World Wide Wave

24 Jun 2013

Tanzania: Damning human rights report shows double-stigma

Africa and the Middle East

“It’s hard to make them understand that we are also human and we are also needing those services,” Staford Paddy from Stay Awake Network Activities told World Wide Wave.

Paddy is a Tanzanian LGBT activist whose organisation was involved in the recent damning report released by Human RIghts Watch.

The report, titled “Treat Us Like Human Beings: Discrimination against Sex Workers, Sexual and Gender Minorities, and People Who Use Drugs in Tanzania” was released June 18, 2013 in Dar es Salaam by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Wake Up and Step Forward Coalition (WASO),

“We cannnot go to the police,” Paddy explained to World Wide Wave, “because the police say, “‘his it what you wanted and this is what you get.'”

The official report–which involved interviews with 254 people, including members of high-risk communities–includes stories of police raping members of the LBGT community and beating them with cables. Interviewees were able to prove this to Human Right Watch by showing the cable marks are still on the legs.

Paddy sees health care as the solution, but has concernes about access:

“The ones who are open, they are the ones that are denied services from any kind of hospital….That stigma of going there and being judged pushes the LGBT person, they will go away immediately.”

Learn more and listen to the podcasts on W3JOY’s Tanzania webpage.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:19 — 26.8MB)

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