Tag Archives: Sub-Saharan Africa

Health + Ability, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Mozambique Feature | LGBT & HIV

LGBT Mozambicans’ Struggle for Healthcare Visibility and Protection

Despite the decriminalization of homosexuality in Mozambique in June 2015, LGBT Mozambicans, particularly those living with HIV, are still struggling for health security in the nation. While international organizations have stepped in to provide support, domestic clinics continue to discriminate while attempting to contain the country’s HIV infection rates, one of the highest in the world. Advocacy groups have begun working to create guidelines for the testing and treatment of the LGBT population as the continued exclusion of the highest-risk population has exacerbated the public health crisis.

Read more:
“Mozambique’s enduring discrimination leaves gay men untreated for HIV” (The Guardian)

Additional:
Lambda (Mozambique LGBT advocacy group)
“Dispatches: Mozambique’s Double Speak on LGBT Rights” (Human Rights Watch, January 2016)
“Mozambique decriminalises gay and lesbian relationships” (BBC, July 2015)

(Image Credit: LambdaMoz, via The Guardian)

Gender, Ideology + Affiliation

Sudan Feature | Women Activists

Video

The Embattled Women Activists of Sudan

A new Human Rights Watch report details the threatening conditions faced by women activists in Sudan. Women have reported being subjected to abuse, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention by Sudan’s security forces, while local media have slurred them as “lesbians and prostitutes.” As international agencies have called for more women in conflict resolution and men have continued violating women activists without impunity, women seeking to invest in their country’s future have struggled to find ways to include their voices while protecting their well-being.

Read more:
Good Girls Don’t Protest (Human Rights Watch)
Sudan: Silencing Women Rights Defenders (Human Rights Watch, YouTube)
“‘Good girls don’t protest’: report exposes attacks on Sudan’s female activists” (The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration

Malawi News | Mozambican Refugees

Mozambicans flee to Malawi as political violence spreads in their country
  • Since December, more than 11,500 have fled Mozambique to Malawi as RENAMO, Mozambique’s major opposition party, clashed with the ruling FRELIMO government.
  • Congested conditions have pushed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to look at relocation options for the Mozambican refugees, but the Malawi and Mozambique governments have clashed over refugee support.
  • RENAMO’s militarization has threatened to reignite violent conflict in Mozambique, which languished under a civil war from 1977 to 1992.

More:
More Mozambicans flee to Malawi as rebels, govt forces clash (SABC Digital News, YouTube)
“Refugees pay the price of Mozambique power struggle” (IRIN News)
“Malawi, Mozambique clash” (Malawi24)
“Malawi to reopen former camp, as Mozambique refugee numbers grow” (UNHCR press release)

(Image Credit: via IRIN)

Age, Ideology + Affiliation

Angola News | Youth Activists

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Youth activists sentenced in Angola for anti-government demonstrations
  • Seventeen activists were arrested in Luanda last June after an organized reading of Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Democracy, a text promoting non-violent resistance.
  • The group has been sentenced to between two and eight-and-a-half years in jail after conviction on charges of rebellion, planning mass civil disobedience, and producing fake passports.
  • President José Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for 37 years, and despite his pledge to step down in 2018, rampant inflation, public spending cuts, a public health crisis, and human rights infringements have increased anti-government sentiment in the lead-up to elections.

Read more:
“Angola Sends a Rapper and 16 Activists to Prison for Plotting Rebellion” (VICE News)
“Seventeen activists sentenced for rebelling against Angolan government” (Reuters)
“Angola: 17 youth activists jailed for anti-dos Santos rebellion” (Africanews with AFP)

(Image Credit: via Africanews)

Gender, Nationality + Migration

Kuwait News | Zimbabwean Women

As many as 200 Zimbabwean women caught up in Kuwaiti human trafficking scam
  • The women were lured to Kuwait under the pretense of domestic and healthcare employment but found themselves subjected to terrifying work conditions including starvation, violence, and false imprisonment.
  • While 15 of the women have been repatriated, at least 150 remain in Kuwait, caught up in a process that has seen a former Kuwaiti ambassador to Zimbabwe charged with human trafficking.
  • Many Zimbabweans, facing an unfavorable labor market at home, have taken to working abroad, with some having become trapped in employment and scholarship scams by human traffickers.

Read more:
“Zimbabwe: Former Kuwaiti diplomat trafficked 200 women” (International Business Times)
“Zim govt brings back 15 women trafficked to Kuwait – ministry” (News24)
“15 Zimbabwe women home after Kuwait trafficking scam” (Eyewitness News)

Health + Ability

South Africa Feature | Autism

Video

Parenting Autistic Children in South Africa

In South Africa, parents of children on the autism spectrum struggle to find support as they attempt to manage the difficulties of parenting children with special needs. Part one of an SABC News special report highlights challenges facing both children and parents, including abandonment, institutionalization, symptom management, controversial treatments, and a lack of resources in the country.

View the video on the SABC Digital News YouTube channel.

Ideology + Affiliation

DRC News | Activists

DR Congo activists go on hunger strike as detention without trial continues
  • Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala, members of the group Struggle for Change (Lucha), began their strike after the Supreme Court refused to release them from jail, despite their having been held for more than a year without trial following their arrest at a pro-democracy workshop.
  • An additional 30 members of Lucha have been arrested as the group has held demonstrations to move elections in the country up and secure basic resources for their neighborhoods.
  • Founded in 2012 on the principle of non-violent demonstration, Lucha has no centralized organization except that necessary to maintain communications, strategy, ideology, and funding, and the group, part of a growing constellation of youth movements across Africa, have so far refused external funding.

Read more:
“Congolese activists on hunger strike after court refuses release” (The Guardian)
“Law and disorder in the DRC: Who is Fred Bauma, Congo’s jailed Mahatma Gandhi?” (International Business Times)
“Congo police arrest 18 pro-democracy activists: U.N.” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: via The Guardian)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

South Africa Feature | Cape Malay

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Bo-Kaap and Post-Apartheid Gentrification

A once exclusively and now predominantly Cape Malay neighborhood in Cape Town, Bo-Kaap has become an attractive site for South Africans and foreigners of all backgrounds looking for cheaper residential alternatives in Cape Town’s revitalized downtown. While the neighborhood survived the apartheid-era banishment of non-white South Africans from the city, it now faces an identity crisis as gentrification encroaches upon the cultural integrity of the area, including religious life and property ownership. The New York Times reports on the history of the neighborhood and residents’ attitudes towards changes over the last two decades.

Read more:
“Muslim Enclave Forged in Apartheid Now Faces Gentrification” (The New York Times)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

South Africa Feature | Race

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The Festering Racial Wounds of South Africa

As university protests and social media rows have continued to erupt across the South African landscape, the legacy of colonialism and apartheid has continued to create sharp tensions among black and white South Africans. Black South Africans continue to trail their white counterparts significantly across several key indicators—including employment, executive representation, and living standards—while white South Africans have lashed out over being held accountable for previous generations’ atrocities. The New York Times examines some of the recent clashes.

Read more:
“Raw Tensions Over Race Fester in South Africa” (The New York Times)

Ideology + Affiliation

Uganda News | Journalists

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Journalists in Uganda experience harassment as elections near
  • Foreign and domestic journalists alike have reported harassment by Ugandan law enforcement and government officials while reporting on government-related stories.
  • Last Saturday, a BBC journalist was allegedly detained and ordered to delete footage of a decaying government hospital, though she and her team were eventually released.
  • Domestic journalists, particularly those in less urban areas, have been given official warning and had their licenses revoked over the last year, with the country set for elections on February 18 as President Yoweri Musaveni looks to extend his 30-year rule.

Read more:
“Pressure mounts on Ugandan journalists as election nears: campaigner” (Reuters)
“Journalists without degrees barred from covering Parliament” (The Daily Monitor)
“Parliament Withdraws Office Space from Journalists” (Uganda Radio Network)

(Image Credit: The Daily Monitor)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Ethiopia News | Nuer & Anuak

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Ethnic clashes escalate in the Gambella region of Ethiopia
  • At least 14 and possibly dozens have died in ethnic violence in the Itang administrative district of the western Ethiopian region.
  • Gambella, host to more than a quarter-million Nuer refugees, has seen a cascade of retaliatory violence between the Nuer and Anuak ethnic communities since the fall.
  • The Nuer refugees have fled from South Sudan as civil war persists, which has seen weapons transported to Ethiopia and further exacerbated the Gambella conflict.

Read more:
“Ethnic clashes in Ethiopia’s Gambella kill dozens, official says” (Bloomberg via The Chicago Tribune)
“Ethnic clashes in Gambella region of Ethiopia between Nuer and Anyuak communities” (The Sudan Tribune)

Gender

Uganda News | Women

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Ugandan women’s rights groups set up anti-violence center ahead of elections
  • Uganda’s Women’s Situation Room (WSR) has been established as a national monitoring and control center focused on protecting women against physical and psychological violence in tension-laden elections.
  • With elections scheduled for February 18, the center will run from February 15 to 20 and is the latest in a line of WSRs mobilized in African countries since 2011.
  • A central call center and in-field monitors and reporters (some 450 trained women and youth observers) form the main infrastructure of the system, which provides real-time support through coordination with law enforcement officials.

Read more:
“Uganda rights groups set to monitor violence against women during elections” (Reuters)
“Women’s Situation Room: Africa’s unique approach to reducing electoral violence” (UN Africa Renewal)
“Kiggundu urges women to expose poll cheats” (The Daily Monitor)

(Image Credit: Joseph Mathenge/UN Africa Renewal)

Nationality + Migration

Burkina Faso News | Foreigners

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Al-Qaeda–linked militants kill more than two dozen in attack on Burkina Faso capital
  • At least 28 were killed when Islamist extremists launched an attack at the Cappuccino cafe and the Splendid Hotel, popular with UN staff and foreign visitors in the capital city of Ouagadougou.
  • At least 18 nationalities were identified among the victims, including Burkinabe, Canadian, French, Swiss, Dutch, and American citizens.
  • Of the 176 hostages freed by security forces, at least 56 were injured in the violence.

Read more:
“Burkina Faso attack: Foreigners killed at luxury hotel” (BBC)
“Burkina Faso hotel attack: 18 nationalities among dead” (The Guardian)
“Six Canadians killed in Burkina Faso attack, PM Trudeau says” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: AP, via BBC)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Rwanda News | Tutsi

Rwandan pastor convicted of involvement in 1994 genocide
  • Jean Uwinkindi, a former Pentecostal pastor, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of contributing to the slaughter that left 800,000 minority ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead in 1994.
  • The court found that Uwinkindi, arrested in 2010, was responsible for coordinating and leading attacks against Tutsis at Rwankeri and Kanzene hills
  • Uwinkindi had been a pastor at the time of the genocide and reportedly executed Tutsi women and children who sought refuge in his church.

Read more:
“Rwandan pastor jailed for life for genocide-era crimes” (Reuters)
“Rwanda : Génocide, un ancien pasteur condamné à la prison à vie” (Koaci, in French)
“Rwanda genocide: Jean Uwinkindi sentenced to life in prison” (BBC)

(Image Credit: Getty Images, via BBC)

Health + Ability

Mauritius News | Mental Illness

Mauritius announces review of mental health legislation to protect patients with disabilities and mental illnesses
  • The government announced through a press release that it would begin addressing deficiencies in healthcare treatment for people with mental illnesses.
  • The Minister of Health and Quality of Life pointed specifically to psychiatric care, seniors, and the social security of people with mental illnesses as targets for examination.
  • Mauritius’s mental healthcare budget currently comprises 9.7% of the government’s 9.7 billion rupee ($253,809,090) budget.

“It is our firm conviction at the Ministry that dignity for any patient must mean that the patient is being treated with kindness and compassion.”

Read more:
“Mental Health Care Act to be reviewed to better address mental health issues” (Republic of Mauritius Government Information Service)