Edition #40
This week, we start in Sudan, where the Adre border crossing will reopen to bring much-needed aid during the ongoing war. Next, we visit Nigeria, where queer university students are finding community in a campus “Love House”. Finally, we head to Uganda, where seven people share their experiences navigating living with a disability.
But first, in South Africa, despite the controversies surrounding the beauty pageant and the withdrawal of finalist Chidinma Adetshina due to questions over her nationality, history was made when Mia Le Roux became the first deaf woman to be crowned Miss South Africa.
Le Roux, who is 28 years old, was diagnosed with profound hearing loss at the age of one. She revealed in an interview that she received a cochlear implant at age two, thanks to funds raised by her family, friends, community members, and even strangers. It also took her two years of speech therapy before she could say her first words.
In her acceptance speech, Le Roux shared her desire to help and support people who feel excluded, especially those with disabilities and financial difficulties. She also plans to use her platform to promote inclusivity.
Winning the title on Women’s Day made the achievement even more special. She will receive a cash prize, a luxury car, a fully furnished apartment, and the crown. Her story is an inspiring example of breaking barriers and how helping others can make a real difference.
Stories to read
CNN
Sudanese government agrees to reopen key border crossing for humanitarian aid
HumAngle
Female Genital Mutilation Still Prevalent In Parts Of Northeastern Nigeria
From our site
Queer Nigerian students are finding community in a campus “Love House”
The first time Janet met Ayo*, the latter played a Todrick Hall song in a banking hall, hoping to catch Janet’s attention. And like drawing a moth to a flame, it worked.
“It was on Grindr that I met Ayo again,” Janet says. ”I was elated, mostly because I was now to be among people who would certainly understand the loneliness.”
Before gaining admission into the University of Ibadan in 2019, Janet, bold and relentless about his identity, had attracted unwanted attention that led to him being kidnapped and kitoed due to his Facebook presence. Despite the ordeal leaving him traumatised, it strengthened his resolve to continue to be himself and to share his thoughts on queer identity, drawing shock and awe from students and lecturers alike. Meeting Ayo, Janet says, was pivotal to their student experience.
“I was added to a Whatsapp group that same day. We were a total of five members, students who were equally as lonely as I was and had met each other through stereotyping and Grindr,” Janet says. “We were called Love House. It’s a community where nothing but love and kindness foster the bonds which bind us, a safe space. On the first physical gathering I attended, I still remember the warmth that tugged at my stomach, meeting these people who would go on to shape my experience as a student on this campus.”
Cameroon: How churches are a breeding ground for the exclusion of Persons with Disabilities
In 2017, a friend invited me to a church in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s Northwest region. I hoped to improve my relationship with God through the pastor’s message. I traveled hundreds of kilometres just to attend the program, which I saw as a life-changing opportunity. But I received a shocker, though, when the same pastor chose to castigate me for being blind.
“God has told me that you will transform from a beggar to someone with a purpose in life because your sight will be restored today,” the pastor declared. I was angered by this. I had never been a beggar on the street but like many other PWDs, I was condemned to this fate because of my disability.
I left the church saddened.
Around the world
Aljazeera
‘They rape us before we can cross’: Women, girls fleeing violence in Mali
It was just a few minutes before 7 o’clock on a Friday evening in early June when Kani* and 10 others fleeing violence in northeastern Mali arrived at a checkpoint in Labbezanga, close to the border with Niger.
Six armed men, three of them wearing military fatigues, at the checkpoint stopped the men and women who had begun their journey from their village on foot the previous day.
“They [the gunmen] separated the men from the women,” Kani, 17, said. “Then three of them ordered all the four girls who made the journey to move into a small tent [the armed men had erected near the checkpoint].
“They took turns to rape us at gunpoint,” said Kani, who spoke to Al Jazeera from the home of a local legumes farmer in the Nigerien border town of Ayourou, a town on the border with Mali, where many Malian refugees have settled in recent years and where she has been living for the past several weeks since crossing into Niger.
Washington Blade
The international community continues to ignore the plight of LGBTQ Afghans
Three years have passed since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
The Taliban continues to arrest LGBTQ Afghans one after another, and punishes them in public in front of people and local Taliban authorities across the country. There is no news about their fate. And the severity of repression and increased violence against LGBTQ people by the Taliban has, unfortunately, been away from international attention and their situation is deliberately ignored.
The Supreme Court of the Taliban over the last three years has published several rulings regarding the punishment of LGBTQ people for “lawat,” a reference to sexual relations between two men in Sharia law, and most punishments of LGBTQ people has taken place in public in five provinces: Kabul, Parwan, Sarpul, Zabul, and Kandahar.
A court in the Saidkhel district of Parwan province on July 1 announced it had tried and punished four people for “lawat.”
CNN
Protecting women from deceitful men or criminalizing break-ups? A new law in India stirs debate
Men who deceitfully break off promises of marriage after having sex with a woman could face up to 10 years in prison, as Indian law grapples with a widespread but often ignored form of sexual abuse.
But the new law has also provoked questions about how it will be applied, whether it can effectively protect women from sexual exploitation and whether it risks criminalizing break-ups.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government introduced a new criminal code in early July, replacing India’s 164-year-old colonial-era penal code.
Section 69 of the new statute criminalizes having sex with a woman “by making a promise to marry (her) without any intention of” doing so, or by “deceitful means” such as falsely promising career advancement or marrying under a fake identity.
The crime is punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine.
Stories we’ve enjoyed reading
CNN
Refugee Olympic Team’s historic first medalist Cindy Ngamba hopes to inspire millions
The story of Cindy Winner Djankeu Ngamba is one of resilience. Living up to her middle name, she became the first-ever athlete to win a medal for the Refugee Olympic Team, claiming bronze in the women’s boxing 75kg class at the Summer Olympics in Paris.
Born in Cameroon, Ngamba faced many challenges growing up. At the age of 11, she moved to the United Kingdom in search of a better future. After arriving, she struggled to gain citizenship and was sent to a detention camp over paperwork issues.
Around the age of 15, she discovered her passion for boxing. “Every day is a learning day in boxing. You have your ups and downs, just like in life in general,” Ngamba told CNN Sport’s Amanda Davies.
Boxing would not only help her mentally but also provide a vital anchor in her new reality. “Every time I’m boxing, I think about the moments where I felt helpless. All I’ve got to do is just get in the ring and trade punches with my opponent. That [was never] as hard as when I was going through my [immigration] paper situation and being in a detention camp.