kenyan lesbians finally get home

By Musa Ngubane (BTM Reporter)

KENYA – July 25, 2006: Minority Women In Action (MWIA) is a new group representing susceptible gay women in Kenya.

The organisation seeks to advocate for lesbian rights and the minority and marginalized women groups in Kenya in general. “We want to feel released (freed) and to have the authority to take up decisions as a lesbian movement”, said one founding member of MWIA.

This culmination was initiated after Madeleine Maurick – Behind The Mask’s consultant with support from the Ford Foundation and HIVOS, conducted a research addressing issues in the east African region.

In September 2005 the study revealed that the majority of organizing groups in Kenya were patriarchal and male-dominant, thus women weren’t represented.

The founding member, was a member of Galebitra, which is an acronym for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender group in Kenya, which focuses on advocacy, lobbying of government and health gay issues.

Her intentions had always been to form an organisation that would entirely represent and give women a voice, and would respond to the male domination.

“As women we were being unheard and lacked the space which ultimately lead to conflicts with in the organization”, she says.

The member, who cannot be named, claims that there were a lot of lesbians in that country who didn’t have any support from gay organizations. But now assures that lesbians ultimately have voices.

One of the influential leverage of MWIA is to embark on lesbian community outreach programmes in Kenya currently, also working closely with a newly established gay organization, Gay and Lesbian Coalition in Kenya (GALCK).

MWIA aims to become a haven to many lesbians in that country, that encompasses to give refuge and fight hate crimes and discriminations based on sexual orientation.