Coming Out in Nigeria Is a Difficult Journey

This week, we start in Zimbabwe, where elderly women have painted their doors purple as a symbol of safety for abused women in need. Then, we shift our focus to the Central African Republic, where child refugees continue to hope for a better future. Finally, we journey to Uganda, where protestors are demanding EU sanctions in response to the country’s anti-gay law.

But first, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Constant Mutamba, a member of the National Assembly and opposition leader, has introduced an anti-homosexuality bill.

The bill is proposing a 3-5 year jail term for anyone who “commits a homosexual act or gesture.” The introduction of this bill is part of the growing anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Congo, and some believe that it’s simply a measure to distract the public from the country’s problems.

Mbuela Mbadu Dieudonné, a social analyst and trade unionist, says lawmakers should focus on improving the lives of Congolese people, who face more daily difficulties. Sirius Tekasala, a human rights activist, also rightly pointed out that a person’s sexual orientation does not affect the issues of governance.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an anti-homosexuality bill drafted in Congo. But while it failed to become law in 2010, with Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act in effect, there’s a higher chance that it might happen this time.

This situation exposes the dangerous fact that when one country passes laws that support discrimination and homophobia, it encourages other countries to follow suit. This creates a destructive cycle and makes life even more challenging for queer people.

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From our Site

Behind every purple door in this Zimbabwean community, someone is ready to assist women facing abuse

In Epworth, elderly women trained to be community advocates have painted their doors purple to signal safety during the time of need for abused women.

On a November night in 2023, Mercy Matovera* escaped from the relentless brutality within the walls of her own home. For far too long, she had endured her husband’s frequent fits of rage, with physical blows that came two or three times a week.

But on this fateful night, Matovera reached her breaking point.

The heavy shadows offered her a fleeting sense of safety as she stumbled along the dusty path, her heart racing with adrenaline. Desperate to shield herself and her nine-month-old baby girl strapped to her back, she embarked on a perilous journey in search of sanctuary.

“When I saw the light of a lantern through the window of one of the houses that were close to the pathway, I quickly stopped and walked towards the house,” says Matovera.

She knocked on the door, hoping that she could find shelter, but the house owner refused to open the door to “strangers.” Instead, she urged Matovera to seek help elsewhere, to try another door; maybe she would find someone willing to help a stranger.

Luckily, Matovera found that house. It was a house with a purple door.

 

Coming Out In Nigeria Is A Difficult Journey

In his sophomore year of college, 21-year-old Alex came out as gay to his middle-aged conservative Yoruba mother. He had gotten tired of the hetero-normative ideals his mother forced on him. “She was always going on about when I’ll get a wife and kids,” he says. During one of her tirades about having a traditional family, Alex snapped and decided to come out.

“I had considered it for a while, but the thing about coming out is that you don’t really plan for it. It just happens, it’s not like today you wake up and say you’re coming out,” he says.

Much like many conservative parents, Alex’s mother viewed his sexuality as a problem that needed spiritual intervention and she immediately dragged him to see a pastor to “cure” his homosexuality. Conversion therapy is an all too common problem that many LGBTQ+ youths from conservative backgrounds endure. Such negative reactions to coming out is mostly prevalent in deeply religious and conservative households.

The pastor who Alex’s mother took him to wanted him to stay for deliverance in a section of the church where they starved people for days or weeks. On learning this, a shaken Alex retracted his statement about being gay, telling his mum, “I’m feeling better now. I don’t have that feeling I told you about; it went away the moment I saw that pastor. That thing about deliverance, mum, I’m not going.”

Stories from Around the World

DW

CAR child refugees dream of a better future

A bus throws up dust as it rumbles away from the sprawling expanse of the refugee camp at Gado-Badzere in eastern Cameroon. It’s heading to the war-ravaged Central African Republic (CAR), just some 30 km (19 miles) away.

Inside the bus is a group of nearly 300 refugees who have chosen to return to their homeland.

Secondary school student Abdel Aziz is among those being voluntarily repatriated. He and his mother fled the fighting in CAR five years ago; Aziz’s father is believed dead. Despite the country’s turmoil, 16-year-old Aziz is determined to return home. He wants to continue his schooling and be part of the solution to the crisis afflicting his country.

“Now, I aspire to become a criminal investigative police officer to help fight crimes in society, like the war in the Central African Republic,” Aziz told DW, before climbing the bus.

But Yolanda, whose name has been changed by DW to protect her privacy, and her daughter won’t be returning.

“Seleka rebels raided my home. They raped me and they raped my 14-year-old daughter,” Yolanda told DW.

“Since I was a Christian before converting to Islam, I have become a target of the Seleka as well as the anti-Balaka. Both sides see me as a danger for them.”

The New Humanitarian

Ghana accused of expelling Fulani asylum seekers from Burkina Faso

While Ghana has welcomed thousands of Burkinabé refugees fleeing escalating jihadist violence across the border, Fulani rights groups allege that it has also been expelling ethnic Fulani asylum seekers, targeting a community unfairly accused of supporting the insurgency.

Belko Diallo*, a 45-year-old former herder, is one of thousands of Burkinabé Fulani that the Ghanaian authorities have failed to register as refugees. Instead of being welcomed to Ghana’s Traikom refugee camp, he has had to settle with his family in a hastily erected hut in the dusty scrub land near the northern border.

 “When we first heard about Tarikom, we thought – after the Ghana government helped the Mossi and Bissa [their former neighbours in Burkina Faso] – they would help us,” he told The New Humanitarian late last year during the first of two reporting trips. “But after the government took them to the camp and gave them support, the soldiers forced us to go home. You run for your life [in Burkina Faso], then they tell us to return? We cannot return.”

LGBTQ Nation

Protesters demand the EU stop sending money to Uganda because of the “Kill the Gays” law

Activists gathered in Washington, D.C., Thursday to demand European Union sanctions on Uganda over its Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The law “is driving already marginalized people away from needed services and codifies state-sponsored discrimination and violence against real or perceived LBGTQ people in all areas of life,” the Convening for Equality (CFE) coalition wrote in a letter to EU Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen ahead of the demonstration. “The European Union should immediately announce a comprehensive review of all of its funding to Uganda, and should pause or reprogram any funds that go via government entities. Any essential humanitarian support should be rerouted to non-government organizations who are committed to providing services to and employing LGBTIQ people.”

The Anti-Homosexuality Act, signed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni last May, has been called one of the most extreme examples of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the world. It made what is described in the law as “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by the death penalty, imposed a life sentence for “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities,” and even banned identifying as LGBTQ+.

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Trans adults share childhood stories to prove you don’t grow out of being trans

In the wake of a controversial U.K. report recommending extreme limitations on gender-affirming care for trans youth, trans adults on X are sharing their stories of how receiving this care as children saved their lives.

Trans health care in the U.K. hangs in the balance in the wake of the recent release of the Cass Review, a 400-page review of oft-cited research on gender-affirming care for minors commissioned by the U.K. National Health Service (NHS). The review concluded that there’s little reliable evidence showing positive outcomes from such care, but outraged trans activists say it excluded hundreds of studies showing such outcomes.

Trans rights advocates worry the Cass Review will give conservative political leaders a pretext for ending gender-affirming care for minors and younger adults. Indeed, the review urged “extreme caution” before giving minors puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy and championed the use of psychological therapy instead. The review also said that “life-changing” decisions on gender-affirming care should be put off until adulthood since the brain continues maturing into age 26.