The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights might want to consider a name change. Here’s a possibility: “The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights … unless you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.” That’s because the organization, which is charged with promoting and protecting human rights on the continent, doesn’t want to work with LGBT organizations.
The African Commission turned down the application of a gay rights organization, the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), to be granted observer status with the Commission.That move set off a range of accusations that the Commission failed in its mission to advance human rights, and could even legitimize anti-gay violence in the continent by not recognizing the work of NGOs to keep LGBT people safe.
“In the face of increased homophobia, the message sent out is that members of sexual minorities are ‘free game’,” said the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. “The Commission should carefully consider that its decision comes in a context of increasing homophobia in many African Union member states.”
That last point couldn’t be stressed enough. We’re all familiar with efforts in Uganda to criminalize homosexuality with the death penalty or life imprisonment. And indeed, a coalition of African nationsactually led a push at the United Nations earlier this month to strike sexual orientation from a resolution condemning extrajudicial killing. For countries like Egypt, Morocco, Zimbabwe, and Mali, they essentially want the right to be able to execute people on the basis of sexual orientation, without having the UN breathing down their back. Even South Africa, which is the only African state with constitutional protections for LGBT citizens, joined with this shameful club of nations.
CAL and the Centre for Human Rights are now pressuring the African Commission to reconsider their decision. On a continent where state-sponsored violence toward LGBT people is practically the norm, the African Commission really flubbed this one. Take a moment to send the Commission a message that they should allow CAL observer status. LGBT organizations and those organizations working to promote the human rights of sexual minorities deserve a seat at the table, not a spot under the bus.
Fikile Vilakazi, the director of CAL, and Sibongile Ndashe, a lawyer with the Equality Program at Interights, took to the op-ed pages to blast the African Commission’s decision as abhorrent. They noted that after the Commission voted to turn down CAL’s application for observer status, countries like Zimbabwe applauded.
Sheesh, if countries like Zimbabwe are applauding one’s human rights actions, you know there’s a problem.
“There is already an ongoing trend from various African states to tighten laws that criminalize homosexuality on the continent. Instead of condemning such acts, the African Commission appears to be condoning them through such an arbitrary decision,” Vilakazi and Ndashe write. “CAL is extremely angered by the fact that this decision, if not challenged and reconsidered, will legitimize ongoing state and non-state violence against LGBTI people in Africa.”
Is that something the folks at the African Commission really want to live with on their conscience? Send the Commission a message now. If the Commission wants to be a regional body that respects and promotes human rights, it has to do so for everyone on the continent, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Anything less is a total abdication of the mission of the African Commission.
