New Global Acceptance Index ranks 141 countries on LGBT acceptance and legal protections and provides a link between inclusion and GDP per capita.
Young queer Africans take a stand
African human rights body urges renewed efforts on human rights in response to HIV
Liberia: LGBT Rights Are 'Absolute Nonsense' for Alexander Cummings
Liberia's HIV Catch up Plan Suffers Setbacks
Dr. Miriam Chipimo, in a meeting with journalists from Anti-AIDS Media Network Tuesday at her office in Monrovia, outlined impediments to the country's HIV catchup plan as scanty tests, low treatment opportunities for people living with HIV and AIDS, including other key populations, health facilities not user friendly, and failure of state actors to properly use donor funds in priority areas as some of the challenges in meeting the catchup plan envisaged in the global target of 90, 90, 90.
Niger: Resolution 376 on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Africa
West Africa: Mapping of LGBTQ organizations
Commissioned by a group of donors and activists, We exist: Mapping of LGBTQ organizations in West Africa is in an explanatory and participatory process to initiate the creation of a new funding mechanism led by LGBTQ activists West Africa. A group of funders and activists came together in 2013 to propose the creation of a bilingual fund managed and led by West African LGBTQ activists. The creation of such a fund would not only provide emerging leaders with the tools and spaces they need to build a more effective, inclusive movement for LGBTQ rights in West Africa, but also serve as a much-needed activist-owned platform for social change.
It would provide international donors with a safe and trusted mechanism to invest strategically in the region and to ensure their resources were reaching the grassroots with accountability. It would introduce a mechanism through which local strategies could be shared and regional strategies developed collectively, both proactively and in response to crises. Finally, it would provide a point of coordination in a region of Africa where both organizing and donor engagement on LGBTQ rights remains uncoordinated, uneven, and linguistically divided.
The work of setting up such a fund requires a deeper understanding of LGBTQ activism in this vast and diverse region, as well as of the past and current funding landscape and the additional support available for the emerging movement, especially in Francophone countries, where organizing is still largely underground. Therefore, an exploratory and participatory process was undertaken to enable activists, funders, and allies to map the state of LGBTQ organizing in West Africa and gather data to help determine the appropriate initial structure and priorities of the fund. Read more via Qayn
19 calamities where gays get the blame, besides Ebola
With the the Liberian Council of Churches blaming gays for the Ebola epidemic — with no rational reason, as usual — it’s a good time for a recap of other calamities that LGBTI people have been blamed for.
More than a dozen natural disasters are on the list, each one interpreted as God’s violent response to the existence of LGBTI people or the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage. Also on the list are various murders and massacres, somehow attributed to gays who weren’t on the scene, along with some surprising accusations, such as gays’ alleged responsibility for the existence of autism and the size of Spain’s national debt. Read More