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

CALL TO SUPPORT GAY SCHOOL PUPILS

Is there the slightest glimmer of hope that attitudes to gays and lesbians in Swaziland might be changing?

Lindiwe Dlamini, the Director of Guidance and Counselling at the Swazi Ministry of Education and Training, has called on school teachers to give support to gays and lesbians in schools and the wider community.

Dlamini told a meeting, organised by the Swaziland National Teachers Association (SNAT) as part of the Gender Links’ 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign, that gay and lesbian pupils and school staff were afraid to declare their status because they feared prejudice.

The meeting in Matsapha was attended by about 300 teachers from all over the kingdom.

Dlamini said teachers and school administrators must be supportive to gays and lesbians because they are afraid to declare their status as they feared that their colleagues or headmasters were lacking confidentiality.

‘So many children who are gays and lesbians fall into cracks because their teachers are ignoring them,’ the Times of Swaziland, a newspaper independent of King Mswati, the kingdom’s absolute monarch, reported her saying.

‘Teachers must have the culture of tolerance in their hearts,’ she said.

Homosexuality is illegal in Swaziland and gays and lesbians are often shunned by their communities. In August 2013, local media in Swaziland reported that two men suspected of being gay were banished by community police from Mvutshini.

Rather than tackle the issue of prejudice and discrimination against gays and lesbians in Swaziland, governments deny there are gays and lesbians in the kingdom. 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 LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex) people. Discrimination against this group of 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 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.’

The Times of Swaziland, part of a group of newspapers with a long history of publishing homophobic articles, in an apparent change of attitude, welcomed Lindiwe Dlamini’s comments on gays and lesbians in schools.

In an editorial comment, the Times said Dlamini, ‘is simply saying that we should not judge others for the way they live their lives but should instead provide emotional support when their lives get complicated, as all our lives do at some point. The simple truth is that a portion of our society is sexually attracted to members of the same sex; these people establish relationships and suffer heartache and confusion over love just like anybody else.

‘The only difference is that they can’t talk about it without being judged or, sometimes, physically attacked. Our Constitution does not address the right to sexual orientation explicitly – but it does address the right of people to live the way they want to as long as they do not deprive other people of their rights. Gay lifestyles fall squarely into this category.’

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

 

‘WE ARE NOT VICTIMS’ – SWAZI GAYS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/we-are-not-victims-swazi-gays.html

NO RIGHTS FOR GAYS: JUSTICE MINISTER

Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, says Swaziland will not give human rights to gay people, because they don’t exist in the kingdom.

Or, he concedes, if they do exist there are too few of them to worry about.

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.

He told the Times Sunday newspaper government would not recognise and legalise same-sex marriages because homosexuals either do not exist or form a minority in Swaziland.

The newspaper reported Gamedzesaying it was hard to introduce rights for people who did not exist. If they existed, he said, they were very few – ‘very very few’.

The newspaper reported Gamedze saying, ‘It was difficult for government to formulate a policy on homosexuals or enact a law to recognise them because they actually formed a minority if ever they existed.’

The minister said the position of Swaziland on homosexuals was that ‘the numbers do not permit us to start processing a policy’.

Gamedze’s ignorance is breath-taking, because, of course, there is no state in the world where LGBT people are in a majority, but that doesn’t stop other countries, such as South Africa, enacting laws to ensure members of this community have their rights. In a democracy it is up to the majority to ensure that minorities have the same rights as everyone else.

Gamedze showed further ignorance when he told the Times Sunday that there was no LGBTgroup in Swaziland that was asking for recognition. In fact one group called HOOP (House of Our Pride), had reported to the very same UN working group that had criticised the Swazi government.

HOOP had said LGBT‘are hugely discriminated against in the Swazi 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 ridicule LGBTpeople if they report they have been victims of violent crime, HOOP reported

HOOP is calling on the Government to include LGBT issues in its agenda to help to increase the acceptance of LGBT, even at community levels in Swaziland.

Not everyone in Swaziland is as ignorant as Gamedze.

Muzi Mhlanga, the Secretary General of the Labour Coordinating Council (LCC), told the Times Sunday the kingdom’s three main labour organisations backed human rights for LGBT people.

He said that rights for gays and lesbians were discussed everywhere they attended conferences. He said the LGBT community should not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation.

He said, ‘We would definitely fight for a [union] member who has been fired or expelled from school or work on the basis of sexual orientation.’

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

SWAZI MINISTER LIES TO UN ON GAYS

Mgwagwa Gamedze, the Acting Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs of Swaziland, 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 states, ‘Mr Gamedze specifically addressed the issues of same-sex relationships and the death penalty. 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.’

This simply not true and Gamedze knows it. In fact, one of the written submissions to the working party was from HOOP (House of Our Pride), a support group for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Inter-sex (GLBTI) in Swaziland. (Click here to read it).

It listed a range of discriminations that GLBTI people in Swaziland suffer, including in faith groups, at work and through police harassment.

In its submission, HOOP stated the Swazi Government needed to do more for LGBTI people. ‘These measures include: the de-criminalization of LGBTI practices currently treated as sodomy and the provision of extensive health care.’

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.’

So there you have it. Gamedze lied to the UN working party. LGBTI people have challenged government policies and they want laws changed.

Gamedze told the working party that the government would only look into the GLBTI issues once these polices had been ‘challenged’.

The policies have been challenged, so now the government must look into them. Unless, of course, the promise to do so is just another lie from Gamedze and the Swaziland Government.

See also

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

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

SWAZI HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT OUT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-human-rights-report-out.html

GAY PREJUDICE RIFE IN SWAZILAND

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

This has been revealed in a submission to the United Nations review on human rights in Swaziland.

HOOP (House of Our Pride), a support group for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Inter-sex (GLBTI) people, reported, ‘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 says GLBTI people are often discriminated against at work and there have been well known cases of this.

In one of the first reports of its kind detailing sexual orientation discrimination in Swaziland, HOOP reveals, ‘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 ridicule GLBTI people if they report they have been victims of violent crime. ‘A good example of such practices is in the on-going case of a well-known GLBTI 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.’

HOOP is calling on the Swaziland Government to include GLBTI issues in its agenda ‘as this will help to increase the acceptance of GLBTI, even at community levels’.

It also wants GLBTI activities to be decriminalized and given due recognition in society.

It says, ‘The government of Swaziland should bring into place laws that protect GLBTI 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.’

See also

PRESS VILIFIED OVER LESBIAN’S DEATH

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

A SWAZI GUIDE TO LESBIANS

Lesbians are in the news in Swaziland at the moment- big time. Swazi journalists are licking lips at the prospects of a lesbian love triangle being played out during the murder trial of Thuli Rudd. Rudd came to national attention when she was ‘exposed’ in 2009 by the Times Sunday newspaper after an under the covers operation by journalists who infiltrated a party at a restaurant Rudd and her lesbian lover threw for friends to announce their marriage.

The media in Swaziland can’t quite get this ‘lesbian thing’, so to put them in the picture, here is our special news feature.

Enjoy.

Swazi Lesbians

This feature will tell you everything that you need to know about Swazi lesbians and it is not at all intended to be a salacious tit-bit masquerading as news aimed at our male readers that’s for sure. After all, the sexual orientation of private individuals is everybody else’s business. That is why we feel strongly that this story merits headline status, instead of the collapsing economy, for example.

First, as this reporter discovered, when exposed to Swazi lesbians you need to wear a disguise and operate undercover when you go to a restaurant where they are getting married. Even if you later reveal that you are a reporter and the lesbians say ‘Oh, okay, take our picture if you really want, no big deal,’ you should not question your decision to have disguised yourself for absolutely no reason at all. Anyone would have done the same.

But what are lesbians anyway? Well, it is better not to go into detail, in order to protect our female children who might be reading this (if they are not too busy running away from their uncles). Let us just say that lesbians are females that kiss other females and do other things like that only much worse and much more sinful. We know this from reliable sources, such as the late-night adult viewing on the Action Channel, 106 on the DSTV bouquet (that’s 106, don’t set your recorders to 160 by mistake, gents!)

To avoid being exposed to Swazi lesbians it is important to know what they look like. In fact, Swazi lesbians usually look like Jodie Foster or Lindsay Lohan only they look a bit more African probably and are usually not blonde. The other thing that can help you to know if you are in proximity to a lesbian is that she might be dressed like a man (NB not a Swazi man obviously, as their traditional costume is in effect a skirt and a feather in their hair). This does not mean that any policewomen and female soldiers are lesbians because they wear the same uniforms as men though, because they are not. It is not possible to be a lesbian in the police or army because it is not permitted. So it never happens. Ever.

Let us not forget that lesbians are dangerous. A glance at the crime statistics will reveal that lesbians are probably responsible for as much as 0.002% of all crimes perpetrated against decent, law-abiding, normal people. And what they get up to in jail when they are sharing a cell, and it’s a sultry evening, and they have just come out of the shower with glistening skin, and they are feeling lonely, vulnerable and in need of some affection, and there’s an almost electric charge of suppressed desire between them, enough to set the fine hairs on their lean, smooth bodies on end, simply does not bear thinking about. Although there are films about this too, which are more and more disgusting the more times you watch them.

The thing about Swazi lesbians is this: they are unSwazi. Even though they are Swazi. To confirm this you need only ask the opinion of some prominent Swazi men known for their balanced views about women and progressive attitudes about minorities. These men, who are not reactionary bigots, will quote the sections of the Bible that give guidance on how to hate and oppress lesbians in the most appropriate pious fashion. In the proper Swazi fashion. Furthermore, it is not possible for a lesbian to hide behind the constitution. Section 69 says “There shall be no discrimination against individuals or groups on the grounds of religion, creed, colour, nationality and sexual orientation and things like that as long as they are heterosexual Christians and/or persecuting them is in the public interest and/or helps sell newspapers and/or reinforces traditional prejudices passed down from revered ancestral bigots.”

So what can we do about the lesbian problem plaguing Swaziland? The only thing left is to pray harder. This default reaction is the same one we have used with great success in the fight against HIV, the collapsing economy, corruption, TB, and so on. Only then can we be rid of this latest scourge which is plaguing our land and newspaper front pages and will continue to do so until we have time to make up new stories about demons, or even better, to focus our attention on other minority groups against whom we can stir up irrational fears, unfounded prejudice and hatred in the public interest.

Contributed