A 37-year-old Ugandan born woman has been convicted of mutilating her three-year-old daughter. She is the first person to be convicted, despite other female genital mutilation prosecutions having been brought to court in the UK. Those cases all ended in acquittals due to the lack of sufficient evidence.
Several two- to nine-year-old Tanzanian children with albinism were found dead and dismembered after their kidnapping in December last year. Authorities suspect that witchcraft was the motivation behind the horrific acts.
Angola has changed the “vices against nature” provision in its law, widely interpreted to be a ban on homosexual conduct, and made discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation punishable by law.
When a deputy headmaster at one of Zimbabwe’s top schools recently came out as gay, he faced a backlash that revealed a deep-seated homophobia. One Zimbabwean decided to stand up – and out – in support of the LGBTQI+ community in general and GALZ in particular.
For the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, Nana Akosua Hanson argues that the problem of sexual harassment in schools is rooted in patriarchy and that there is an urgent need for a complete overhaul of how we educate our children on matters of sex and relationships.
The issue of children wearing the hijab in public schools has been the subject of litigation in the state of Lagos for some time. Although the case is still in contention, the state has ordered schools to immediately permit the use of the hijab.
Denmark’s minister of development, Ulla Tornaes, is withholding US$9.8 million in aid to Tanzania and postponing a planned trip to the country over “unacceptable homophobic comments” by a senior Tanzanian politician.
Anti-gay rhetoric has steadily been on the rise in Tanzania since President John Magufuli took office. It is not the rhetoric that citizens need to be mindful of, however. The government is taking surveillance and intimidation action towards perceived homosexual activity. Now, it seems, the mere act of sitting in a pair is being viewed as criminal.
A group of United Nations agencies has issued a joint statement calling for the ban of misleading and damaging tests meant to ‘assess the virginity’ of women and girls, a common practice in at least 20 countries.
The decriminalisation of the private use of cannabis in South Africa could – and should – pave the way for the decriminalization of sex work, says Zanta Nkumane.
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