African Lesbian and Gay activists meet in Johannesburg to challenge State Homophobia in 38 countries on the continent.

The first regional conference of ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, in Africa will take place in Johannesburg May 5 - 8, 2007. It aims at gathering a large number of activists dealing with LGBT issues in Africa to further progress their advancement.

On occasion of this first Pan African conference, 60 human rights and LGBTI activists from all corners of the African continent will gather at the Birchwood Hotel in Johannesburg to discuss ways to challenge state homophobia, lesbophobia and transphobia in Africa.

In 2007, no less than 85 member states of the United Nations still criminalize consensual same sex acts among adults, thus institutionally promoting a culture of hatred. Amongst those, 38 are African governments.

A report on State Homophobia in Africa will be launched during the conference. The impressive collection of laws presented in this report is an attempt to show the extent of State homophobia in Africa.

Although many of the countries listed in the report do not systematically implement those laws, their mere existence reinforces a culture where a significant portion of the citizens need to hide from the rest of the population out of fear. A culture where hatred and violence are somehow justified by the State and force people into invisibility or into denying who they truly are.

Whether imported by colonial empires or the result of legislations culturally shaped by religious beliefs, if not deriving directly from a conservative interpretation of religious texts, homophobic laws are the fruit of a certain time and context in history.

Homophobia is the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. The hatred, hostility, or disapproval of homosexual people. Homophobia is cultural.

More information is available on http://africa. ilga.org and www.ilga.org
Contacts: 0027 (0)79 533 3167/ 0027 (0)82 888 9481

ILGA, The International Lesbian and Gay Association, is a world-wide network of national and local groups dedicated to achieving equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people everywhere. Founded in 1978, it now has more than 560 member organisations. Every continent and around 90 countries are represented. ILGA is to this day the only international non-governmental community-based federation focused on fighting discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation as a global issue.

Stephen Barris


ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association
17 rue de la Charité
1210 Brussels Belgium
Tel/Fax 00 32 2 502 24 71

http://www.ilga. org

On behalf of the entire member of The Independent Project management board, I wish you a happy easter and the benefits of the death of christ. God bless you all.

Just yesterday I stumbled into a very interesting chat with someone who lives in Kano state. Northern Nigeria. His name is Akeem, he got my contact from the Takingitglobal (TIG) website. Hardly had I signed into my yahoo messenger than he buzzed me with an introduction of himself and where he got my contact. The conversation began. Akeem is a gay guy without an active sexual life According to him, he was then obligated to chat with because he discovered from TIG that I am gay also and live Lagos, South-west, Nigeria. He asked if I could link him up to someone with whom he can express his sexual feelings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that for him because I do not know anyone in Kaduna state nevertheless I was able to make him continue the chat by getting to know more about him and his sexual experiences. Suddenly I dropped in the issues of HIV/AIDS by asking him what he knows about it. He said he does not believe in the existence of the infection……. “It is not real” he said. He went further and said even if it is real; he can never get infected by the virus as he is a gay person and does not have sex with the opposite sex who is the only source of infection. Having known about his academic status as being an undergraduate in his third year in the University, I was very surprised at his judgment. I did not interrupt him as he tried to make his opinion clear. When he was through, I got mute didn’t know how to change his mind set to the understanding of HIV/AIDS and its effect. I know of so many web links I could refer to and I sent it to him. I couldn’t get his response about them as he told him; he was running out of time in the café.

Nonetheless, I feel that there is a lot to be done when it comes to HIV/AIDS awareness programs in Nigeria. The awareness programs are restricted to the sexual majority neglecting the minorities. Akeem belongs to the minorities and due to the biases of the society where he belong has no information on how he could get infected by the deadly virus even as a gay guy. I hope very soon the Nigerian government will realize the effect of this and would begin to have an all inclusive HIV/AIDS awareness program of which everyone regardless of the sexual orientation would know when getting expose to the risk of contracting the virus.

Written by:
Akoro Joseph.S
+2348054814432
nigerianbloke@yahoo.com, sewedo@yahoo.com

Hello everyone! I am new here and also very happy. I would like to have you view in this matter. In the Nigerian government, a bill is in the house of assemble that is about to be passed in to law. It's the same-sex prohibition bill. What do u feel about it?