If it were up to Mary Chatanda, head of the women’s section of the Tanzanian ruling party, men convicted of having sex with other men would be castrated. Chatanda said this at a celebration of two years in the presidency of Samia Suluhu Hassan, the country’s first female president.
“We are asking the government to come up with tough penalties for crimes related to same-sex sex,” Chatanda said. “Such people, if found guilty, should be castrated.” Gay relationships are banned in the East African country. Those convicted face a long prison sentence.
Regimes in the region have been increasing the pressure on the LGBT+ community for some time now. In neighboring Uganda, it is likely that a law will be voted on Tuesday that would put anyone who identifies as LGBT+ at risk of up to ten years in prison. The country would thus have the strictest legislation on the African continent.
A deviation
Incited by the influential evangelical churches, it is now bon ton in Ugandan society to accuse the West of indoctrination of the youth. Evidence has not yet been provided for this, but President Yoweri Museveni spoke out against the LGBT+ community on Thursday.
Museveni, in power since 1986 in a country where three-quarters of the population is under 30, called homosexuality an abnormality. Europeans and others marry cousins and close relatives. “Here, getting married within one’s own clan is taboo. Should we penalize them for marrying relatives? That is not our job.”
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