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Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
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On the 8th of January Suzanne Moore made a crack that women were expected to look like “Brazilian transsexuals”. This throwaway remark struck a nerve in the transgender community; between 2008-2011 426 transgender people have been murdered in Brazil - the highest rate in the world. An astonishing 80% of murders of transgender people worldwide between 2008-11 occurred in Latin America. Beyond the physical threat, transgender people routinely face social exclusion and discrimination. Why is this region of the world so dangerous for transgender people? More pressingly, what can be done about it?
So I was happy to accept the invitation of the The Latin American and Caribbean Network of Transgender People (REDLACTRANS) and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance to attend the launch of The Night is Another Country: Impunity and violence against transgender women human rights defenders in Latin America. This report lays bare the chilling reality of life for transgender people in Latin America, with numerous personal stories and interviews that paint a depressing picture of intimidation, exploitation and victimisation in these countries.
The launch, generously hosted by Doughty Street Chambers, featured an impressive panel of activists and politicians. Chairing the evening was Shaun Woodward MP, Labour representative for St Helens South and Whiston; the speakers were Marcela Romero, Regional Coordinator of REDLACTRANS; Monica Leonardo, author of the report; Christine Burns MBE, political activist, health advisor and former Vice President of Press for Change and Sue Breeze, representing the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
A short and powerful film shown by REDLACTRANS at the evening.
The launch, generously hosted by Doughty Street Chambers, featured an impressive panel of activists and politicians. Chairing the evening was Shaun Woodward MP, Labour representative for St Helens South and Whiston; the speakers were Marcela Romero, Regional Coordinator of REDLACTRANS; Monica Leonardo, author of the report; Christine Burns MBE, political activist, health advisor and former Vice President of Press for Change and Sue Breeze, representing the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Shaun Woodward MP was an impressive speaker, explaining both his moral and personal convictions in relation to transgender rights. He famously crossed the floor from the Conservatives to Labour in 1999 after being sacked for supporting the repeal of Section 28, the regulation preventing promotion of homosexuality in schools. As a result of this defection, the Conservative Party sicced the press on his transgender sister, resulting in a front page of the Sun covered in doorstep pictures of her. His anger is palpable when he recounts this, and he seems a passionate and sincere defender of human rights (although interestingly he didn't vote on the gay marriage bill...).
He lays out some of the more alarming statistics in the report, the most disturbing being that rates of HIV infection are frighteningly high in the transgender community in Latin America. 35% of transgender people are infected, which, when compared to the average rate of adult HIV prevalence across Latin America, 0.5%, makes this the most unequal region in the world.
Cold statistics like these are shocking and effective, but the problem in this particular field is that there isn't a huge amount of data to work with. One of the aims of REDLACTRANS is to put pressure on Latin American governments to legally acknowledge the existence of transgender people. That they don't means that data is scarce, with transgender men and women being recorded in statistics as their birth gender rather than what they identify as. So the conclusions of the report are primarily derived from interviewing transgender people from across Latin America about their experiences. These voices tell some pretty damn grim stories, for example:
"About six months ago, I got in a car with a man who I know is a policeman. He hired me to provide my sexual services, but afterwards he didn't want to pay and he wouldn't let me get out of the car. He shouted at me, "Today you really are going to die, hueco!". I told him to kill me, because I knew that sooner or later I'd end up dead, because for me, life is a bonus." - [Transgender activist in Guatemala, July 2012]
Things continue in this vein as Monica explains to us the levels of violence and murder against transgender activists and transgender women, crimes to which the state turns a blind eye. Many transgender women in Latin American countries gravitate towards sex work; discrimination in society making it difficult for them to easily find other sources of income. This places them in an intensely vulnerable situation, with little options available.
A near universal theme in these interviews is intense distrust of the police. There is countless testimony of the police exploiting transgender sex workers, blackmailing them for free sexual favours and attacking or even killing them if they resist. After all, if you're viciously beaten by a policeman, who do you report the attack to? In many cases the victim would be making the report to the colleagues of the person you're accusing. In one example we hear how someone wishing to report a crime was told that "the computer system is down", and to go to another station to report it. In each station the person visited, the same thing was heard. To know that the police couldn't give a toss about your safety and that you have no means of reporting a crime leaves you feeling intensely powerless.
A near universal theme in these interviews is intense distrust of the police. There is countless testimony of the police exploiting transgender sex workers, blackmailing them for free sexual favours and attacking or even killing them if they resist. After all, if you're viciously beaten by a policeman, who do you report the attack to? In many cases the victim would be making the report to the colleagues of the person you're accusing. In one example we hear how someone wishing to report a crime was told that "the computer system is down", and to go to another station to report it. In each station the person visited, the same thing was heard. To know that the police couldn't give a toss about your safety and that you have no means of reporting a crime leaves you feeling intensely powerless.
A trailer for a project by Ivan D'Onadio shown at the event
Reading the report you feel the weight of misery pressing down on you. Example after example of humiliation, disfigurement and rape, a litany of crimes committed by state actors, or with the state's sinisterly implied consent. Changing the course of monolithic organisations like the police, the courts, the church and the government looks like an almost impossible task. So how can things improve?
Predictably, the answer is slowly and with great difficulty. One of the objectives of RELACTRANS is to get Latin American governments to allow people to change their gender and name in their identification documents. This sounds like a fairly reasonable request, but laws like these provide the bedrock for further anti-discrimination legislation as proof that the state officially recognises their existence. Earlier in the evening we're told that police find it difficult to identify murdered transgender women as they tend not to carry ID. Under existing laws, any official ID they could possess would carry their birth name and gender, which isn't going to be particularly useful for someone who's undergone or is undergoing transition. The most significant advance in this area of law has been in Argentina, whose Gender Identity Law came into force in May 2012; if the momentum from this can be harnessed it would be the first light in a very dark situation.
It's rare that I feel a sense of patriotism, but when the human rights activists speak glowingly of the UK's progress in human rights for transgender people I felt a slight glow of pride. We were shown how far the UK has come since 1992. Back then transgender people were unable to change their birth certificate, marry, have employment protection and most disturbingly, legally unable to be raped. In 2012 all of these have been overturned, thanks to the efforts of organisations like Press For Change. It's efforts like these that serve as a template for political action in Latin America.
It wasn't exactly a cheery night, but all the panellists spoke with clear-headed conviction. For the transgender activists in Latin America it takes an enormous amount of bravery to stand up to a society that apparently doesn't care if you wind up dead in a ditch or not. This report will function as a keystone in highlighting the danger and oppression that transgender people live under, and as a foundation for further activism in Latin American regions.
You can read the full report here: http://issuu.com/aids_all
Many thanks to Doughty Street Chambers for hosting this, and to all the panellists for speaking so eloquently, intelligently and passionately.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
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‘Just Me, You and the Silence’ by Judy Adong is a play with noble aims, and one which sets its sights high. It's about LGBT rights in Uganda, one of the most cripplingly repressive places in the world to be gay or lesbian. Homosexual activity, both male and female, is illegal, and gays and lesbians must live with routine discrimination and legal restrictions. There is also an underlying risk of physical harassment; newspapers such as ‘Red Pepper’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ have published lists of names and addresses of gay Ugandans while calling for them to executed. One of the people named, David Kato, a prominent LGBT rights and advocacy officer for SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda) was beaten to death with a hammer in his home in January 2011. On top of all this misery, there's been repeated attempts to introduce legislation popularly known as the “Kill the Gays bill”, which calls for the death penalty for anyone committing ‘the offence of aggravated homosexuality’.
This is not a very bright and breezy situation, to say the least. Imagine what it is like to live in constant fear of your safety, never knowing who to trust and where members of your government are actively seeking to implement legislation that might result in you standing, rope resting around your shoulders, black hood on head, hearing the muffled sounds of people around you and then the soft click of the trapdoor opening and sudden weightlessness and then? The best you could hope for is they kill you cleanly. So when I went out on a chilly November night to see a play about LGBT issues in Uganda I wasn’t expecting a very cheery night out.
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| Not cool guys! |
And yet I laughed my head off nearly all the way through it. It’s a consciously funny play from start to finish, and ridiculously entertaining. This was in many ways a huge relief. I try to keep informed as to what’s going on in the African LGBT community, and I care deeply about the issues underlying situations like those currently happening in Uganda. So before seeing the play I was worrying what I’d write about it if it was awful, or even if it was just crushingly miserable throughout. Adding to this mild sense of dread was that this wasn’t even a full production. It was a benefit reading, which means uncostumed actors standing in a row with lecterns in front of them and reading from scripts, as far as I could tell totally unrehearsed. So if a play has flaws, they're only going to be exaggerated.
Fortunately Adong clearly knows what the hell she’s doing. Vile though it is, much of the language, rhetoric and logic behind the “Kill the Gays Bill” is ridiculous enough to stray into the realm of the darkly funny. If you want to prick somebody’s self-importance, then making them into a figure of fun is one of the more effective ways of doing it. Here, Adong deftly confronts the supporters of these monstrous bills with the logical consequences of their actions.
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| It's horrifying. But language like this has got to be ripe for satire. |
‘Just Me, You and the Silence’ tells the story of a Ugandan MP named Jacob Obina (seemingly based on David Bahati MP) and his family. Jacob and his wife Grace are aspirational social climbers and Jacob sees introducing a strict anti-homosexuality bill as his ticket to a life of luxury and fame. His cohorts in this are Pastor Ddumba (based on Martin Ssempa) and Mary Rose who run a church, and Buntu Muntu (an analogue for Simon Lokodo), a government minister. All see this bill as a way to propel them on a wave of popular sentiment forward in life. Less enthusiastic are Jacob's two sons: Giden just wants to be left alone to get on with a budding music career, and Mathias wants to escape to New York to attend university.
What drives the narrative is that Mathias is secretly gay. He’s torn between loyalty to his mother and father, who are wholly reliant on the passing of the anti-gay laws for financial security, and his activist friends Victoria and Thomas who are underground LGBT political activists.
If this unlikely situation were played seriously it would feel pretty contrived and cloying. But Adong recognises the farcical elements inherent to the situation, and almost every twist and turn the story takes is milked for laughs. I thought it was interesting that those trying to enact the anti-gay legislation are not necessarily portrayed as cackling, cartoon villains. They merely see this bill as the most expedient way to get what they want out of life. Jacob in particular is a likeable and funny man, which makes it very jarring when he slips into rabidly anti-gay language. This humanising process is a clever way to approach the situation. An aggressive front-on attack would be totally justified and very cathartic but also unlikely to change anyone’s mind. But while the play never shirks from presenting a powerful and convincing argument it does so with a relatively light touch, and with good humour.
In fact, I was so taken aback by how funny the play was and how readily the audience embraced it as a comedy that for a while I felt a bit uneasy. We are laughing at situations that, while they may sound utterly ridiculous to the ears of a London theatre audience, are deadly serious to a Ugandan gay person desperately frightened of being outed.
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| Judy Adong |
The genesis production was when Adong was confronted by the discrepancy between what Ugandan politicians and media said gay people were like, and her personal experience of meeting and working a gay man:
“This experience made me see that the value of a human being is not measured by his or her sexuality. It also made me realise that one day I could wake up and find someone I knew and loved being put to the noose and I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Like so many Ugandans, I had been in denial that anyone I knew could be gay.” – Judy Adong
The notion of the homosexual as the other, the outsider or the interloper seems to run right through the anti-gay propaganda put forward by the church and state. Gay people are painted as un- African and as trying to actively convert people’s children to the ‘gay cause’. We see the characters in this play actively engaging in this othering, explaining in a wickedly funny sequence how to ‘spot a gay man’ by his clothes or behaviour. All the while, the father in the play unknowingly holds up his gay son Mathias as a shining example of African manhood. We have it demonstrated to us in the clearest possible way the consequences of assuming that it's other people’s children or family members who are gay. It's this message that stands out over all else, and the play asks: how would you feel if it was your son or daughter whose neck was in the noose?
Its important to consider why this notion of the destructive other in society has such a strong pull in Ugandan society. Uganda is a former British colony, gaining independence from Britain in 1962 and like many former colonies is fiercely (and in my opinion rightly) protective of its right to self-governance. Interference from the West is regarded with intense suspicion, and financial aid often comes with strings attached. Gay rights are commonly viewed as a prime example of Western cultural imperialism; at best an example of an overly secular too-liberal West, and at worst an active attempt to poison the well of African masculinity. This allows anti-gay campaigners to seductively frame their arguments as an integral part of Ugandan or pan-African nationalism.
Adong exposes the hypocrisy of this argument through the character of Pastor Ddumba. He is shown as being in the thrall of a US megachurch who keep him on a tight leash through their funding of his church. Pastor Ddumba is generally fairly authoritative throughout most of the play, so it’s pretty funny to see him become so obsequious and grovelling whenever he has to talk to his US financier over the phone. This relationship seems to be based on the real-life links between the Nevada Canyon Ridge megachurch, and Martin Ssempa, who Ddumba parodies. The argument goes that the US evangelical right sees the war on homosexuality in the US as pretty much a lost cause, and are far happier to fight a proxy war on homosexuality in Africa. So, we see him going from decrying foreign interference in one scene, to frantically licking the boot of the US evangelicals in the next. What’s nice is that the play never preaches this to us, but any thinking person watching it can draw their own conclusions pretty easily. The most persuasive thinker we know, after all, is ourselves.
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| From the Ugandan Gay Pride Parade (!!) in 2012 - these are very brave people. |
Considering that these actors who had very little (if any) rehearsal time, the quality of the performances was excellent. Deserving particular praise is David Gyasi as Jacob, and Arnold Oceng as his son Giden. Both of them very quickly defined their characters not just as well-rounded, but also very as likeable people. Even from behind a lectern and with a script in their hands they gave us a peek into the physicality of these characters, which makes the play that much funnier and the characters more relatable. I had feared that a read through of a play would be a dry, academic exercise, but they breathed life into the story even with very limited resources.
Despite this being a very fast-moving, entertaining play there are a few slow patches. At various points the play lapses into fantasy sequences where we get a visualisation of a particular character’s fantasy life. So for example we see Grace, Jacob’s wife dreaming of being interviewed as First Lady and treated as an iconic political and cultural figure. It’s a nice way of getting into the character’s heads and helping us understand their motivations, but these scenes bring the narrative to a screeching halt, and ultimately we're being shown things we should have already worked out for ourselves. The only other criticism I’d make is that throughout the play we have someone to the side of the stage reading aloud the stage directions. This was fine, but in the final moments of the play he read out a direction for a minute’s silence. I can’t see any reason why they couldn’t actually do the minute’s silence in the read through rather than simply tell us about it. Not having any silence before the end totally undercut the drama and profundity of the last line of the play, which is a shame.
But these are minor criticisms and this was a wonderful night. Judy Adong has provided gay rights campaigners in Uganda with a potent weapon in their fight against homophobia. The play is funny and entertaining while also having a white-hot core of anger and righteousness. Her ambition is to perform this play in Kampala, Uganda and I firmly believe that one day she will achieve her dream. As this work amply demonstrates, it is not homosexuality that tears the fabric of society apart; it is bigotry, divisiveness and ignorance.
It’s a relief to be able to highly recommend this play not just because I wholeheartedly believe in its message, but because it’s also highly insightful and hilarious satire with excellent characterisation.
Many thanks to the wonderful people at the Old Vic who donated their beautiful theatre for the reading and to the actors and production staff who gave up their free time to work unpaid for our entertainment. If anyone would like to know more about this issue please check out the Kaleidoscope Trust. They organised this night and are an excellent organisation that does sterling and brave work.
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