Africa’s demonisation of gay people
means HIV campaigns fail to target men who have sex with men. The consequences
are dire, say the continent’s gay activists.
Words Daniel Somerville
Images Ajamu
Anyone
who watched Bob Geldof’s compelling documentary on Africa last year,
Geldof in Africa, could be forgiven for believing he has a comprehensive knowledge
of the continent and its modern, as well as historical, dilemmas. But when
Sir Bob addressed the crowds at London’s Gay Pride in July 2005, he
revealed an important gap in his knowledge. Promising to help gay people fight
HIV would work almost anywhere else in the world, except in Africa. Current
HIV campaigns in Africa ignore the so-called MSM (men who have sex with men)
phenomenon. Governments deny or outlaw homosexual behaviour and demonise gay
people, except, that is, in South Africa. But even there, what exists in the
law books doesn’t always translate into the waiting rooms and HIV campaigns.
You can’t fight HIV in Africa without addressing homophobia and you
won’t help gay people in Africa through supporting the current HIV campaigns.
Sorry Bob.
The invisible epidemic
In December 2005 the International Conference on HIV/Aids and STIs in Africa
(ICASA) was held in Abuja, Nigeria. It was the fourteenth time the conference
had been held on the continent and yet the topic of homosexuality was hardly
addressed. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)
funded delegates from several African countries to attend and organise an
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) meeting at the conference. They
issued the ‘Abuja Statement’, calling on governments to stop ignoring
lesbian and gay people in the fight against HIV in Africa. It wasn’t
the first statement of its kind and won’t be the last. But the message
until now has been largely lost on journalists, commentators and policy makers.
Many Africas
Away from the rural cliché of natural beauty and wild beasts under
a baking sun, or the other African cliché of starvation, disease, death,
corruption, and war, there are other Africas. One of these is an Africa where
gay people frequent clubs and bars, and organise gay and lesbian activist
groups and community organisations. There is an Africa of drag pageants, parties
and gatherings where men meet men and women meet women; where the continent’s
myriad languages are fused with modern labels and terminology on sexual orientation.
Dreaming and planning for a society where same-sex marriage is possible is
punctuated with laughingly copied Little Britain quotes and shouted Madonna
lyrics. There is also an Africa of clandestine meetings between otherwise
‘straight’ men and their male sexual partners. In more liberal
societies these men would have access to information or may chose to identify
as gay, but in countries where religious, family and traditional pressures
force them into heterosexual relationships, they are not so easily categorised
or reached.
Both ally and enemy
HIV is undoubtedly an enemy of the emerging LGBT community in Africa, but
it’s also a potential ally. “There are two epidemics in Africa,”
says Hans Binswanger, the former World Bank Africa representative. “The
epidemic of HIV and the epidemic of violence; homophobic violence. You cannot
fight one without addressing the other.” Take Cameroon where 15 men
and two women were arrested last July in a public crackdown on homosexuality.
If you were a man with an anal STI you would be unlikely to risk treatment
for fear of arrest. The few studies in existence show that because homophobia
is so common, MSM neglect seeking treatment and are often ignorant about safer
sex practises. As many MSM are also in heterosexual relationships, HIV, even
if effectively combated in heterosexual society, will always find a ‘bridge’
back into it via MSM behaviour.
Cool reception
Activists began to use this argument to campaign for tolerance and rights
under the larger umbrella of HIV prevention. Binswanger and Ugandan activists
delivered a paper on the relationship between homophobic violence and HIV
at the 2003 ICASA conference in Nairobi. But while the issue made it onto
the agenda for the very first time, the mainstream media failed to cover it.
The upshot is that African Aids activists are still largely trying to fight
HIV without admitting there are men who have sex with men in Africa.
Gay sex to avoid HIV
Currently all HIV awareness campaigns in Africa are directed entirely at the
heterosexual community. Georges K, an activist in Rwanda, explains why that
is problematic: “HIV campaigns have been so successful at painting the
dangers of heterosexual sex that many men believe it is actually safe to engage
in unprotected anal sex with other men.” The story is repeated in other
countries and even in the townships of South Africa.
“It is easy to find men in Soweto who have girlfriends and boyfriends,”
says community organiser Vusi Mzisa. “For some it has become a status
symbol. They believe it is safe to have gay sex. All the information tells
them sex with women is dangerous.” Most African governments deny that
gay people exist in their communities; many outlaw homosexual behaviour. Recently
in Namibia, a prison condom distribution scheme was halted because the government
said it breached the country’s 30-year-old law banning homosexual acts.
Under studied
A study conducted in Senegal in 2000 was the first contemporary survey to
document MSM behaviour on the continent. This was subsequently backed-up by
similar research in Kenya and most recently in South Africa. The surveys found
that 15 to 20 per cent of men surveyed had engaged in same-sex behaviour,
higher than the 10 per cent figure often quoted in the developed world. Virtually
all were also in some kind of heterosexual
relationship because of family, religious or societal pressures to marry and
conform.
Working
as one continent?
Determined to turn the fight against HIV into a tool for achieving human rights
gains for LGBT people, activists across the continent organised a conference
in South Africa in 2004. Keith Goddard, leader of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe
(GALZ) together with Binswanger, teamed up with South Africa organisation,
Behind the Mask, which has documented the continent’s lesbian and gay
movement since the late 1990s.
The All Africa Programme conference attracted 70 delegates from 17 African
countries. It aimed to address HIV among MSM in Africa by strengthening LGBT
organisations. The success of GALZ, organising in the most hostile of environments,
was a valuable example. “The idea of the All Africa Programme was to
strategise as one African LGBT community; to put that experience into a manual
that could then be delivered via the conference to other organisations,”
said Goddard. By the end of the conference, the ‘Johannesburg Statement’
was put out and a new organisation was born, the All Africa Rights Initiative
(AARI).
Expulsion and murder
The conference had an enormous effect. A manual was produced, a constitution
written and funding proposals submitted. But during this period, FannyAnn
Eddy, founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association, was murdered.
Her successful campaigning in Sierra Leone had forced significant changes
in her government’s attitudes. Then she was gone. In Nigeria, a new
organisation rose, but found itself in competition with existing organisations.
In Uganda a similar conflict between organisations vying for
limited funds did untold damage to the
reputation of LGBT organisations in Africa. The more they spoke out, the more
their
government clamped down. Then the UNAIDS representative in Kampala, instrumental
in bringing LGBT organisations to their table to discuss HIV and MSM, was
expelled from the country. New US funding policies that concentrated on abstinence
over condoms favoured faith-based organisations and effectively dismantled
Uganda’s successful awareness
campaign, causing a shortage of condoms and closing the door on discussions
about safer sex materials for same-sex couples.
Parties for prevention
Despite setbacks, AARI limps on. A Francophone conference is planned for West
Africa next year. Despite limited funds, the organisation hopes to establish
a secretariat and rekindle the interest and trust of funders. But while AARI
has yet to blossom, the LGBT movement itself has not halted.
In Ghana, the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana (CEPEHRG)
holds regular ‘human rights’ parties where safer sex messages
are delivered and where condoms are available to MSM. The leader of the organisation
regularly campaigns for the rights of gay people in the Ghanaian press. In
Kenya, a clinic has been established that caters for MSM, providing care and
safer sex tools to male sex workers as well as gay men in bars.
More than a niche concern
With African issues defined more and more by Geldof and the like as being
about
poverty, famine and war, gay rights in Africa may seem a side issue; a niche
concern. But it’s more than ‘gay rights’, activists will
tell you, it’s about human rights and the need to access persecuted,
misinformed and silenced communities. HIV among MSM is a concern for everyone
in Africa because HIV simply cannot be combated comprehensively without tackling
that sector too; and you can’t do that effectively while homosexuality
is taboo and/or outlawed. By not facing up to the truth, that men in Africa
do have sex with other
men, governments are powering the unchecked spread HIV and Aids. People and
organisations are in place, ready to tackle the issue on the ground. All that
stands between today’s situation and
success is homophobia and denial.
• Behind the Mask, www.mask.org.za
