“I have forgiven him”: Queer Nigerian victims of online blackmail sent
This week, we start in Nigeria, where queer victims of targeted violence and blackmail turn to vigilante justice due to homophobia and institutional failures. Then, travel to Kenya where maternal health policies fail women and girls with disabilities. Finally, we stop in Mexico, to see Claudia Sheinbaum become elected as the country’s first female president.
But first, in a recent report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), it was revealed that globally, around 500,000 women live with obstetric fistula, and an estimated 350,000 of these women live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Obstetric fistula is a medical condition that happens when there’s an opening between a woman’s genital tract and her bladder or rectum. A primary cause of this is prolonged and difficult labour without adequate medical care. This condition often leads to chronic infections, infertility, kidney problems and other significant social problems for the woman.
Many African women find themselves at risk of this condition due to limited access to quality healthcare and a lack of family planning services. The primary treatment for this condition is surgery, but the high cost often makes it inaccessible for many affected women.
Sadly, women with disabilities are even more vulnerable, as they face higher risks during pregnancy and have more difficulty accessing timely healthcare. There’s also a lack of specialized obstetric care tailored to their needs. However, the UNPF supports fistula treatment centres across Africa to address this issue. These centres provide treatment and support to help women and girls reintegrate into society.
Maternal healthcare is one area that needs to be prioritized, especially for women with disabilities. Provisions should be made that provide easy and quick access to health care, surgical treatment, and social support, as all these would be instrumental in managing and reducing maternal deaths across Africa.
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From our site
“I have forgiven him”: Queer Nigerian victims of online blackmail turn to reconciliation and vigilante justice
TW: This story contains references to suicide and descriptions of violence.
The Blackmailers
Korede’s* muscular frame and deep, coarse voice often command attention, except when he starts crying.
He cried a lot after a video of him naked and being tortured by stick-wielding men was shared on social media. Once again, shame stripped down his voice and demeanor as he recounted his story. He had lost his job and home and had been rejected by friends, who said he embarrassed them.
“I feel shame whenever I remember,” he said.
At 35, Korede can be considered straight-passing — a term used to describe gay people whose sexuality is not immediately apparent from their appearance or behavior.
His ordeal began when he met DJ Rati, a local disc jockey, at a party in Asaba, Delta, south-south Nigeria. Their fondness for each other grew so much that Korede considered him a friend not long after they met.
DJ Rati invited Korede to his home. It was not out of place. Both men had spent time together in Korede’s apartment many times. On the day Korede visited, the DJ’s sister was in the single-room apartment but soon left to give both men privacy. Korede remembered it being a sunny afternoon. He asked to take a quick shower and also requested cold water.
“I didn’t know that he had made arrangements with some of his friends in the street,” Korede recalled. “As I was pulling my clothes… the three boys ran to the house, started beating me with cutlasses and bottles, and videoed me. I was trying to cover myself. They dragged me outside. I was begging, but they refused to listen to me.”
The reality of women with disabilities and maternal health care
While many countries are debating abortion rights, there is another reproductive right that is being overlooked: the right to survive childbirth.
Sadly, the plight and challenges of disabled mothers are often ignored. Four months ago, I lost my friend Diana, a woman with a disability, who died during childbirth. It’s been four months since Diana never got to experience motherhood, a role she had been yearning for since she learned she was expecting. Diana’s life was cut short in her prime for something that could have been prevented and regrettably, she is not the only woman with a disability we have lost. Are women with disabilities getting critical information that helps them with the pregnancy journey?
It’s been nine years since Kenya passed the Free Maternity Service policy that eliminated maternity charges in public health facilities to make maternity services accessible and affordable to reduce maternal and pre-natal deaths among women in the country. In 2017, to achieve Kenya’s Big 4 Agenda on Universal Health Coverage, the policy was revised by the government to the “Linda Mama’’ (protect the mother) programme to expand access to private sectors and expand the benefit package.
Around the world
BBC
The Indian women trumpeting their caste on Instagram
Young women in small towns and villages across India are proudly trumpeting their caste identities on Instagram, making it the latest battleground for caste politics.
The BBC tracked 100 accounts and spoke to a dozen such influencers across the caste divide to understand what’s driving the trend.
The camera focuses on a woman in a black dress. She is pointing a rifle at the sky with her hand on the trigger.
“Who are you?” asks an accompanying voiceover. “We are Brahmins,” a voice responds. The woman smiles, and the sound of two gunshots is heard.
This is just one of hundreds of Instagram Reels made by Shivi Dikshit, a 24-year-old from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh who shares short videos about her Brahmin caste with her 150,000 followers on Instagram.
Hinduism’s deeply hierarchical caste system, which dates back at least 3,000 years, puts Brahmins or priests at the top and Dalits (formerly untouchables) at the bottom
CNN
She thought she found love in a Japanese host club. Then the bills ballooned – and she was coerced into sex work
Yu felt a rush of excitement as she walked into his bar for the first time – eager to meet the charming young host she’d been following for years online.
On that cold January night last year, they chatted over champagne – the first of many meetings that would have Yu fast falling in love.
Yu, 41, a clinician and divorced mother of two, soon began spending every spare minute with him at the bar in Tokyo’s main red-light district, dropping thousands of dollars on heavily marked-up alcohol.
In return, he showered Yu with attention and small gifts, celebrating her birthday with her and even promising to buy her a ring.
“He said, ‘You are my girlfriend,’” said Yu, who CNN is identifying by a pseudonym to protect her privacy. “I believed him.”
Yu says the host, handsome and in his 20s, encouraged her to run up a bar tab that quickly spiraled out of control.
Then, her money ran out – and everything changed.
BBC
‘Darkest period of my life’: Gay conversion therapy in Italy
Rosario Lonegro was only 20 years old when he entered a Catholic seminary in Sicily as an aspiring priest preparing to be ordained. But while he was there he fell in love with another man and his superiors demanded that he undergo conversion therapy intended to erase his sexual preferences if he wanted to continue on the path to the priesthood.
“It was the darkest period of my life,” he told the BBC, recalling his seminary experience in 2017.
Haunted by guilt and fears of committing a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Rosario said he “felt trapped with no choice but to suppress my true self”.
“The psychological pressure to be someone I was not was insurmountable. I could not change no matter how hard I tried.”
For more than a year, he was compelled to take part in spiritual gatherings outside the seminary, some over several days, where he was subjected to a series of distressing activities intended to strip him of his sexual proclivities.
These included being locked in a dark closet, being coerced to strip naked in front of fellow participants, and even being required to enact his own funeral.
During these rituals, he was tasked with committing to paper his perceived flaws, such as “homosexuality”, “abomination”, “falsehood” – and even more explicit terms, which he was then obliged to bury beneath a symbolic gravestone.
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Washington Blade
Claudia Sheinbaum elected Mexico’s first female president
Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum on Sunday became the first woman elected president of Mexico.
Sheinbaum, a scientist who is a member of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s leftist Morena party, defeated Xóchitl Gálvez of the opposition National Action Party and Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizens’ Movement. She will also be Mexico’s first Jewish president.
“Thank you to the people of Mexico,” said Sheinbaum on her X account. “This is your triumph, this June 2 we once again made history.”
Mexican voters elected Sheinbaum less than a year after Mexico City hosted an LGBTQ and intersex rights conference that the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute co-sponsored. The election also took place against the backdrop of rampant cartel violence in Michoacán and other Mexican states.
Sheinbaum before the election released a policy paper that reiterated her support for LGBTQ rights in Mexico. The platform, among other things, reiterated “absolute respect for diverse gender identities” and pledged to create “public policies to (end impunity) and to eradicate hate crimes and violence against LGBTIQ+ communities because of gender and sexual orientation.”