Ghana’s Parliament Passes Anti-LGBTQ Bill
This week, we visit Ghana, whose parliament recently passed one of Africa’s harshest anti-LGBTQ bills. Next, we head to South Korea, struggling with record-low birth rates as more women are choosing to be child-free. Finally, we explore India’s “silent” village, where its deaf and mute residents have developed their unique language.
But first, in Nigeria, persons with disabilities (PWDs) are appealing to the government for equal representation in government.
Although Nigeria is a country with about 35.1 million persons living with disabilities, there is little to no representation in any tier of government. Instead, many have had to deal with stigmatization, discrimination, and lack of access to basic needs such as transportation, health, education, and housing.
In 2018, the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities Prohibition Act was passed. Its violation would incur a fine of ₦1 million for corporate bodies and ₦100,000 for private individuals or a six-month jail term. Still, it was discovered that there had been little compliance with this Act, even among ministries, departments, and agencies.
The House of Representatives recently initiated an investigation into compliance levels in MDAs. Meanwhile, Dr. Chike Okogwu, Founder and Chief Responsibility Officer of Care for Ability, Rehabilitation and Empowerment (CARE), urges the government to ensure the representation of PWDs in government positions. Such inclusivity would empower the community and address its unique challenges. This is especially important during the current economic downturn, making them even more vulnerable.
Stories to read
Reuters
Anti-Muslim hate speech soars in India, research group says
BBC
Nigerian economy: Generosity of strangers stuns struggling mother
Fact of the week
Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills because it has hills everywhere you look! The hills create a picturesque scenery that highlights Rwanda’s natural beauty.
From our Site
“Tag the trees”: The disappearing Kenyan Language being saved with afforestation
A stroll through Mukogodo Forest in Laikipia County, Kenya’s largest national and dry forest reserve covering landmass of over 30,000 hectares, reveals a sight: metallic tags adorning the trees, each bearing two words. One word is in English, while the other is its translation into Yaakuntee, the indigenous language of the Yiaku people.
The tags, with the English word ‘Elephant,’ and its counterpart in Yaakunte ‘Sogomei,’ are an initiative of Ann Naibini and Juliana Kageni, sisters working hard to revive their dying Yaakuntee language and traditions. They are the grandchildren of one of the three remaining elders of the Yaakunte tribe.
“The words are in English and their translations are in the Yaakunte language to make it easier for the young learners to understand,” says Kageni.
In the year 2020, Yaakunte was declared among the critically endangered languages in Kenya by UNESCO.
The Yiaku people were a traditional hunter-gatherer community that migrated from Southern Ethiopia to Mukogodo Forest more than a century ago. They settled in Laikipia County, Mt Kenya region. The Yiaku resemble the Rendille and the Somali people living in northern Kenya.
Saying: ‘I don’t care that you are queer,’ to a queer person is not allyship. Here’s why
When I came out to my friend she told me, “I don’t care that you are queer. You are my friend and I will always love you.” At first, I was elated by the show of support, thankful that her love was present nonetheless, especially because I knew that many queer people lose friends and even family when they come out.
But in subsequent times, I have begun to think long and hard about this statement and I have become conscious of how though well-intentioned, it can be unsupportive.
Much of my thought process was inspired by how frequently I started to hear it being used among friends and allies and the unintended nuance that is communicated.
When you say that you do not care that I am queer and you love me regardless, the statement implies that although my queerness is not something lovable, you love me anyway.
It goes further to cast the ally as doing a great job of acceptance whereas neglecting the role and effort LGBTQ+ persons play in summoning the courage to come out. In that instance re-calibrating the situation and making acceptance seem like a favor when it shouldn’t be.
Stories from Around the World
Aljazeera
Ghana’s parliament passes anti-LGBTQ bill
Ghana’s parliament has voted to pass a controversial bill to severely restrict LGBTQ rights, in a move that has been condemned by rights activists.
A coalition of religious and traditional leaders sponsored the legislation favored by most lawmakers and passed in parliament on Wednesday.
The bill would punish those who take part in LGBTQ sexual acts, as well as those who promote the rights of gay, lesbian, or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities with time in prison.
The bill, one of the harshest of its kind in Africa, still has to be validated by the president before entering into law, which observers believe is unlikely before a general election in December.
Activist groups have called the “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values” bill a setback for human rights and urged President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government to reject it. But the legislation is widely supported in Ghana, where Akufo-Addo has said gay marriage will never be allowed while he is in power.
Aljazeera
Pakistan: When a blasphemy accusation is evidence; the sentence often death
The Pakistani city of Lahore is famous for many things: beautiful Mughal architecture, delicious street food, eye-pleasing greenery, and, of late, air pollution that ranks amongst the worst in the world.
But as dangerous as that last distinction is, Lahore recently avoided being known for something far worse: mob lynching.
Here’s what happened: A married couple was out shopping, peacefully going about their day when a passer-by spotted something that he found offensive – in this case, the woman’s garments.
It’s not that her clothes were revealing — something frowned upon in this culture — or otherwise morally offensive to this worthy gentleman. No, he became enraged because, to his eyes, the woman was wearing a dress covered with Quranic verses.
Except he clearly couldn’t read Arabic.
BBC
Why South Korean women aren’t having babies
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Yejin is cooking lunch for her friends at her apartment, where she lives alone on the outskirts of Seoul, happily single.
While they eat, one of them pulls up a well-worn meme of a cartoon dinosaur on her phone. “Be careful,” the dinosaur says. “Don’t let yourself become extinct like us.”
The women all laugh.
“It’s funny, but it’s dark because we know we could be causing our extinction,” says Yejin, a 30-year-old television producer. Neither she nor any of her friends are planning on having children. They are part of a growing community of women choosing the child-free life.
South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, and it continues to plummet, beating its own staggeringly low record year after year. Figures released on Wednesday show it fell by another 8% in 2023 to 0.72. This refers to the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. For a population to hold steady, that number should be 2.1.
If this trend continues, Korea’s population is estimated to halve by the year 2100.
Stories we’ve enjoyed reading
Aljazeera
‘Love transcends language’: Kashmir’s silent village
Dressed in their finest shalwar-kameez and sporting well-trimmed mustaches, a group of men deliberates over the terms of a dowry as the women prepare halwa with dried fruit and a pot of traditional, salty Kashmiri tea in the adjacent kitchen.
In the modest home of Muhammad Sharief in Dadhkai, a tiny community nestled high in the Himalayan mountains, the two families have gathered to plan the upcoming marriage of Reshma Sharief, 19, and Mukhtar Ahmed, 22.
Muhammad Sharief, 40, the bride’s father, waits patiently as the men continue their discussions. They ultimately agree upon a dowry of $1,200 in cash plus a few gold ornaments. The older men murmur prayers as sweet treats are brought out from the kitchen. The home’s rough-cut wooden roof, mud floor, and bright walls, colored pink and green, hum with the sounds of celebration.
But while the two families have followed all the customary nuptial rules, this marriage will be far from ordinary: Both the bride and groom, like dozens of others in their village, are deaf-mute.