society in both the South and the North remain silent about human rights violations against LGBT people, they are in effect undermining their own cause.

See also

COMMUNITY POLICE BANISH GAY MEN

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/08/community-police-banish-gay-men.html

 

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/gay-prejudice-rife-in-swaziland.html

NO RIGHTS FOR GAYS: JUSTICE MINISTER

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-rights-for-gays-justice-minister.html

SWAZI MINISTER LIES TO UN ON GAYS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-minister-lies-to-un-on-gays.html

COMMUNITY POLICE BANISH GAY MEN

Police banished two men from their community in Swaziland because they were gay.

The men, one aged 18 and the other 21, moved from the Lubombo region to Mvutshini to stay with the aunt of one of them.

Neighbours became suspicious about the relationship between the two men and when confronted they readily agreed they were gay.

The aunt then reported them to the community police.

The Swazi News, an independent newspaper, reported, ‘A meeting was convened where the boys were called to explain their lifestyle. They confirmed that they were gay and that is when they were ordered to immediately leave the area.’

The following day the two men left the area.

The aunt told the newspaper, ‘I was afraid of being labelled all sorts of names in the area and be accused of harbouring gay people in my house. My other problem was that local men would have ended up quarrelling with their wives and resorted to being gay because of the boys living under my roof.’

Sicelo Vilane, a member of the community police, told the newspaper the community was increasingly getting worried about growing ‘bad tendencies’ in the area and, ‘they, together with responsible residents, were on a mission of getting rid of all bad elements’.

Homosexuality is illegal in Swaziland. In November 2011, Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, said Swaziland would not give human rights to gay people, because they did not exist in the kingdom.  

 

Gamedze was responding to criticism of Swaziland by a United Nations working group on human rights that said the kingdom should enact equality laws for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people.

Gamedze also told the United Nations that while consensual same-sex relations were illegal in Swaziland, the Government did not pursue prosecutions.

Discrimination against gay and lesbian people in Swaziland is rife and extends to workplaces, the churches and on to the streets. 

HOOP (House of Our Pride), a support group for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Inter-sex (GLBTI) people, reported to the United Nation in 2011, ‘It is a common scene for GLBTI to be verbally insulted by by-passers in public places. [There is] defamatory name calling and people yelling out to see a GLBTI person’s reproductive part are some of the issues facing GLBTI in Swaziland.’

‘Faith houses have been known to discriminate against GLBTI, advocating for the alienation of GLBTI in the family and society, while maintaining that these GLBTI are possessed by demons.’ HOOP also said GLBTI people were often discriminated against at work and there had been well known cases of this.

In one of the first reports of its kind detailing sexual orientation discrimination in Swaziland, HOOP revealed, ‘GLBTI are hugely discriminated against in the community, as they are not recognized at community meetings and their points are often not minuted at these meetings nor are they allowed to take part in community services.’

Police often ridiculed GLBTI people if they reported they have been victims of violent crime, HOOP said.

See also

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/gay-prejudice-rife-in-swaziland.html

 

NO RIGHTS FOR GAYS: JUSTICE MINISTER

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-rights-for-gays-justice-minister.html

 

SWAZI MINISTER LIES TO UN ON GAYS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-minister-lies-to-un-on-gays.html

CALL FOR LAW TO BAN HATE SPEECH

One of Swaziland’s most vocal pro-democracy groups has called for a new law to ban hate speech against homosexuals.

The call by the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) follows a debate in the Swazi House of Assembly in which MP Aaron Sotsha Dladla called for gays and lesbians to be outlawed in the kingdom.

Dladla said a new law should be put in place to deal with ‘this mushrooming anti-social’ behaviour of gays and lesbians. He went on to make a number of disparaging comments about homosexuals.

The Swazi Observer reported him saying, ‘We must first pass a law that will ban this practice before it takes root. Anyone found breaking that law should be dealt with severely.’ 

The SSN responded in a statement by calling MPs and members of Swaziland’s ruling elite ‘ghastly hypocritical’ because, it said, some of them were themselves closet homosexuals. It also claimed a prominent member of the Swazi Royal Family was a lesbian.

Gays and lesbians are routinely victimised in Swaziland. In November 2011, Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, said Swaziland would not give human rights to gay people, because they did not exist in the kingdom. 

 

He was responding to criticism of Swaziland by a United Nations (UN) working group on human rights that said the kingdom should enact equality laws for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people.

A group called HOOP (House of Our Pride), a support group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Inter-sex (LGBTI) people, reported to the UN, ‘It is a common scene for LGBTI to be verbally insulted by by-passers in public places. [There is] defamatory name calling and people yelling out to see a LGBTI person’s reproductive part are some of the issues facing LGBTI in Swaziland.’

‘Faith houses have been known to discriminate against LGBTI, advocating for the alienation of LGBTI in the family and society, while maintaining that these LGBTI are possessed by demons.’

HOOP also said LGBTI people were often discriminated against at work and there had been well known cases of this.

In one of the first reports of its kind detailing sexual orientation discrimination in Swaziland, HOOP revealed, ‘LGBTI are hugely discriminated against in the community, as they are not recognized at community meetings and their points are often not minuted at these meetings nor are they allowed to take part in community services.’

Police often ridiculed LGBTI people if they reported they had been victims of violent crime. ‘A good example of such practices is in the on-going case of a well-known LGBTI in Swaziland, Patricia Dludlu, who is currently in incarceration for a different offence but is constantly ridiculed by the media and police because of her sexuality.’

See also

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/gay-prejudice-rife-in-swaziland.html