International Pressure On Tanzania To Legalize Same-sex Sexual Activities
The U.S. Department of State's 2011 Human Rights Report found that "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons faced societal discrimination that restricted their access to health care, housing, and employment".
The United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2011 at its meeting in Geneva completed a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the human rights situation in Tanzania. At this UPR, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) publicly urged Tanzania to repeal its statutes that criminalize same-sex sexual activities. The UNCT said in paragraph 27 of its report,
Homosexuality is considered contrary to cultural norms; same sex sexual relations are criminalized. Group arrests in connection with peaceful assemblies, non-attendance to HIV patients, as well as forcible evictions of persons due to their sexual orientation by local and religious communities have been reported. Moreover, representatives of the groups and other human rights defenders may not be willing to make public statements in favor of tolerance and decriminalization for fear of reprisals.
Tanzania refused. Mathias Meinrad Chikawe, the Tanzanian Minister of State and Good Governance, said in Geneva,
There was an issue raised on same-sex marriages, etc. It is true we do not have a law allowing same-sex marriages in our country, and that I say again, due to our own traditions and very cultural strong beliefs. Although activities involving same-sex do take place, but they do take place under cover, so to say, and like I said when I was presenting our report on the ICCPR, that if one were to exhibit such a behavior in public, one could be, actually be stoned by the public itself. It is a cultural thing. It's not yet acceptable. So the government ... it would be very strange for the government to propose a law towards allowing that; so, it's just that maybe time has not come for us to consider such freedoms in our country.
Since the UPR concluded, Tanzania has not softened its policies or rhetoric. In October 2011 at the Commonwealth Head of Government's meeting in Perth, Australia, the prime minister of the United Kingdom (UK), David Cameron, said that the UK may withhold or reduce aid to governments that do not reform statutes criminalizing homosexuality. In response, Tanzania's minister for foreign affairs and international cooperation, Bernard Membe, said,
Tanzania will never accept Cameron's proposal because we have our own moral values. Homosexuality is not part of our culture and we will never legalise it.... We are not ready to allow any rich nation to give us aid based on unacceptable conditions simply because we are poor. If we are denied aid by one country, it will not affect the economic status of this nation and we can do without UK aid.
In the Tanzanian parliament on 11 November 2011, the Tanzanian prime minister, Mizengo Pinda, responded to a question from a parliament member about whether the government was prepared to lose aid from the UK. He said,
You are not being fair to me as the government has already made its stand clear on the matter … but since you want to get my opinion, I would like to say that homosexuality is unacceptable to our society. We need to look critically on these issues. To me this is unacceptable. Even animals can’t do such a thing.
In the Tanzanian parliament on 20 June 2012, Membe responded to a question from a parliament member, Khatib Said Haji, about the position of the government on the pressure by western countries demanding abolition of anti-gay laws. Membe said, "We are ready to lose aid and support from friendly countries that are now pushing for repeal of anti-gay laws in African nations" and that Tanzania was ready to go it alone rather than being subjected to humiliation and dehumanization.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In Tanzania
Famous quotes containing the words pressure and/or activities:
“The universal social pressure upon women to be all alike, and do all the same things, and to be content with identical restrictions, has resulted not only in terrible suffering in the lives of exceptional women, but also in the loss of unmeasured feminine values in special gifts. The Drama of the Woman of Genius has too often been a tragedy of misshapen and perverted power.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“That is the real pivot of all bourgeois consciousness in all countries: fear and hate of the instinctive, intuitional, procreative body in man or woman. But of course this fear and hate had to take on a righteous appearance, so it became moral, said that the instincts, intuitions and all the activities of the procreative body were evil, and promised a reward for their suppression. That is the great clue to bourgeois psychology: the reward business.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)