lesbians to challenge homophobic muslim region

By Abeli Zahabu (BTM French Reporter)

AFRICA ABROAD – April 3, 2008: For the first time in history, lesbian women abroad in Canada have organised themselves to fight for the lesbian, bisexuals, transgender and transsexual (LBTT) rights for the Maghreb region.

Emigrated the Maghreb region for Canada, these lesbian women formed an organisation called Zaafaran which aims to address fear and isolation that LBTT community faces in a hostile and pre-dominant Muslim environment where homosexuality is a crime and subject to penalty.

The women’s coordinator at the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), Patricia Curzi, said: “In order to break the cycle of fear and isolation, some women have fearlessly decided to take their destiny into their hands.”

Being gay and living openly seems to be an act of heroism in Muslim countries where religion goes hand in hand with social life. Many gay people are being forced to live in hiding for their safety.
 
“When you find yourself as a lesbian, bisexual, transgender or transsexual, it seems that the whole world is full of hostile people. When you find yourself different and live in a country where being gay is a crime like in the Middle-East and in the Maghreb region it seems that it is the end of the world”, Curzi further explained.

Maghreb being a patriarchal society, women have little or no say at all in decision making. Most of them are uneducated and confined to house chores according to sources.

“The first thing that we plan to do as an organisation is to educate and sensitise different communities from the Diaspora. Then we can infiltrate our respective countries through partnership with sister-organisations that are already based and doing humanitarian work in those countries”, asserted Nada Khaled* who is founder and coordinator of Zaafaran.

Asked if the Zaafaran will bring about more visibility to the LGBT community and encourage its members to come out in such Muslim-driven region, Khaled said; “I do not know but the organisation is working towards that.”

“Sometimes it is very difficult. One might think that once we have laws protecting LGBT people everything is done. The reality on the ground is different. LGBT people continue to be victimised and discriminated against in the society. It is hard to sustain”, Khaled said further.

Founders of Zaafaran say they chose its name because it bears in it the identity of the organisation and its challenges. Derived from the word ‘saffron’ which is related to the grinding activity, Zaafaran is mostly seen as an activity intimately related to women’s chores in Arabic region. The grinding activity being essentially reserved to women in this region, hence the organisation has taken that analogy to refer to the sexual intercourse between two women.

The organisation has decided to retain this element of tradition to keep it alive in its own way – away from patriarch-induced stereotypes.

Today Zaafaran has 44 members who originate from as far as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Syria and so on. Since its inception, the organisation welcomes at least two to three new members almost daily.

“I am a lesbian from Algeria. I left my country so that I can live my lesbian life safely. I’m very excited about the new organisation and would like to get more involved with the organisation”, Fatoumata Aziz, a new recruit at Zaafaran concluded.

*Not her real name