The murder of lesbian women in Kenya has become a hot topic nowadays and raised several people’s concerns about the safety of LGBTQ people all over Africa.
As per the authorities of Kenya that six men raped and murdered Sheila Lumumba on April 19 in her home in Karatina, a town in Nyeri County, and they targeted her because of her sexual orientation.
Not only Africa but also many other African countries who are failed to protect the LGBTQ community, despite some of them having legalized same-sex relations. The LGBTQ community members still continue to face torture, rape, social isolation and murder.
Many other African human rights groups have an aim in order to address this kind of issue, but accidents like Lumumba’s murder are still at their peak.
“Queer people’s article right to live is not hinged on anyone’s beliefs.
According to Njeri wa Migwi, a Kenyan human rights activist, many of these opinions are dangerous and biased. Homophobia is the name of calming your beliefs gets people killed.”
Furthermore, he added that Sheila is not the first woman who faced this, but we have Erica and Wawira, whom people will soon forget as if their lives never mattered.
“Nobody is going to kill you related to your sexuality. If it was so simple as it shows, why would anyone want to be queer where your very presence is hated, deadly and can guide you to your death. You don’t have to love, like or support queer people. Just respect their life, the same way they do with your lives,” added wa Migwi.
According to the Happy Family Youth Uganda Executive Director Iga Isma, many LGBTQ people do not have a sense of belongings because they always get rejected and sidelined by their own people and loved ones.
As per the estimation, there are nearly 2SLGBTQIA+ people who have no place to call home as they are kicked out by their homophobic and transphobic traditional groups and family members due to stigma, and many 2SLGBTQIA+ persons pursue to live in the shadows and can’t able to come out because of fear of rejection from their families, colleagues and members of their communities,” noted Isma.
“However, we as 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations are trying our best to teach community members, government and all stakeholders about the 2SLGBTQIA+ community because that is the only way we can do away with the offensive attitude towards the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
Moreover, it is difficult due to the homophobic and transphobic groups within our midst; we are trying our best to change the perspective.”
For Keke Petrova, director of LGBTQ_Angola, an Angolan LGBTQ rights group, many LGBTQ people in those African countries where same-sex relations have been legalized are still stigmatized.
According to Petrova, To be honest, I fear for our and community safety. Many news related to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community is often silenced through deaths, rapes and assaults.
The legalization of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in numerous African countries has got more awareness among the people.
We always fight verbally or through dialogues, and we reach out and talk about LGBTQIA+ issues to all that want to learn.
According to Ruth Maseko of the Triangle Project, a group of South African advocates that the progress remains possible as long as stakeholders are willing to work together in order to end the scourage of homophobia.
Africa really needs to be more aware; people need to get proper education and need to learn that there is nothing wrong if you have a love of the same gender; a man is free to love a man, and females are free to love a female and in criteria of parents who later on find out that their child is gay or lesbian we need to have parents support groups because some parents end up in depression when they get to know about their child is gay or a lesbian, so parents need to be sat down with and be educated too,” said Maseko.
