LGBT people struggle to survive a purge in Tanzania

In Tanzania, the Dar es Salaam regional commissioner has asked the public to report gay people. "Give me their names," he said on Oct. 29. "My ad hoc team"—a committee of 17 police and media officials—"will begin to get their hands on them" in just one week. The next day, he reported that he'd already received over 100 names in over five thousand messages. Although the Tanzanian government clarified that this regional effort does not represent the national government's official policy, it was not clear if the national government intended to stop the Dar es Salaam regional purge.

The organization Jinsiangu, supported by the International AIDS Alliance (donate), has helped people relocate internationally to Nairobi, Kenya for their personal safety.

Background

Tanzanian law, an inheritance from British colonialism, punishes men who have sex with other men with 30-years-to-life in jail.

CNN reported:

"According to 2014 UNAIDS data, 17.6% of men who have sex with men in Tanzania are living with HIV — a rate more than four times higher than the 4.5% in the nation's general adult population. * * * Being forced into hiding also means people do not want to engage in any way with health services and will not test for infections or go to collect HIV treatment. People will avoid anything that will link them to being LGBT and subject to identification, [International HIV/AIDS Alliance executive director Christine] Stegling said."

Recently, LGBT organizations have been shuttered. In February 2017, Tanzania's deputy health minister claimed that homosexuality is not found among animals, only exists among people who live in cities, and is a social construct. The health ministry prohibited HIV/AIDS clinics from running their programs, and then arrested 13 people—including deporting three South African lawyers—who met to discuss how to challenge that new policy. The shutdown of the clinics and the arrest of the activists was done on the grounds that it is illegal to promote homosexuality.

According to a Guardian article: Geofrey Mashala, an activist who is "making a documentary about the Tanzanian LGBT community," said that, considering “all the steps we made as LGBT activists" over the past several years, "it’s like we have to start over again.” Erin Kilbride of the human rights group Front Line Defenders interviewed 80 LGBT people and sex workers earlier this year; "all but two said they had been sexually assaulted or raped by police in custody."

See: A harsh climate for many LGBTQ people in Africa is getting worse. Some blame the US, Nimi Princewill, CNN, March 16, 2026

The memoir of the Sudanese eunuch 'Omar' in 'Desert Royal' by Jean Sasson

As an American living in Saudi Arabia from 1978 to 1991, Jean Sasson befriended a Saudi princess and wrote three memoirs for her — Princess, Daughters of Arabia, and Desert Royal — in a first-person voice while keeping her anonymous. The princess has unfathomable wealth that her husband gives her to buy luxury clothes (a half-million U.S. dollars is a day's spending cash in New York City), and she has a good relationship with her husband based on mutual respect, although most of her female relatives do not have such luck with their husbands and many women in the country are married off young or treated as sex slaves. She struggles privately with her own alcoholism in a country where drinking is a crime.

The middle of Desert Royal briefly features an 88-year-old eunuch who introduces himself as "Omar, of the Sudan." He is the servant of the princess's "eccentric" cousin; she had not realized that there were any eunuchs still living in Saudi Arabia. The princess says that she and her daughter "screamed" when startled to meet this "very old and bizarre-looking little man," a beardless and "most unusual creature. He was short and skinny and ebony black." The princess's husband initially refers to him as a "dwarf." He has a "high, feminine voice" that is also described as "abnormally high-pitched." His spine is curved, and the skin hangs off his "jowls." His eyes are "sparkling with curiosity"; he "possessed an enormously calming influence" and "loved to tell stories."

An entire chapter is dedicated to Omar telling his story. He was born around the beginning of the 20th century, judged by the timing of this anonymous memoir. As an eight-year-old in the Humr tribe in Sudan (a tribe of the "Baqqārah Arabs, of west-central Sudan," according to Britannica, also spelled "Baggara"), he wandered away one day and was grabbed, kidnapped, and sold to a Turk. He was taken to an Egyptian Christian on the Red Sea who castrated ten boys at the same time. "He presented me with my genitals in a jar, even as I lay writing in pain!" The boys were catheterized, their wounds were cauterized with boiling oil, and they were buried in hot sand for three days without food or water. Seven of them died during that period, and an eighth died subsequently when he was unable to urinate. "Congratulations went all around when the Christian pulled the tube from my small passageway that remained for water, and liquid spurted out..." Omar was immediately put on a slaveship headed for Constantinople where he was sold to a Turk. He eventually wound up in Saudi Arabia. He never saw his family again.

Slavery was abolished in 1962, but Omar, like many other freed slaves, chose to stay with his master. The master does not wish to spend much money on Omar's food or clothing. Consequently, he is thin and wears an outdated costume: a ring on every finger and "a bright yellow blouse and a sequined red vest. A silk turban, turquoise in colour, was wound around his head. His full-cut trousers, fashioned out of a rich brocade run through with golden threads, suggested the costume of another age." He believes that his master is not concerned about his existence, as he once took a four-month leave of absence "unnoticed."

"Omar's story is a legend from our past!" the princess responds. She reflects: "Poor Omar lived a sad and uncertain fate. He was neither a man nor a woman, although his status was slightly lower than a man's but higher than a woman's."

The princess views the eunuch as having a "lifelong mission" as a "protector of women," although Omar jokes that he is too old to enforce anyone's behavior. Her husband counters that they don't need a eunuch. Omar says, "You are right. A eunuch is a pointless creature. At least these days." The husband apologizes and recants: "No man is pointless in the eyes of Allah." The princess and her husband agree to secretly rescue him and, although they enjoy his company, to move him far from Saudi Arabia to a palace in Egypt for his own protection from his former master. Omar is happy with this arrangement, especially as Egypt is closer to his homeland, and he hopes to travel from Egypt to the Sudan to see if he can find anyone from his tribe.

Source

Jean Sasson. Desert Royal. (1999) London: Bantam, 2000.

The eunuch Omar is introduced on page 122. His story continues through page 148.

Tanzania requires bloggers to register with the government for exorbitant fee

In Tanzania, if you use the Internet to post your writing, audio, or video, you must now register with the government for a license. It costs USD $930 per year, and the application form requests extensive financial information. The licensing requirement applies equally to individuals and media companies. The fee is an unattainable amount for most people, as the majority of those who work on farms, in restaurants, and in office support roles earn less than USD $1,500 per year (300,000 Tanzanian shillings per month).

In 2011, the income of the richest 20 percent was nearly 8 times that of the poorest 80 percent.

The registration fee would be about a week's income even for President Magufuli himself.

According to a government press release written in Swahili, the public registration process opened April 21. People who are already providing content are required to register by May 5. Everyone else is required to register before they begin publishing.

Publishing "content that causes annoyance...or leads to public disorder" is forbidden, and all Internet cafes must have surveillance cameras and request that their patrons show an identity card.

The new law, published March 16 of this year in English, is called the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations, 2018.

Photo credit: Image of 1 Tanzanian shilling coin from Wikimedia Commons.

War crime: Castration and killing of boys in South Sudan in 2015

Groups aligned with the South Sudanese military reportedly committed sexual violence against boys and girls over a period of several weeks in May 2015 in Unity state. In a story by the AP:

At least 129 children were killed, with boys castrated and girls raped, during a government offensive against rebels last month in South Sudan, according to the U.N. children's agency.

* * *

...UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said survivors reported that boys were castrated and left to bleed out, while girls were gang raped and killed.

Other children were thrown into burning buildings, he said...

According to an article in Christian Today, this information was given to UNICEF by civilian witnesses and survivors who made it to the UN base in Bentiu, a city where tens of thousands of South Sudanese were seeking shelter. The witnesses said that the attackers did not want the children to grow up and exact revenge for the crimes they suffered in the civil war, so the attackers decided to kill the children – even including newborns. Nonetheless, some children were reportedly taken into slavery: boys as soldiers, girls as wives.

Sources

"UNICEF: 129 children killed in South Sudan fighting in May." AP, published by Fox News, June 18, 2015.

"Slaughter in South Sudan: Girls raped, boys castrated, newborns killed in civil war, UNICEF says." Monica Cantilero, Christian Today, June 22, 2015.

In 2014, Uganda decrees life imprisonment for gay people

Same-sex relations have been illegal in Uganda for years, but in 2014, President Museveni signed stiffer penalties into law. Some activists say they are the worst in the world.

Much of the world was shocked to learn of the draconian law against same-sex relations that was recently passed in Uganda. People in Uganda can be sentenced to life in prison for even attempting to have sex with a person of the same sex.

Recent history of the climate for gay Ugandans

Homosexuality, considered to be an act "against the order of nature," was already illegal in Uganda (as it is in 38 of 54 African countries, according to Amnesty International) and carried a jail term of up to 14 years. Gay people were already routinely subject to harassment. Considering that many countries are improving their treatment of gay people and allowing more sexual freedom, one might have hoped that Uganda would head in that direction, too, but it has not.

In one high-profile case, gay rights activist David Kato was murdered in his home on Jan 26, 2011, bludgeoned with a hammer, following the publication of his photograph in a newspaper with the inflammatory words "Hang Them."

Although the murderer was sentenced to a lengthy jail term, and although Ugandan activists staged the nation's first Gay Pride parade the next year, the social and political climate for gay people did not improve. In September 2012, a British man was jailed for producing a play with a Ugandan cast, "The River and the Mountain," about a gay businessman whose mother tries to cure his homosexuality and who is subsequently murdered by his own employees.

Uganda has been mulling more severe penalties for same-sex relations ever since a bill was introduced in 2009 by a member of parliament, David Bahati, that would have declared some same-sex activities to be capital crimes, earning the bill its nickname "Kill the Gays". European nations threatened to withdraw aid from Uganda - a nation of 31 million people that receives 10 percent of its gross national income from foreign aid - and the bill was not pursued at that time.

The 'Christmas gift' of the Anti-Homosexuality Act

Nonetheless, in December 2013, Uganda's parliament passed a version of the bill, also known as "The Anti-Homosexuality Act," that dramatically increases the length of prison sentences and the reasons for which they can be given. Any attempt to have sex (possibly including flirtation, or a "1984"-like kind of "thoughtcrime"); any "counsel" provided to someone else about sex (as a sexual health educator would typically provide); any performance of a same-sex marriage ceremony (as a religious clergyperson would typically perform, although the marriage would not have legal standing anyway in Uganda); or simply "promoting homosexuality" (as, perhaps, through the advocacy of tolerance) can result in seven years in jail. If any sort of physical contact is involved in an alleged attempt to have sex, the penalty is increased to life in prison. Needless to say, there is also life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality" - a charge defined as having sex with a minor; having sex at all, even with protection, if one is infected with HIV; or simply having sex multiple times. 

The law is open for abuse because the alleged "perpetrators" may be forced to pay unlimited compensation to their alleged "victims," in addition to serving jail time. Therefore, the "victims" have a great incentive to report people for such attempts; it may be an effective form of blackmail, putting one's personal enemy in prison and simultaneously extorting money from him. 

Additionally, an alleged "victim" is permitted to commit any crime - presumably including assault - against an alleged "perpetrator," with impunity. Landlords have incentive to evict gay tenants, as there is a five-year prison penalty for allowing same-sex activity in one's house.

The bill's religious promoters referred to it as a "Christmas gift" to the nation.

Signed into law in February 2014

After the Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed, Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni initially declined to sign it, suggesting that gay people needed treatment rather than punishment and claiming that there was a procedural problem because not enough members of parliament were present when the bill was passed. Nonetheless, on Feb. 15, 2014, Museveni announced to a conference of the ruling political party, the National Resistance Movement, that he would indeed sign the legislation, as he declared "a war with the homosexual lobby in the world".

Museveni signed the bill on Feb. 24, warning his "friends from the West" against "social imperialism - to impose social values of one group on our society." The day after that, a Ugandan newspaper called Red Pepper "outed" the names of 200 people it claimed were gay.

International reaction

Undeterred by the complaint that other countries should not "impose" their values on Uganda's president, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry immediately warned that the United States might cut aid to Uganda, citing the bill's signing as "a tragic day for Uganda and for all who care about the cause of human rights." Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said that he was "extremely disappointed."

Europe took more direct action: About $27 million in aid from Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands was either frozen or redirected away from the Ugandan government to charities in Uganda.

Within a few days, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said that the bank would suspend a $90 million loan to Uganda. The loan had been intended for health services, and those projects could have been impacted by the law insofar as discussing sexuality in a healthcare context can now potentially run afoul of the law.

He wrote a column for the Washington Post acknowledging that 81 countries criminalize homosexuality, and he connected this discrimination with sexism more broadly. "Eliminating discrimination is not only the right thing to do; it's also critical to ensure that we have sustained, balanced and inclusive economic growth in all societies," Kim wrote. He also said, pointedly, that the fact that millions of Africans today receive medical treatment for AIDS may be credited to the activism of gay men and women throughout the world.

The Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa compared the "Anti-Homosexuality Act" to the former racial apartheid system in South Africa. If Uganda wished to take action against sex crimes, he suggested, why not focus on criminal penalties for rape, child molestation and human trafficking?

What next?

People in Uganda unfortunately have to cope with this restrictive law for the time being. A few are said to have fled the country for their own safety. Sexuality is part of human nature and human experience, and criminalizing it does not make it go away, so this law will surely be revisited in the near future.

This article was originally posted to Helium Network on March 5, 2014.

Photo: Africa Source 2 meet at Kalangala Island, Uganda. Taken by Frederick "FN" Noronha. © GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version Wikimedia Commons.

The Unholy Relationship Between Uganda's Anti-LGBTQ+ Law and US Evangelicalism, Emma Sanderson, blog for Chicago Council of Global Affairs, June 8, 2023

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Guardian (@guardian)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Gay Times (@gaytimes)

An Ethiopian princess seeks help in 'The Eunuch and the King's Daughter'

Waltenegus Dargie's novel "The Eunuch and the King's Daughter" is set in 19th-century Ethiopia. A princess wants to run away. She seeks the collusion of her eunuch guard. Originally posted to Helium Network on Oct. 13, 2012.

In Waltenegus Dargie's story The Eunuch and the King's Daughter (2005), set in the fictional kingdom of Méthi in 19th-century southwestern Ethiopia, the only child of King Badar's second wife, Mersabel, is unhappy. She is tutored by Temari, a Christian, who is fixated on destroying the sacred oak where the local people sacrifice to their gods. He attempts to teach the princess to recite the story of St. George and the Dragon (a story of one of Ethiopia's most popular saints who was said to have saved a maiden from a dragon). Mersabel's mother privately suggests that she would do well to marry Temari, but Mersabel finds the idea repulsive, and anyway has her eye on another man.

This novel does not depend too much on the suspense of what will happen next, but more so on the meaning of the characters' social roles and their choices. The king is embroiled in battles, his second wife is an angry person, the princess is bored, the prince is beheaded, and all their slaves are subject to their whims. The beautiful princess is always required to be accompanied by a guard and is never permitted to venture beyond the sacred oak. The eunuch Head Guard is Marebath, son of Maliwa, and he is ultimately responsible for the princess's welfare and is subject to punishment if any ill befalls her. The story is about the characters' awakening to what they need to do to save themselves.

The story turns on the odd arrival of Ferenj, a big, red-bearded, middle-aged Englishman who speaks the Ethiopians' Amharic language. A man tries to give Ferenj to the king of Méthi in exchange for 100 eunuch slaves, but the king ends up giving him only 30 eunuchs. He cannot manage more, having previously tried to motivate his slave soldiers to fight well in the battles against the king of Gimira by promising them that he would not castrate them, and he intends to keep his word to them; therefore, he cannot make more eunuchs, and may only barter with the eunuch slaves already in his household. The slave-dealer insists on eunuchs because he intends to sell them to Muslim nations that do not permit the act of castration to occur within their borders.

After the departure of the slave-dealer, the king learns that the high-priced Ferenj is not a riflemaker, as he was told, but merely a poet and historian. Ferenj is now put into a position where he competes with Temari, the other literature tutor in the king's household. They have a lot to talk about, as they are both interested in literature and religion, but Temari perceives Ferenj as a rival.

While deciding what to do with Ferenj, the king orders the eunuch Marebath to add the protection of Ferenj to his duties. One night, the king's second wife orders Marebath to kill Ferenj, but Marebath refuses, saying that he will obey the king before he obeys the king's wife. She calls him a "wicked, stiff-necked eunuch" and orders the bystanders to disarm him, but no one does.

The climax of the book builds as the princess Mersabel forms the idea of escaping from the king's household. Ferenj wishes to return to his wife and children in England, and Marebath has nothing to gain from his continued employment.

Marebath only becomes a significant character in the final quarter of the book, so one might ask why is the book is called "The Eunuch and the King's Daughter." Why not "The Red-Bearded English Poet and the King's Daughter"? I suggest that, although Mersabel likes the foreigner Ferenj who has opened her mind to the joy of literature, nevertheless it is with her countryman Marebath that she has a spontaneous moral awakening. She comes to see him as a loyal sufferer and to appreciate his service while simultaneously she reaches a better self-appraisal of her own assumptions and the limitations of her own experience. This explains why the book is named for their friendship.

The story's final paroxysm of violence is reminiscent of Gustave Flaubert's Salammbo, a story set in ancient North Africa. That story followed the daughter of a military leader and her devoted eunuch Schahabarim. In The Eunuch and the King's Daughter, as in Salammbo, the eunuch is always on the periphery of the narrative, yet is a significant character who carries the final scene.

The novel's message is character-driven. Imagining the characters' various perspectives, the reader can try to understand their needs and their actions. It will be appreciated by people who would like a narrative from this time period in Ethiopia.

The novel was revised and republished as Princess Mersabel (2021). I also read that version, and you can read my thoughts on it on Medium.