Neglected Elderly Women Sleep on the Streets After IDP Camp’s Closure in Borno
This week, we start in Tanzania, where a new VPN policy puts queer people at risk. Then, travel to Nigeria, where the closure of IDP camps has left many elderly women without homes. Finally, head to Thailand, to see BL TV dramas helping raise awareness about LGBT issues.
But first, off the coast of Djibouti, on April 22, 2024, a boat carrying 77 migrants capsized, leaving 24 dead, including children and 20 missing. A similar boat accident happened two weeks ago that claimed 38 lives.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), every year, thousands of African migrants, mainly from Ethiopia and Somalia, attempt to illegally migrate to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates through Djibouti. Unfortunately, a good majority of these migrants get stranded in Yemen, where they are left to face harsh conditions.
Unable to cope with the difficult realities in Yemen, many migrants attempt to return to Djibouti by crossing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait by boat or through desert regions on foot. Sadly, this usually results in the loss of life due to rough seas and currents, security risks, and harsh environmental conditions. For instance, in 2023 alone, at least 1350 deaths were recorded, with countless more unreported.
In response to this growing crisis, the IOM Djibouti, in collaboration with Djibouti authorities and 48 other humanitarian organizations, is working to prevent future tragedies and making provisions to address the humanitarian challenges migrants face along the Eastern route.
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From our Site
“My privacy matters”: Tanzania’s new VPN policy leaves LGBTQ+ individuals exposed
Sabel*, a gay man living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, uses pseudonyms to engage with other LGBTQ people online. Despite feeling somewhat anonymous, the fear of being arrested is ever-present.
“Online, we are free to express our identities under anonymous names, but people have [still] been arrested, so Virtual Private Network (VPN) provides an extra layer of security,” he says.
Engaging with partners and building relationships within the LGBTQ community through platforms like the Telegram channel provides Sabel with freedom and solidarity. Nonetheless, he remains cautious and expresses worries about the dangers of openly discussing his sexual orientation on various social media sites.
“I do not use other social media platforms to express my sexuality. Telegram is a relatively secure platform.”
However, this avenue of expression for Sabel and other members of the LGBTQ community is under threat.
On October 13, 2023, a shocking announcement occurred in Tanzania’s digital realm. It was when the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) released a statement stipulating that Virtual Private Network (VPN) users must register their usage. The announcement carried a pressing deadline of October 30, 2023, serving as the final call for individuals and businesses to discontinue using unregistered VPNs. Intensifying the urgency of the situation, the TCRA also introduced an online form for submitting VPN details.
I donated my egg in Nigeria. Here’s what I found out
I was not pondering motherhood on the afternoon of Friday, November 6, 2020; I was pondering the heat. The other storey buildings around my Lagos home made the flow of air impossible. The security personnel downstairs were playing loud music and arguing goodnaturedly in a language that switched between Arabic and Hausa. I was annoyed as I scrolled through Facebook and WhatsApp, loading statuses and ignoring messages. Then I saw an interesting status update that piqued my interest. “Egg Donors wanted, the pay is reasonable,” it read.
Until that point, I never knew egg donation happened in Nigeria and so, naturally, I had questions. What did it entail? How much was a reasonable payment? How did anyone become an egg donor? There was only one way to get answers so I responded to the status. David* wouldn’t tell me much except drop the number of the woman I was to text. I don’t like texting anyone I’m not familiar with, so already we were crossing invisible boundaries I had set for myself but I was curious. I gave in and sent a text.
I got your number from David’s status about egg donors?
I waited for a response for about thirty minutes and dropped my phone to face other tasks. She responded two hours later. By then I was already questioning whether or not this was something I would do.
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HumAngle
Neglected Elderly Women Sleep On The Streets After IDP Camp’s Closure In Borno
One morning about a year ago, when government officials arrived at the Kawar Maila makeshift camp to distribute relocation notices, the elderly women were absent. They had ventured out into the streets and markets of Maiduguri, North East Nigeria, in search of sustenance.
By the time they returned to the displacement camp, the gates had been sealed shut, denying them access while the relocation notice distribution was underway. Security personnel stationed at the entrance resisted their efforts to make their way in and join the exercise.
The camp was officially closed on Feb. 25, about a year after the relocation notice was given. The authorities allocated shelter to those with relocation cards in a housing estate along Bama Road. Lacking the necessary documentation, the elderly IDPs were excluded from this provision. As a result, they now find themselves homeless, dispersed throughout the host community, struggling with the challenges of survival in their advanced years.
HumAngle found that this omission affected at least 15 elderly women, including divorcees, widows, and single mothers aged between 60 and 90 years.
Human Rights Watch
Dominica High Court Decriminalizes Same-Sex Conduct
In a historic judgment published on April 22, the Dominica High Court decriminalized consensual same-sex relations. Dominica becomes the fourth Eastern Caribbean country to strike down discriminatory legal provisions and decriminalize gay sex, following Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Barbados.
Dominica’s Sexual Offences Act had punished “buggery” with up to 10 years’ imprisonment and the court could “order that the convicted person be admitted to the psychiatric hospital for treatment.” “Gross indecency” was sanctioned with up to five years’ imprisonment. Both provisions were understood to criminalize consensual same-sex conduct and were relics of British colonial law.
While laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy in the Caribbean are rarely enforced, they are broad, vaguely worded, and serve to legitimize bias and hostility toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. A 2018 Human Rights Watch report documented discrimination, violence, and prejudice against LGBT people in seven island nations in the Eastern Caribbean, including Dominica, that criminalized gay sex.
The court’s ruling this week held that the provisions of the Sexual Offences Act violated Dominica’s Constitution, specifically “the right to liberty, freedom of expression, and protection of personal privacy,” buttressing its arguments with international jurisprudence on decriminalization.
BBC
‘My hell in Myanmar cyber slavery camp’
Warning: This story contains details of violence, including sexual violence, which some readers may find disturbing. The name of one of the participants – Ravi – has been changed to protect his identity.
Ravi travelled to Thailand dreaming of a better life for him and his new wife. Instead, the 24-year-old Sri Lankan found himself trapped in the Myanmar jungle, being tortured for refusing to help trick lonely, rich men out of thousands in so-called romance scams.
“They stripped off my clothes, made me sit on a chair and gave my leg electric shocks. I thought it was the end of my life.
“I spent 16 days in a cell for not obeying them,” he continued. “They only gave me water mixed with cigarette butts and ash to drink.”
But that was not the worst of it, he says. Five or six days in, two girls were brought in and gang raped in front of him. “When I witnessed it, I feared, ‘What will these people do to me?’ It was then that I doubted they would let me live,” Ravi said.
In August 2023, the UN estimated that more than 120,000 people, most of them men from Asia, had been forced to work in scam centres in Myanmar like the one Ravi found himself in.
The centres are fed by a steady stream of aspiring migrant workers from all over the world. The Sri Lankan authorities say they know of at least 56 of its citizens alone who are trapped in four different locations in Myanmar, although the Sri Lankan ambassador to Myanmar, Janaka Bandara, told the BBC that eight of them had recently been rescued with the help of the Myanmar authorities.
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DW
How Thailand’s ‘boy-love’ TV dramas raise LGBTQ+ awareness
Gay-romance TV dramas produced in Thailand are becoming popular across Asia and making LGBTQ+ issues more visible. But are these series how the LGBTQ+ community wants to be depicted?
When the protagonists of the gay-romance drama “Cutie Pie,” Lian Kilen Wang and Kuea Keerati, tied the knot at the end of the series, they did so knowing that their marriage would not be legally recognized, even in the fictional world of Thailand’s “boy-love” TV shows.
But now, in real life, that is about to change, as Thailand is set to join Taiwan and Nepal as the only places in Asia to allow same-sex marriage.
Cutie Pie, which has an assertive pro-LGBTQ+ stance, is one of many shows in a genre called Boy’s Love (BL).
These shows focus on romantic relationships between two male characters, and are mainly enjoyed by a primarily straight female audience.
“What the Thai BL industry is already working on is increasing the visibility of LGBTQ+ people,” said Natthanai Prasannam, associate professor of Thai literary and cultural studies at Kasetsart University in Bangkok.