Since independence, the land ownership reform and redistribution of farmland from the white settler minority to the indigenous black majority has been central to Zimbabwean politics, with most viable land having been legally restricted to white owners and large—largely white-owned—corporations in the colonial era.
The government began allowing for the seizure of white-owned farms without compensation after a period of voluntary land sales, and some militant groups and security forces occupied farms and drove out their owners.
Following the effective coup that brought about the end of President Robert Mugabe’s nearly three decades of rule, the new government, led by former Vice President Emmerson Mnangawa, has begun returning expropriated land to white farmers in an attempt to stabilize the fragile economy.
Police violently break up protest against Mugabe government in Harare as anger swells
Peaceful protesters and journalists were attacked with batons during a demonstration against President Robert Mugabe’s handling of the economy in Zimbabwe.
Protesters have been rallying against the government’s economic policies, with ire having ballooned over proposals to introduce local bank notes into the economy.
Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party also expelled nine senior leaders, including four war veterans linked to a statement denouncing him.
Largest protests in years bubble up in Zimbabwe as anger over economy grows
Protests against government corruption, unpaid salaries, and a generally failing economy led to a general strike and street protests, prompting a government response that included violent attacks on and intimidation of citizens.
A prominent religious leader who called for the strike was arrested then released on technicality after having been charged with inciting public violence and later with conspiring to overthrow the government.
The protests have been the largest challenge in a decade to the rule of President Robert Mugabe, who has held power in the country since its independence from Britain in 1980.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia
Commemorating the day when homosexuality was de-pathologized by the World Health Organization in 1990, the 13th-annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia (IDAHOT) stands as an occasion for global mobilization towards LGBT visibility and security. The day, like many global celebrations, is also one many governments choose to speak out on global human rights and minority security, announcing initiatives to support their LGBT citizens and international projects.
Even today, ongoing disagreements between nations over LGBT rights have prompted diplomatic rows and roadblocks to international cooperation, including the recent objection of 51 Muslim countries to the participation of LGBT groups in a U.N. AIDS forum in June. The push to extinguish homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia at all geographic levels remains important to the global mobility of LGBT people worldwide.
LGBT Nigerians have continued wrestling with conflicting legal messages, with the recent passage of the landmark HIV Anti-Discrimination Act doing little to undo the effects of a 2014 anti-homosexuality law.
The Gay and Lesbians Association of Zimbabwe (GALZ) organized events for IDAHOT in Bulawayo, focusing on mental health as ongoing social and healthcare difficulties plague the community.
Though homosexuality remains criminalized in Tunisia, activists have achieved increased visibility and pushed for legal reform amidst ongoing discrimination.
Israel reaffirmed its commitment to LGBT Israelis, announcing funding to support an emergency shelter for LGBT youth and a hostel for trans people who have recently undergone gender confirmation surgery.
Days before IDAHOT, activists staged a sit-in outside of a Beirut gendarmerie, protesting Lebanon‘s anti-homosexuality legal holdovers from French occupation. Similarly, the Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) issued an appeal to the Lebanese government to decriminalize same-sex relations, arguing for recognition of homosexuality’s presence within the natural variation of human sexuality.
U.S. President Barack Obama released a statement of support as his administration lended its voice to a national debate over the bathroom rights of trans people.
Across Latin America, important gains in same-sex partnership and family rights and gender identity healthcare and legal protections have heartened LGBT Latin Americans, but the region continues to have some of the highest reported rates of violence against the LGBT community in the world.
LGBT organizations held cultural and political events throughout Argentina to highlight conditions facing the Argentine LGBT community, call for an anti-discrimination law, and press for federal recognition of the International Day Against Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination, as the day is known.
Cuba celebrated the day fresh off Pride events in Havana, where Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, led a parade of thousands through the city streets.
As the country continues contentious battles including the push for marriage equality and erasure of “gay panic” legal defenses, rainbow flags and celebrations appeared across Australia, including over police stations in Canberra, in the streets of Brisbane, and in the senior-care facilities of Tasmania. In Victoria, officials announced a retreat for Aboriginal gender minorities to be held later in the year.
In China, a study conducted by the U.N. Development Programme, Peking University, and the Beijing LGBT Center, the largest of its kind to date, was released revealing that only 5% of LGBTI Chinese are fully out at school and work, but also showed encouraging levels of acceptance of LGBTI people among China’s youth. The head of Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission expressed support for anti-discrimination legislation at IDAHOT festivities in the city.
In Fiji, former President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau joined festivities at the French Ambassador’s residence to celebrate the island’s LGBTQI community.
A tug-of-war over LGBT rights between Islamic fundamentalists and pro-diversity moderates in Indonesia has led to mixed messages about LGBT security in the nation, spurring anti-discrimination protests.
A recent Human Rights Watch report on anti-LGBT bullying in Japan served as a reminder of the purpose of the day, highlighting rampant anti-LGBT sentiment even as the government has initiated broad efforts to combat bullying in schools.
The divergent prospects for LGBTI people across Europe, from Western Europe’s distinctive commitment to the protection of gender diversity to ongoing persecution in the East, was further confirmed through a UNESCO report highlighting anti-LGBT violence in schools released as global education ministers met in Paris.
Rainbow colors appeared in the shopping district of Cyprus‘s capital as 22 organizations came together to organize events to launch the country’s third Pride Festival, focusing on the need to increase legal recognition of both sexual and gender minorities in the country.
In Gibraltar, organizers canceled event plans in support of action on marriage equality legislation currently under consideration, arguing that holding a rally in front of the Parliament as uncertainty prevails would undermine pressure on MPs.
Kosovo‘s first Pride march brought out hundreds from the LGBT community to Pristina, including the U.S. and U.K. ambassadors.
Organizations in Luxembourg planned a silent march to call attention to the plight of LGBTI individuals worldwide and call for increased international protections (including asylum).
Organizers in Serbia took the day to announce the date of this year’s Pride parade (September 18) and address concerns of homophobia as right-wing parliamentary representation has increased.
Advocates, allies, and diplomats gathered around the rainbow flag raised at the US Embassy in Latvia.
After advocates scrapped plans for IDAHOT activities in Georgia due to security concerns, a group of activists were arrested for painting pro-LGBT graffiti on administrative buildings. A “Family Day” protest against LGBT rights and visibility, the third such anti-LGBT demonstration, brought together members of Georgia’s conservative Orthodox community and international religious groups.
In the U.K., London’s new mayor promised to make the city a more just place for its LGBT residents as a rainbow flag flew over the Mayor’s Office.
Zimbabwe looks to black farmers to provide reparations to displaced white farmers
As the Zimbabwean government struggles to keep its economy afloat, it has toyed with shifting the burden of reparation to black farmers, who lease land from the government, through a compensation fund created through their rent payments.
White farmers were displaced as a part of a contentious indigenization program that saw massive land redistribution beginning in 2000, promoted as a corrective to the expropriation of land from black families under colonialism.
More than 6,000 farms remain for reparation assessment, with only 240 white farmers having begun to receive payment.
Deadline for Zimbabwe’s controversial corporate indigenization plan passes
President Robert Mugabe has pushed a contentious plan to have all companies operating in Zimbabwe—including major multinational corporations—comply with a 2008 law to transfer majority shares to black Zimbabweans to “indigenize” their local firms.
The plan was conceived as a corrective to colonial-era economic exclusion and is a follow-up to the ongoing land reform program that has transferred farm ownership from white to black Zimbabweans.
It is unclear how many companies, faced with the revocation of their operating licenses, have complied to date, and many concerned that the program discourages foreign direct investment.
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.
Police break up worker protest following Supreme Court ruling in Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions had been planning to lead a demonstration in Harare before police arrived to disperse the crowd.
Plans for the demonstration emerged following the Supreme Court’s ruling that employers could terminate contracts on notice, which has reportedly led to significant job losses.
Smaller demonstrations moved forward in Gweru, Mutare, and other cities.
“The leaders (of the demonstrations) were taken and thrown all over Harare but that is not a solution. Government must know that they are creating a time bomb. We have 2018 that is coming and several issues that must be addressed.”
Zimbabwe organizations fight for sexual rights and education for people with intellectual disabilities
A recent panel in Harare focused on access to sexual reproductive health and HIV services for people with disabilities in Zimbabwe, who face marginalization due to lack of understanding about the spectrum of intellectual disability.
One leader of the Zimcare Trust, an organization focused on the empowerment of people with intellectual disabilities, noted that the legal and social infantilization of people with intellectual disabilities led to their being ill-informed about their own sexual health, increasing the likelihood of disease and pregnancy.
The National AIDS Council indicated it has established a special desk to ensure access to reproductive and HIV services.
“There is a thin line between Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act that regards a sexual encounter with a ‘mentally incompetent’ person as rape and a person with intellectual challenge choosing to have sex. … Persons with disabilities are regarded as perpetual minors no matter how old hence have no access to SRH [sexual and reproductive health] services.”
Zimbabwe Prosecutor-General says marriage and sex should be an option for young girls disengaged from school
As MPs and children’s rights advocates call for increased legal protections for girls under the age of 16, head government prosecutor Johannes Tomana indicated that girls disconnected from educational opportunities should not be kept from sex or marriage.
Zimbabwe’s age of consent is 16, and the country suffers from one of the highest child marriage rates in the world, with provinces seeing up to 50% of its minors married off.
Tomana also indicated agreement with community service sentences for sexual abusers, claiming that public embarrassment is sufficient punishment for the crime.
“We’ve nine-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds who’re actually not in school, who’re not doing anything for example. What are we saying to them? We say you can’t even do this [have sex], when the environment is not giving them alternative engagements? What are we talking about?”
The rise of the “others” in the UK, Lebanese immigrants’ success in Canada, LGBT anti-discrimination events in Kyrgyzstan, compulsory Chinese in Zimbabwean education, and more in today’s news rounds…Continue reading The Thursday Rounds→
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