FIVE WAYS IN WHICH SA DENIES LGBTI RIGHTS

By: Nthateng Mhlambiso (Managing Editor)

It is tiring to hear grievances about governments’ shortcomings, I vowed that I would never complain but rather seek solutions. However it has been very depressing to hear South Africa being lauded for adopting wonderful laws in relation to homosexual rights, when you and I know that these laws are only there in paper but government has failed to facilitate their implementation on the ground.

When sexual orientation was included in the South African Constitution as a ground on which persons may not unfairly discriminate and when the Civil Union Act was passed in 2006, the gay community never thought that three years down the line, they would still be verbally harassed, fired from jobs, raped with the aim to make them heterosexual and worse, murdered just for being involved with their same sex partners.

Now, after passing the Act, which others still feel was accidental, our government sat back and forgot that much work still needed to be done to implement it, such as trainings of service providers (police, medical practitioners, home affairs department etc.) on how to handle LGBTI matters, educating society about tolerance, etc. This gap, to me, equals denial of rights by government because it blocks people from practicing what they are entitled to.

I have observed that presently there are five ways in which the South African government denies LGBTI people their rights.

1. Silence: Countless incidents of murder, based on people’s sexual orientation have been reported, corrective rape continues and gay people are harassed verbally and physically on a daily basis in South Africa, but government has never spoke out or condemned such crimes.  

2. No action: Many political parties, such as the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), just to mention a few, have recently revealed during election debates that they are aware of gruesome killings of lesbians in the country but failed to say what they did or are going to do about it.

3. General statements: Media institutions such as Behind the Mask have tried to hold these leaders accountable by narrating incidents and demanding responses but all we get from political parties are statements like these: “We condemn the murder of people in our country”, We are building a new country for all” We are willing to protect victims of violence.” None want to specifically acknowledge LGBTI people, for fear of losing membership of homophobic people, especially during this time of elections.

 4. Verbal condemnation: the only time politicians will talk about homosexual issues is when they insult LGBTI people or expressing how UnAfrican homosexuality is, Jacob Zuma, Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni etc. are perfect examples of presenters of such slander

5. Acting pro-gay when it suits them: As South Africa will be voting on 22 April and political parties are campaigning, it is not surprising to see party representatives making time to engage the LGBTI community, something they would never do normally. Many promises have already been made by parties such as the Democartic alliance that it will speak about gay issues should it be elected. The ANC has admitted to having not done much after the Civil Union Act but promised to be more pro-active in future on LGBTI matters.

Even now, you and I know that after the hype of the elections, we will be back to square one.