‘My employers locked me in the house and left when the bombings started’
This week, we start in Sudan, where millions of women struggle to access sexual and reproductive healthcare amid widespread sexual violence. Next, we go to Kenya, where the Pemba people are fighting for their ancestral land rights. Finally, we stop in South Africa, which has increased deportations of illegal migrants due to rising unemployment and xenophobia.
But first, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) has rejected a proposal to allow bishops to bless same-sex marriages. ACSA represents over four million members across South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Ewastini, with the Church of England as its parent church.
In December 2023, the Church of England allowed bishops to bless same-sex unions, but this has only been adopted in South Africa and St. Helena, where LGBTQ rights are fully recognized.
Recently, Bishops Raphael Hess and Stephen Diseko urged ACSA to reconsider its stance, presenting a proposal to the Provincial Synod, the church’s highest decision-making body. They called for the need for respect, love and safe spaces for queer people within the church. However, the Synod reaffirmed that marriage remains defined as between one man and one woman.
Inclusive and Affirming Ministries, a South African LGBTQ rights group, expressed disappointment, stating that this not only encourages hostility and marginalization of queer people but also sets back the journey towards inclusion.
This situation shows the struggle to reconcile traditional beliefs with the growing understanding of LGBTQ rights in faith communities. But regardless, queer rights groups will continue advocating for a more accepting and compassionate church community.
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“We might be forced out of here”: Long stateless, Kenya’s Pemba people now fight for their ancestral land
After a long struggle for recognition, Kenya’s Pemba people were granted citizenship in 2023, but the battle continues as they seek to claim their ancestral land, where they’ve been forced to live as squatters for generations.
In 2017, Mwanahamisi Makame’s son was admitted to study medicine at the University of Nairobi, 280 kilometres from their home on an acre of land in Kwale County. Makame, a woman leader in Kichaka Mkwaju village was excited, but she needed to raise USD 2000 to facilitate the admission of her son.
“I went to the bank and applied for a loan. They asked for collateral and when I offered my land they requested for a title deed which was missing.”
Despite the land being ancestral land belonging to Makame, she could not provide the title deed, as until July 2023, the Pemba people of which Makame is part, were not recognised as Kenyans.
“My son missed college and [the] frustration led him into drug use’’ she says.
What can African history teach us about queer belonging?
The tragic death of Mliembe Suleiman, an openly lesbian woman, alongside a series of arrests and sentencing has highlighted the ongoing challenges faced by the LGBTQ community in the country.
On April 22, 2023, Milembe Suleiman, a 43-year-old Tanzanian lesbian, was brutally killed and mutilated in a suspected homophobic attack. Suleiman’s death has its roots in a long history of discrimination, which for her started with getting arrested in December 2017 for proposing to her girlfriend.
“She was married to a Rwandan man, but they separated due to abuse. She later married another man and had a child with him. They also separated, and she continued with her life,” Paulina Seleman, Suleiman’s sister, says about Suleiman’s challenges in the pursuit of a life true to her identity.
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Over the past three years, the world has watched in horror as women and girls in Afghanistan have had their rights and freedoms systematically stripped away.
In the face of inaction by the international community, a campaign for the conditions being imposed on Afghan and Iranian women to be made a crime under international law as gender apartheid was launched last year. What does the term mean and will it make a difference?