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Canada-led project documents global gay movement
Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights gives gay activists from Canada and 11 countries a voice to share stories of their local gay rights movements.
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Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum in Uganda.
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Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights is an international research and documentary project, working to advance social justice and equality for queer people around the world.
Gay activists from Canada, India and 10 other countries in Africa and the Caribbean document the conditions LGBT communities live in around the world and tell the stories of local gay rights movements.
The research focuses on the criminalization of queer people in Commonwealth countries and the fight back from the community towards injustice and unfair treatment.
“Our goal is to share our knowledge, resources and lessons to be learned, and to document a movement,” said York University visual arts professor Nancy Nicol, who spearheaded the five-year project with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Some of the project’s participants are in Toronto for the launch of a joint WorldPride exhibition with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, titled Imaging Home: Resistance, Migration and Contradiction that runs until October.
The show features video portraits and photographic work that challenge the meaning of “home” in a world that keeps refining homophobic and racist oppression.
The Star interviewed two of the activists from Uganda and Kenya. The following is an edited version of the interviews.
Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum in Uganda:
Most people in Uganda have only come to hear about LGBTQ people of recent. It was not something commonly talked about 15 or so years ago. The government has enacted very oppressive laws since homosexuality is seen as a threat to the survival of the country. That is state-backed homophobia, buttressed by ignorance.
Gay people are largely considered second class citizens, and as a danger to society. Therefore there is discrimination in employment, in education and in the day to day life. Transgender people are more at risk since they can easily be seen to be different.
With laws criminalizing things like touching with the intent to commit homosexuality and courts that regard holding a skills training workshop as promotion of homosexuality, it is not easy to be gay in the country.
As a lawyer dealing with LGBTQ issues, I see many LGBTQ people who have been beaten, who have been thrown out of rented houses, and whose families have rejected them.
People fear going to the police to report violations for fear of being arrested. Service providers do not want to attend to them for fear of being considered as promotion of homosexuality. Just two days ago, the High Court ruled that holding a skills training workshop for gays was unlawful. Imagine the implications of such a ruling on the day-to-day lives of LGBTQ people.
The near future looks bleak, but countries like Canada show that the future may be much brighter for the rights of LGBTQ persons in Uganda.
Eric Gitari, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Kenya:
The culture of the people of Kenya was very diverse and queer friendly before Christianity and Islam were imposed. Gay relationships were a no-issue and were neither encouraged nor sanctioned. Mostly, they were explained from a realm of spirituality.
The British Empire imposed Victorian morality on sex. These imposed values came through the penal code which had sodomy provision punishing homosexual sex with 14 years in prison. This law still exists. As of March 26 this year, they had prosecuted 595 cases of homosexuality in Kenya.
The criminal laws against homosexuality continue to justify and excuse discrimination and inequality against suspected LGBTQ persons and communities.
In February, after Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, five MPs from our parliament announced the formation of an anti-gay caucus.
We are seeing more gays and lesbians coming out and saying enough of the exclusion and injuries to dignity. In Kenya, we have three strategic cases in courts, all seeking to expand the equality frontiers to include the queers. In short, courage is replacing fear, action is replacing complacency, isolation is birthing queer communities and groups.
What is sad is that our people continue to be distracted by politicians and religious elite from pressing political corruption, theft of resources, poverty, sanitation and other shared concerns, all being hysterically covered up by whipping the gay card. The struggle continues.
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