Malawi’s new president has pledged to lift the country’s ban on homosexuality, breaking ranks from much of Africa where such activity remains a crime.
Joyce Banda, who came to power in April on the death of her predecessor, said in her first state of the nation address on Friday: “Indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed.” She described the measure as a matter of urgency.
Elsewhere in the speech, Banda said her government wanted to normalise relations with “our traditional development partners who were uncomfortable with our bad laws”.
But repealing a law requires a parliamentary vote and, although Banda’s party commands a majority, it is unclear how much support the move would have in this socially conservative nation.
Malawi was widely condemned for the conviction and 14-year prison sentences given in 2010 to two men who were arrested after celebrating their engagement and were charged with unnatural acts and gross indecency.
The president at the time, Bingu wa Mutharika, pardoned the couple on “humanitarian grounds only”, while claiming they had “committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws”.
Mutharika died from a heart attack in April. Banda, who was vice-president, stepped in to serve out his term, which ends in 2014. She has hit the ground running with a cabinet reshuffle, the sacking of the police chief and sweeping reforms to break from Mutharika’s autocratic rule.
Her audacious plan to legalise homosexuality was welcomed by the campaigner Gift Trapence, executive director of the Centre for the Development of People. “If that’s what the president said, Malawi is going in the right direction in terms of human rights and meeting international human rights standards, and saying people are equal irrespective of sexual orientation,” he said.
Banda has previously demonstrated her liberal attitudes on the issue, he continued. “When she was vice-president she was invited to address a group of religious leaders and she spoke in favour of including LGBT communities in HIV interventions.”
Trapence said Banda’s stand offers hope in a continent where homosexuality is criminalised in 37 countries. “It has come at the right time as the African Union is coming to attend a summit in Malawi. This sends a good message to the African heads of state who will attend.”
Trapence said the gay couple whose engagement caused a storm, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, were no longer together. Chimbalanga gained asylum in Cape Town, South Africa, while Monjeza is serving a three-year prison sentence for theft.
“They will be happy at this decision,” he added. “They will look back at how they suffered and were incarcerated and have a smile that at least they did something to influence the sodomy laws under which they were convicted.”
Wapona Kita, one of Malawi’s leading human rights lawyers, said he welcomed the president’s announcement. “She has done the right thing. The repeal of this bad law is long overdue.”
The law is “unconstitutional against international human rights standards”, he added.
Undule Mwakasungula, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, said: “This is good news for us as we have been advocating for these sodomy laws to be reviewed or repealed as part of all the bad laws. Now that president Joyce Banda has indicated that the sodomy laws will be part of the laws to be repealed, this is very welcome development.”
In South Africa, the only African country with laws protecting gay rights, activist Mark Heywood said Banda would have international support. “I hope that she is persuasive enough in her own country,” he told the Associated Press. “It’s really important for other African countries other than South Africa to move in this direction. Symbolically, I think it is very important for Africa.”
A report this week from Kenya and Uganda by the watchdog Human Rights First found that African homosexuals who fled persecution in their countries were abducted, beaten and raped in the places where they sought asylum.
It cited examples including two refugee women in Uganda who were abducted and raped because they had been assisting LGBT refugees, five cases of “corrective rape” of lesbian or transgender male refugees in Uganda and a gay Somali teenager in Kenya who was doused in petrol and would have been set on fire if not for the intervention of an older Somali woman.
Human Rights First, a US-based non-governmental organisation, called on Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, to help make sure that LGBT refugees gain access to safety and protection from violence.
The Guardian
Posted by
Douglas Mudenda
May 22, 2012 at 11:27 am
People are following the west blindly. The west have by and large as society (not necessarily individuals) forsaken God hence legalising one of the sins God hates the most that he had to send down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. The major sin in Sodom was sodomy which the same as same sex relations. People may have missed this but the USA has legalised sex with animals and very soon it will also be a condition for aid. lets work had as Africans so that we can earn our own money so that these issues are not forced
Janet c
May 22, 2012 at 11:41 am
@ mnkhonto wesizwe – you too have the right to call me what you want. Can you then suggest an alternative? Zambians and some sections of the human race will never stop being gay just because you and others condemn them. They have always existed in our society and always will – so what are you going to do about it – tell us??? Prayer will not stop them, death penalty will not stop them – and the question is, why should they stop if that is what two consenting adults agree to. This is the very reason we had a story last week of an Immam sodomising a young boy – if the Immam could freely choose a consenting adult, the poor boy would not be traumatised today. If gays remain in the closet, tomorrow it could be your own son who is sodomised – or even what if your son tells you he is gay, will you burn him, will you stone him? What ‘solution’ are you suggesting?
UMUNTU MUTWE
May 22, 2012 at 11:46 am
I hope and trust that this does not happen in a christian nation like our mother zambia. This woman to me is an agent of the devil whose mission has been set to destroy peoples lives. People of God does the bible allow such rubbish? Countrymen and women let us pray for malawi before it turns out to be sodom and Gomorah and infect us with this deadly disease called ‘HOMOSEXUALITY’. May God deliver this woman(SHE DEVIL)
umuntu mutwe
May 22, 2012 at 11:55 am
This is indeed an act not acceptable by God. To me this woman is an agent of the devil.May God deliver this woman (SHE DEVIL) for thinking of transforming the country into sodom and Gomorah.Very soon she will legalise sex with animals.
Fellow zambians let us hold hands and pray for our brothers and sistes in malawi before they perish.
BATUMFWEKO NAIMWE STOP HIDING PEOPLE’S COMMENTS.
Boogie
May 22, 2012 at 12:03 pm
I wonder why we Africans follow what the west does without thinking. Homosexuality in Africa is a taboo.If the west want so much to export this kind of life to Africa, they must also legalise polygamy. Mind you polygamy is a very serious case in the USA and those found practising it are jailed for a long time.
AntiSodoma
May 22, 2012 at 1:06 pm
To support sodomy as a human right is clearly antiChrist. These are evil laws preparing the world for the most lawless time in history, the time of the coming anti-christ. God who created the person says its inhuman but the created says No, some were naturally created with that orientation, who do you believe if you go normally, the creature or the Creator? Isn’t it obvious?
Wayaka Mulilo
May 22, 2012 at 1:12 pm
No fear of God therefore we see homos getting permitted even to wed, “ladies and gents i present to you mr and mr Sodomy”.
one two
May 22, 2012 at 1:16 pm
USLEE,USLEE
Air Mukwai_
May 22, 2012 at 1:19 pm
@ kakolwe: you being engaged into a moody of amygdala state does not edict you into an unsavory insults but rather requires you to use the brain power to debate.
Air Mukwai_
May 22, 2012 at 2:17 pm
@ Boogie: even christianity is not african. it was used by minorities to grab land from us. mind you, its not all new things that are good and not all old things that are bad. but drawing a line of tolerance where humanity & its existence must be an ingredient of respect and all its offshoot. Homosexuality sounds western but it has existed in africa many moons away. in bemba it is called “mpunusu” it was also noted during the time of luba-lunda emigration among infantry. in tonga it was called “dyabbila” possessed men. (dyabbila is a half man spirit with mighty power).
mkhonto wesizwe
May 22, 2012 at 3:23 pm
@ Air Mukwi you are not telling the truth that Gay existed in africa coz I had a discussion with my very old grand parent and she told us that such things never existed. So, stop justifying that by fabricating history. Just coz that na,e is u’ve mentioned and claim it existed doesnt make it african.
mama
May 22, 2012 at 3:38 pm
i wonder what TBJ will have to say about her,coz she has been to scoan but it seems sh just went there to make statistcs that she was there.am so disapointed at her.anyway we need to have a candle light service and pray for her deliverance
mkhonto wesizwe
May 22, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Tumfweko is not publishing my comments. Have stopped. It seems they are selecting now.
kakolwe
May 22, 2012 at 4:04 pm
@air mukwai & janet c
a litany of inexplicable idioms and heads burried in utopia will nenver make a wrong right. This is of no dispute, fools &deviants are always going to be with us. the best normality can & will always strive to do is to correct. You find unpalatable words repulsive? That is how all normality finds gayism. If I was told that my son is gay, I can do as little as I can if I was told that my son has gone mad.
Blessing
May 22, 2012 at 4:14 pm
May God deliver the Malawian President for making such bad decisions as this one.
mkhonto wesizwe
May 22, 2012 at 4:17 pm
@ Kakolwe. Try and help revive the minds of @ Air mukwai and @ Janet C. These guys morals are heavily degraded that Christ has to die again for them to be redeemed. Have tried to put sense especially in @ Janet C even beofore. If these people who call themselves gay say they can’t change, it doesn’t make it legal. We had Simon Kapenda the criminal ( hope thats the correct first name). He terrorised people in the 80s got arrested and sentenced to death but was not killed til Mwanawasa time. He got paroled but later started the same behavior cause he was a mentally chronic killer. @ Janet C, here is the question… Should we legalise armede robbery because Kapenda and many like him are just like that…?
Air Mukwai_
May 22, 2012 at 6:46 pm
@ mkhonto wesizwe:
1.of course you will not and never get real history of africa from a 22 yr grandma of yours.
2.get me right, “never spoiler” kapenda criminality was conditional that inflicted other people carte blanche. For sure such kind of people must be removed from society. Do gay people pounce on innocent people? the answer is NO, they do it in mutual consent among themselves. if anything you need to talk about rapists & adulterers who seem to be on rampant in this country.
3. Jesus wept !!!
baja
May 22, 2012 at 8:05 pm
pipo,God had a purpose to create mankind,most of all as co-creators.he gave us a gift to create man kind to fill the word.now if we start same sex marriage,it will be contrary to our creation because we wont keep the world running in that same sex marriage cant create life.why exist if you cant creat,so @ janet c,please am begging with you,normally am not surpozd to.DO NOT LEAD US INTO TEMTATIONS,BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
chik
May 22, 2012 at 8:14 pm
what a leader. i was taught and educated that leader are chosen by God.Can someone plise tell that this leader is not from God. maybe the population in malawi is so high that he wants to use gay way has a family planning method
vernon
May 22, 2012 at 10:05 pm
God deliver her
Janet c
May 22, 2012 at 10:30 pm
I have agreed to dis-agree with those opposing the rights of gays. Continue living in wonderland – I will be vindicated in a few years – gay rights ARE here to stay so I would advise you to take a good look at yourselves and stop condemning fellow humans, especially those claiming to be christian and yet are expressing hatred for gays – humans just like you and me – in the same sentence
WATI ...ATI
May 22, 2012 at 10:48 pm
why hide my comments. am out of here.
kakolwe
May 23, 2012 at 1:10 am
In all of humanity & daily living, there exists no demilitarized zone. There’s no buffer for people to stay on the fence. Its either you are in or out. Thus, a right will EVER be a right. Even if that law was passed, it would be wrong. Just because a pervert spouse consents to adultery, doesn’t justify other deviant behaviour patterns & we will always frown upon them.
THE END.
Yamwela
May 23, 2012 at 11:11 am
Animals cant do it so why humans. Well they cant be stoped so let them carry on doing each other ponyela man to man. As for you lesbians please come take my dik for free use.
I feel pity for janet c
May 23, 2012 at 1:28 pm
I feel pity for janet c
Sthutu
May 23, 2012 at 2:35 pm
@Air mukwai and Janet C
Are you guys gay n Lesbian.
You speak very strongly for the gay.
Would you be around if your parents had been in same sex relationships.
Nangu mwalisambilila ifintufimo mulechefyeko.
Show some respect for our culture