Earlier today, Niels Jacob Harbitz, right, HRH´s project manager for Africa, spoke at a seminar in Oslo arranged by Landsforeningen for lesbisk og homofil frigjøring (LHH) and Skeiv Solidaritet (Queer Solidarity), on how to support gays and lesbians in East Africa.  Below is an edited extract of Harbitz’s contribution. (20-JUNE-06)

Strategies for inclusion
What’s in a Human Rights House for the LGBT movement of East Africa?

Significantly, our first encounter with a LGBT activist in East Africa took place in Dublin, Ireland, less than a year ago, after almost seven years of human rights engagement in Kenya, three in Uganda. That says something about a number of things:

-First, I think, our own lack of imagination. In our attempt to go with the flow, so to speak, and be politically correct about letting the local human rights NGOs decide who is, and who is not, to be part of our projects in the region, we had, silently, contributed to the exclusion of LGBT activists and organisations.

-Second, it speaks volumes of the invisibility of this movement in East Africa, and thus of the pressure LGBT activists constantly work under.

-Third, it also says a little of the lack of coordination and cooperation at this end, in this case here in the Norway between the human rights movement and for instance the organisation hosting this seminar.

-Fourth, it also hints at the relative lack of wide-reaching solidarity activity among minority groups and -organisations. To the extent that minorities organise themselves, they usually do so to improve their own situation, not others’. Skeiv Solidaritet / Queer Solidarity is, thus, a very positive exception to the rule here.

When I first met Victor Juliet Mukasa myself, a fairly high profile Ugandan LGBT activist, in Uganda late last year, I was instantly confronted with all this. I took some small comfort, though, in knowing that slowly, but surely, and much against, possibly even, at least to some extent because of, the recent tightening of the law in this area oth in Kenya and Uganda, the human rights movement is coming around to a more inclusive position. And to the extent that the Human Rights House Foundation, being the Secretariat of the entire network of emerging and established Human Rights Houses can do anything about this, we will.

With reference to both Kenya and Uganda, we have agreed internally to continue to push and let every organisation’s tolerance on this issue be confronted. So far, we have challenged the partner organisations in both Kenya and Uganda at a very minimum to relate to the issue. I also know that together with representatives from Galebitra, Skeiv Solidaritet / Queer Solidarity’s Annika Rodriguez has had a meeting with our local coordinator in Nairobi, a meeting she wrote back about as all in all very positive. For the first time, Rodriguez wrote, a leading human rights organisation had declared, without being put under any kind of pressure to do so, that they would openly support Galebitra’s struggle for recognition, equal rights and liberties. This, by the way, was IMLU; Independent Medical-Legal Unit.

What we have also done, is to write about discrimination of GLBTs on our website, and not the least on the East Africa subpages. Small as this sign of inclusion may be, it is still unusual. In the belief that there is a sense of solidarity even in knowing that one is not alone, we do this also in the context of reporting on other among our subpages, most recently in Moscow and Warsaw, on similar issues.

Coming towards the end of my intervention, my answer to the question, what’s in a Human Rights House for the LGBT movement of East Africa, I believe there is quite a lot. Most obviously, there is the protection issue. Human Rights Houses are funded by a coalition of international donors who naturally take an interest in making sure the activities of the houses they have invested in are allowed to continue. Hence, any attempt to disturb the activities of one of the organisations in a Human Rights House, is instantly not only experienced and responded to as an attack against the whole collective. Due to the international donor / diplomacy community’s joint investment in the house, it also becomes a state-to state, diplomatic issue. Joining forces in such a concrete way, on a permanent, day to day basis, with other key human rights organisations, visualizes the whole idea of equal rights for all better than any statement, petition, appeal or other act of solidarity, I think. Furthermore, becoming part of a Human Rights House also means becoming part of a network of such houses. This means further protection, but also a much expanded network of contacts, with all the improved opportunities this implies.