Let this group find comfort and safety here

Dear Commissioners and participants,

Before I begin my statement, I would like to make a special request and I hope that everyone will appreciate it. If it is okay with you, Madame Chairperson, could we have a moment of silence to contemplate and remember all those who have been raped, tortured and killed simply because they were different or misunderstood? I assure you that I will still keep to my five-minute time allocation.

Thank you.

My name is Asha Ramgobin and I am the executive director of Human Rights Development Initiative, an organisation that is privileged to have observer status with the commission.

I do not represent an organisation of gays and lesbians. I am not myself gay and I do not have a mandate to speak on behalf of this movement. But I am a social justice activist and therefore cannot turn away when I see a social injustice.

Dear Commissioners, if I were here representing an organisation of women who had been raped and tortured in Rwanda and I applied for observer status so that I could ensure that my members can also seek protection here, would you turn me and my organisation away?

If I were here representing an organisation of women who had been raped and tortured in Darfur and I applied for observer status so that I could ensure that my members can also seek protection here, would you turn me and my organisation away?

If I were here representing an organisation of women who had been raped and tortured in Congo and I applied for observer status so that I could ensure that my members can also seek protection here, would you turn me and my organisation away?

From what I know about the Coalition of African Lesbians, those whom they represent are subjected to rape and other awful forms of abuse just because people don’t understand them or see them as a threat to their beliefs. Can that justify rape? Can that justify murder? Can that justify beating them up? Are they not human and our brothers and sisters?

Are we the old apartheid state of South Africa that decided that some people are less human than others just because of their hair, colour of their skin or because they conducted traditional rituals that involved killing animals? The colonisers and missionaries did not understand these practices and decided that we are heathen and uncivilised. We lived with this oppression and we fought it. All of us.

I am South African. Not Indian as my outer appearance might indicate. Many people hear us, South Africans, talking about these issues and judge us as not being truly African. Especially since South Africa still has white people in economic power. We lived through what could have been a de-humanising period. But our human nature prevailed in the end and we declared NEVER AGAIN. We declared Never Again in Sierra Leone and then in Rwanda, but we seem to see this over and over again.

After what we have been through in our beloved continent, it is very difficult to turn a blind eye to anyone who is silenced or dehumanised. We come from a continent that believes in the concept of UBUNTU. Even though we might use different words in the end it is about respecting the divinity in all

Today can we truly silence a group or deny them a voice at the one place they should feel the safest? I implore you, dear Commissioners, to look deeply in your hearts and with a sense of compassion and duty reconsider your decision and let this group also find comfort and safety here.

Thank you!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Asha Ramgobin is the executive director of Human Rights Development Initiative

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.