Is South Africa a paradise for African LGBT people?
Article of the France-Presse Agency published on the website of the French edition of Africa News (France) on 17 December 2021, freely translated by Giacomo Tessaro
His brother surprised him in bed with a man. During the seven days of escape by bus to the South Africa, away from his family and from that Kenya which considers it a criminal, James, twenty -seven years old, today asylum seeker, dreams of freedom. His brother tried to hit him in the head with a bottle: “It was very agitated, as if it were crazy. He said he wanted to kill me ".
The police then came to arrest the young man because of his sexual orientation, and without the help of the militants and some bustarella to help him "disappear", it would be behind the bars. He has been living in a house of the outskirts of Praetor; chose South Africa because "It was the only place I knew where the government welcomes queer people", but his hopes have long lasted.
Homosexual wedding
South Africa was the first country to prohibit, in his Constitution of 1996, the discrimination based on sexual orientation, and in 2006 it was the first in Africa a legalize homosexual marriage, in a continent where certain conservative societies consider homosexuality a crime. On paper, an Eldorado ...
But numerous homosexual refugees report that they are regularly victims of discrimination: “We are judged, robbed, insulted and threatened with death. Many times I have been harassed as I walk with my transgender friends, simply because I'm what they are " James, who asked to remain anonymous, tells bitterly.
Persecutions
For a long time, from his Zambia Christmas, Junior, twenty -six years old, looked at the annual one on his phone Gay Pride South African dreaming of being able to participate one day; He also decided to escape from his country because of the persecutions. Today, in South Africa, he is proud to have won the flag of Zambia several times, parading with his shorts rainbow.
Junior is still beating to get the documents [refugee]. After months of trafile and unpleasant interrogations, theimmigrationrejected his question: “One of the managers pulled out a Bible and started to make me preaching on homosexuality. South Africa has beautiful laws, but people who find in the offices know nothing of homosexuality " He says sadly.
"Queer and black"
One night of 2017 Junior was sexually attacked On the street by two men, before being hunted from the police station he had taken refuge; He had to return with one of his friends, a white man, so that the agents agreed to record his deposition.
In South Africa "It is more difficult to be queer when you are black" Junior says, who now avoids walking on the street. Near the window one of his friends, a Kenyan model, listen to an ear. Escape in 2017, he too was harassed here in South Africa, but it is little compared to what he suffered in his country: in Kenya "You can't even dress in a certain way ...".
Original text: Afrique du south: an eldorado pour les lgbtqi+?
