WHY AFRICA NEEDS WOMEN POWER

President Joyce Banda

Malawi’s new president Joyce Banda is really shaking things up. She announced that she will work to overturn Malawi’s law which bans homosexual acts, reported the BBC.

Banda said she wants to repeal “bad laws” when speaking at her first “State of the Nation” address to parliament on Friday, May 18. She has the support of a majority of parliament, so she may well succeed in undoing the legislation that outlaws homosexuality.

Banda, 62, is shaping up to be one of Africa’s most interesting leaders. She became president on April 7 after the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika.

Banda was Mutharika’s running mate in the 2009 elections, but then fell out with him. Nevertheless when he died of a heart attack she was sworn in as Malawi’s new head of state. Banda is Africa’s second female president, after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who recently won re-election to a second term.

Banda quickly announced that she would be doing things differently from Mutharika, who had alienated donor nations, especially Britain. Banda reversed several of his policies. She devalued the currency, the kwacha, by 30 per cent in a bid to get donor funding restored, reported AP. Many donors cut aid under Mutharika, accusing him of economic mismanagement and political repression.

Banda also decided not to invite Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir to attend an African Union summit Malawi is hosting in July. She said she feared the “economic implications” if Bashir visited the country in defiance of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges over the conflict in Darfur.

Malawi’s relations with donors have already improved thanks to Banda’s actions and the British government, which had been extremely critical of Mutharika, is now urging other donors to restore funding as soon as possible.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, with up to 60 per cent of its 15.4 million people living below the poverty line, according to the UN. Foreign aid used to make up a large proportion of the national budget.

If Banda succeeds in decriminalizing homosexuality, Malawi will join South Africa as the two countries in Africa where gay sex is not illegal. South Africa’s 1996 constitution prohibits discrimination against gays and allows same-sex marriage. However, many ordinary South Africans remain homophobic and there have been several murders of gays in recent years.

Many Malawians and Malawian churches also disapprove of homosexuality. In 2010 two Malawian men were sentenced to 14 years in prison after they announced they would get married. Eventually they were pardoned by Mutharika on “humanitarian grounds only” but he said they had “committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws.” according to the BBC.

Other African countries are strongly against gay rights. Uganda has a bill before its parliament that calls for harsh penalties for homosexuality. At first the bill called for the death penalty, but the bill has since been changed to call for a sentence of life imprisonment.

In parts of Nigeria and Sudan that use Shariah law, homosexuality is punishable by death. In Liberia, Johnson Sirleaf said earlier this year she would keep a law that makes voluntary sodomy illegal.

But not all African leaders are anti-gay. Last year, Botswana’s former president Festus Mogae and former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda urged decriminalization of homosexuality.

The two ex-presidents went to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, in June 2011 as part of their campa­ign to reduce HIV transmission.

“We can preach about behavioural change, but as long as we confine gays and lesbians into dark corners because of our infl­exibility to accommodate them, the battle on HIV and AIDS can never be won,” Mogae said.

Story by: Shadow Walker

MALAWI TO REPEAL ANTI HOMOSEXUAL LAWS

In what may come to be the first steps in a landmark move for LGBT rights in Africa, Malawian President Joyce Banda has announced plans to repeal laws which currently criminalize homosexual activity in the southeast African country.

Speaking at her first address to the nation as President, following the death of previous incumbent Bingu wa Mutharika, Banda declared that “Some laws which were duly passed by the August House […] will be repealed as a matter of urgency […] these include the provisions regarding indecent practices and unnatural acts.”

Whilst this may be a hugely significant step for any African government to make, such a repeal would make Malawi only the second African nation to adopt such a policy. South Africa has had a policy protecting LGBT rights enshrined in law since its post-apartheid constitution came into being in 1996. In fact, it was one of the first countries in the world to legalize gay marriage in 2006.

That said, whilst the law may be designed to protect gay rights, it can do little to affect change in the conscious of a nation where LGBT people are still serially stigmatized. One only has to consider the vile phenomenon of ‘corrective rape’ that has been inflicted upon a number of South African lesbians, the most well known of whom was former international footballer Eudy Simelane, who was gang raped and stabbed to death in 2008 as a result of her proudly publicized orientation. Others to have suffered at the hands of barbaric attitudes towards LGBT people include the 6 men who were murdered by a homophobic serial killer in Johannesburg in 2010-11, including HIV-positive TV presenter Jason Wessenaar Whilst these examples are extreme, they are indicative of the prejudices that are faced in the so-called ‘rainbow nation’.

President Banda’s people may well incur similar stigmatization. In 2010, under the governance of Mutharika, two men, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, were sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for daring to declare their love for one another publically. Whilst the president later pardoned them, this was less due to a shift in attitudes as a visit from UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. The ordeal and media exposure later drove Chimbalanga to immigrate to Canada amid continuing threats to his safety. Chimbalanga & Monjeza were sentenced to 14 years before it was later revoked

It must be hoped that President Banda’s moves towards legalization are not more political posturing. In November 2011, David Cameron said at a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that the UK may consider cutting aid to nations who have poor track records of promoting LGBT rights. Given that the vast majority of Malawi’s budget is made up of aid, it makes sense politically and financially for Banda to position herself, and her nation, as promoting LGBT rights. It must also be noted that whilst David Cameron’s stance might seem admirable, Malawi and many other Commonwealth nations had never had anti-homosexual laws of any kind until towards the end of British colonial rule in the 1930s.

Such headlines are typical of the negative attitudes surrounding the LGBT community in Malawi

On the day that Monjeza and Chimbalanga were handed their sentences, the judge had told them, “Malawi is not ready to see its sons getting married to its sons.” If Joyce Banda has the perseverance to persist at truly promoting LGBT rights within Malawi, it could become a beacon for all Africa in promoting equality. If one of the most impoverished nations on the continent can lead by example, surely that bodes well for the LGBT community in Africa long-term?