It’s officially Pride Month: Here’s everything you should know sent
This week, we start in Ghana, where court hearings on the anti-LGBT bill will be aired live for transparency. Then, travel to Uganda, where the Totya platform offers mental health support to victims of sexual. Finally, we visit Zimbabwe to see how its queer community uses social media as a tool for resistance and social change.
But first, in South Sudan, the Gorom refugee settlement is becoming less safe for LGBTQ people, whose mistreatment due to their sexual orientation is leaving them even more marginalized.
The Gorom settlement was built in 2010 to accommodate 2,500 Ethiopian refugees fleeing conflict in the Gambella region. However, with the onset of conflict in Sudan in April 2023, the camp has taken in about 9,000 Sudanese refugees.
As expected, this influx has led to several challenges, including food and water shortages, poor living conditions and hygiene issues. But, the situation is even more severe for LGBTQ people, facing discrimination, death threats, daily attacks, and are denied access to medical care and education for their children.
Despite the efforts of LGBTQ activists, the Association of Christian Resource Organizations Serving Sudan (ACROSS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have been unable to find a lasting solution.
Tired of the constant persecution and abuse, some queer refugees have started fleeing the settlement. Sadly, there’s little hope of relief for LGBTQ refugees in the Gorom camp. Not only has the South Sudanese government ignored their struggles, but there are discussions of an anti-homosexuality bill similar to Kenya and Uganda, further compounding the difficulties faced by LGTBQ refugees.
Stories to read
The Conversation
Ghana’s anti-LGBTIQ+ bill is being challenged in the supreme court. Why the decision to broadcast it live matters
DW
Gambia postpones vote to repeal FGM ban
From our Site
“Anonymous and online”: The platform providing mental health support to victims of sexual violence in Uganda
Editors note: This story contains references to sexual violence
Faith*, a salesperson living in Kampala was introduced to Eddie by a friend to make stickers for his business. After staying in touch for over a year, Eddie called her with a business proposal.
“He called me saying he had a friend with a big salon in Zana who would buy my products at wholesale price,” Faith explains. “But I told him we weren’t ready for that because we didn’t have the capacity to produce in large quantities. So, I decided to put him on hold.”
Eventually, in July 2023, Faith informed Eddie that she was ready to sell the products and the duo agreed to meet. The meeting point was decided to be his house. While there, Eddie then asked Faith for sex, offering her any amount of money if she complied.
“I denied his requests. He got angry and told me I would have sex with him whether I wanted to or not. When I stood up to leave, I noticed he had locked the door,” she says.
“I kept fighting. I told him I was on my period, hoping it would deter him, but he didn’t care. I was scared of getting infected with HIV and becoming pregnant, so I asked him to at least wear a condom, which he did. But I felt betrayed and hurt.”
Faith wanted to share her experience with a friend as well as find justice but at the same time, she feared judgment.
“We paid the price”: How a voluntary forest restoration in Kenya ended a decades long security problem
In 2000, together with his three brothers, Jeremiah Chepkore moved into Kirisia forest from a neighbouring village 10 kilometres away. After a whole day of trekking, the family made it to the forest, a place they would call home for the next 19 years. According to the 56-year-old Kenyan, they were allocated five acres of forest land by people he described as forest officials in exchange for five cows.
“Our elder brother convinced us to make the journey into the forest,” Chepkore recalls. “We only had a one-acre piece of land to share among three brothers, we had no option than to leave our village and join the many others who had already settled in the forest.”
The father of four says that the search for grazing and farming land and the ease of settling in the forest made them move into the forest. “We carried along our livestock and household items and set for the journey at night to avoid detection by the few government operatives who were then present in the area.”
Mary Nairesia, 52, another former settler in the forest, joined tens of her neighbours who moved into the forest in 1991 in search of farming land. She was only 20 years and then a mother of one. Today, she is a mother of five and notes that the fertile forest land attracted them to start farming deep inside the forest before slowly settling in.
Stories from around the world
LGBTQ Nation
A revolutionary support group is helping hundreds of Indian parents embrace their LGBTQ+ kids
In the 90s, when filmmaker and theatre artist Chitra Palekar’s daughter Shalmalee came out as a lesbian, she didn’t know what to make of it. While actively involved in the public discourse around women’s rights, Palekar felt clueless. “I was aware of what it meant and had some theoretical knowledge about it but no one in my family or wider circle was a homosexual person,” Palekar, now in her mid-70s, tells LGBTQ+ Nation.
But her love for Shalmalee transcended the matters around her sexuality, and she accepted her wholeheartedly. She then began an unending journey of learning about the LGBTQ+ community. Over the years, Palekar has not only emerged as an icon for parents of queer children, but she also formally fought for decriminalizing homosexuality in 2013 as a petitioner along with 19 other parents. The courts ruled against it that year but Chitra soldiered on. In 2017, she became one of the founding members of Sweekar – The Rainbow Parents group.
“I wanted parents to accept their children like I had accepted them,” Palekar says.
BBC
Luxury perfumes linked to child labour, BBC finds
Children have picked ingredients used by suppliers to two major beauty companies, the BBC can reveal.
A BBC investigation into last summer’s perfume supply chains found jasmine used by Lancôme and Aerin Beauty’s suppliers was picked by minors.
All the luxury perfume brands claim to have zero tolerance on child labour.
L’Oréal, Lancôme’s owner, said it was committed to respecting human rights. Estée Lauder, Aerin Beauty’s owner, said it had contacted its suppliers.
The jasmine used in Lancôme Idôle L’Intense – and Ikat Jasmine and Limone Di Sicilia for Aerin Beauty – comes from Egypt, which produces about half the world’s supply of jasmine flowers – a key perfume ingredient.
Industry insiders told us the handful of companies that own many luxury brands are squeezing budgets, resulting in very low pay. Egyptian jasmine pickers say this forces them to involve their children.
And we have discovered the auditing systems the perfume industry uses to check on supply chains are deeply flawed.
The Conversation
TikTok activism: how queer Zimbabweans use social media to show love and fight hate
In Zimbabwe, there is a long held public view that queerness is “unAfrican” and imported to Africa from the west. Even though numerous studies have proven this not to be true, reiterations of this lie by the state has led many to believe that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) people cannot be Zimbabwean.
Robert Mugabe, the country’s first president, was infamous for his homophobic rhetoric. He often compared gender and sexual minorities to pigs and dogs. Such homophobic utterances further reduced the spaces where LGBTIQ+ people could live and express themselves without fear.
In Zimbabwe, same-sex sexual relations are prohibited and those suspected of engaging in same-sex intimacy can be fined or jailed for up to a year. As a result, queer love is often made fun of, despised or ignored and queer couples can’t openly show their love.
With public spaces increasingly closed off, LGBTIQ+ people in Zimbabwe have been forced to find alternative avenues to express themselves and to forge communities. This has led to increased visibility in alternative online spaces.
Stories we’ve enjoyed reading
NBC News
It’s officially Pride Month: Here’s everything you should know about the global LGBTQ celebration
Here are the answers to some of the most common questions about LGBTQ Pride Month, annual LGBTQ Pride parades and the iconic 1969 Stonewall uprising.
What is LGBTQ Pride Month?
LGBTQ Pride Month is a commemoration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community that is part celebration and part protest. It is often associated with massive parades and parties that honor the community’s joys and accomplishments. But the rallies, marches and political actions can be just as important to draw attention to the issues still facing the community.
How did LGBTQ Pride Month start and why is it in June?
LGBTQ Pride Month traces its roots back to the 1969 Stonewall riots, which started on June 28, 1969. The first Pride marches started the following year, on June 28, 1970, to commemorate the multiday riots, and these one-day celebrations eventually evolved into a full month of LGBTQ pride.
According to a search of Newspapers.com, an online archive of more than 26,000 newspapers, the first mention of “Pride Month” was in a June 5, 1972, issue of Pennsylvania’s Delaware County Daily Times. In the article, gay activist Byrna Aronson talks about the gay rights rallies popping up across the country and shortly after says, “We call it Gay Pride week and Gay Pride Month, the whole month of June.”