U.S. focuses on Pride, decriminalization and HIV care in West Africa
SIXTH IN A SERIES: U.S. advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights in West Africa included support for Pride in Liberia, inconclusive encouragement for decriminalization in Togo and extensive work to remove barriers to health care in Nigeria.
This is the sixth in an eight-part series focusing on the impact of President Joe Biden’s February 2021 order to U.S. government agencies to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world.” In April 2022, a total of 14 U.S. departments and agencies, ranging from the State Department to the Peace Corps, combined to create a comprehensive report about what they have done in response to that presidential order.
Related commentary: “Biden is silent when a loud message on global LGBT rights is needed” (Erasing 76 Crimes, November 2021)
Of the 32 African nations where homosexual activity is illegal, today’s post focuses on excerpts from report about the West African nations of Togo, Liberia and Nigeria.
In Togo, the United States, the UN, the EU, Germany, and France urged the Human Rights Minister to strike down laws that criminalize homosexuality.
The U.S. Embassy in Liberia hosted a Pride event in October for the Liberian LGBTQI+ community in conjunction with an LGBTQI+ rights NGO. The attendees, activists from several non-governmental organizations, expressed appreciation for the attention from Embassy leadership. They discussed the impact of socioeconomic status on personal safety and community hesitancy around the COVID-19 vaccine.
The international U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) reported that in Nigeria, its implementing partners engage in LGBTQI+ advocacy, including through a grant and other funding sources. The grants provide funding to create a training curriculum for law enforcement and legal practitioners on sexuality, gender, and human rights issues. The implementing partner will collaborate with the National Human Rights Commission and LGBTQI+ activists to develop curriculum.
Nigeria’s PEPFAR program addresses barriers to care and discrimination. Through One Stop Shops, PEPFAR provides HIV and gender-based violence services and advocacy for LGBTQI+ persons. In FY 2021,
PEPFAR reached a total of 1,109,306 people through the key populations program, including 428,262 men who have sex with men (MSM) and 4,196 transgender individuals. PEPFAR provides treatment for over 1.6 million Nigerians, of which 222,793 are key populations, 83,354 are MSM, and 2,117 are transgender.
Through PEPFAR, the U.S. government has expanded access to health and advocacy services for LGBTQI+ persons. PEPFAR also launched the Patient Education and Empowerment (PEEP) Program. PEEP developed and delivered training on gender and sexual diversity, stigma and discrimination, and sexual and reproductive rights to over 100 representatives from the National Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria and representatives from the LGBTQI+ community.
Colin,
First off thank you for this report and the Website. I need to comment on the October event at the US Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia. I am hard-pressed to call this a “Pride” event. On October 19, 2021, Joel Maybury, Deputy Chief of Mission, hosted a dinner for “Human Rights Activists” according to the report on the Embassy’s Facebook page (an entry on October 20). There is a very nice photograph of Maybury and a number of other people who presumably were in attendance at the dinner. Nobody is identified and no organization is named. Certainly there is no mention of the LGBTQI+ community although there are some clues in the photograph. I’m happy the dinner took place, and it’s a great step for the U.S. Embassy in Liberia, but we don’t want to go overboard with praise and especially with the suggestion that this was an LGBTQI+ event. It was not. The situation for LGBTQI+ folks in Liberia is still nothing short of deplorable.