ZAMBIA/FILE: A visit by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon where he called for respect of gay rights has sparked discussion about what is normally a taboo subject in many African countries

Record ID: 277630

  • Title: ZAMBIA/FILE: A visit by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon where he called for respect of gay rights has sparked discussion about what is normally a taboo subject in many African countries
  • Date: 5th March 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST LUNDU MAZOKA (SOUNDBITE) (English) LUNDU MAZOKA, GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST SAYING: "The community is not looking for a piece of legislation that legalises homosexuality. More importantly from a public health angle, we are looking for pieces of legislation and policy that allow for comprehensive provision of services."
  • Embargoed: 20th March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Zambia, Usa
  • City:
  • Country: Usa Zambia
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7WEAW4MFUX80LD271OS9BAHWM
  • Story Text: Homosexuality is illegal in Zambia and widely frowned upon as taboo, so when UN secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the southern Africa nation last week and called for the recognition of gay rights, it expectedly raised a debate across the nation and beyond.
    Ban's comments prompted mixed reactions from Zambians -- one NGO demanded an apology from the Secretary General. A Zimbabwean newspaper said Zambian president Michael Sata had "welcomed" gay rights by discussing the issue with Ban.
    Discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people remains rampant across much of the continent and activists say few Africans are openly gay, fearing imprisonment, violence and loss of jobs.
    Both the United States and United Kingdom have recently warned they will use foreign aid to push for homosexuality to be decriminalized in African countries, a move that has angered leaders who say they would rather live without the support of the west.
    Zambian gay rights activist, Lundu Muzoka said the laws against homosexuality denied gay men and women access to medical care for infections that could be traced back to same sex relations and that was a violation of human rights.
    "The community is not looking for a piece of legislation that legalises homosexuality. More importantly from a public health angle, we are looking for pieces of legislation and policy that allow for comprehensive provision of services," said Muzoka.
    Muzoka said Ban's visit had raised the issue of rights for all Zambians, whether gay or not.
    "His address was pretty much an address to respect human rights not to promote lifestyles. In as much as the homosexual act or the act of sodomy is illegal in Zambia, Ban Ki-moon came to the country asking for a respect of human rights and not that gay rights are a different set of rights from everyone else's human rights."
    "I have been urging many countries' world leaders where the countries with this different sexual orientation are being discriminised even punished even criminalised. This is not acceptable and I know that President Sata has a firm principled position in promoting and protecting human rights of everybody regardless of their sexual orientations," Ban had said during his visit.
    But on the streets of Lusaka, the subject of gay rights is almost always greeted with disapproval and many believe homosexuality goes against the religious values of the country.
    "Legalisation of homosexuality in Zambia is not a good part in our country as Zambia being a Christian nation as far as I am concerned, and even to the UN secretary him saying that we have to respect these rights and all those, I don't feel and think that can do, that can help in Zambia because Zambia is really really a Christian nation," said Mulenga Lumbo, a street vendor.
    "I don't support it because us here we are a Christian nation, we don't believe in such things. That's why men are there and women are there, so whatever comments people are saying about us accepting the homosexual and lesbian, I don't think its right, it can't work," said Mary Mwamba.
    A controversial legislation in Uganda that proposes the death penalty for "repeat offenders" caused an international storm when it first came up last year, bringing to the surface the hardline intolerability of homosexuality in Africa.
    Homosexuality is illegal in 37 countries on the continent.
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