Tag Archives: Lesbians in Belarus

The position of women and the LGBT community continues to worsen in many countries around the world. In many of these cases we are unable to find articles or analysis which refer specifically to the impact of the legal, political, economic and social changes on lesbians. The impact of these changes are often expected to be exacerbated for lesbians, who face the double impacts of sexism / misogyny and homophobia. Poverty, disability and racism exacerbate the impacts further still for many women. Despite this, in many traditional societies, women are restricted to the private family sphere with the violence, coercion and discrimination they face invisibilised and normalised by the imposition of expected social roles.

Afghanistan:

• 24 January 2025: International Criminal Court Seeks Arrest Warrants for LGBTQ+ and Gender-Based Persecution
• https://www.omct.org/en/resources/statements/afghanistan-lifting-afghan-women-from-the-shadows-into-the-light-in-the-face-of-the-taliban

Belarus:

• Belarus is preparing to introduce liability for the propaganda of homosexuality and childfree people

Benin:

• April 2024: Help for LGBT youths in Benin, where anti-gay lynchings are commonplace

Botswana:

• November 2024: A landslide election victory has set the stage for LGBTQ rights supporter Duma Boko to become the next president of Botswana, where homosexuality was decriminalized in 2019.

Cameroon:

• A song inciting violence against homosexuals has topped the charts, with reports of organised gangs wearing related tshirts and attacking community members with knives.

DR Congo:

• LGBT+ people in occupied Bukavu must choose: Hide or flee

Georgia:

• Georgia’s parliament approves law curbing LGBTQ rights (September 2024)

Ghana:

• Ghanaian lawmakers have reintroduced a bill that would become one of Africa’s most restrictive pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation, three sponsors told Reuters, after an earlier attempt to enact it fell short because of legal challenges.
• If enacted, the bill would expand on Ghana’s current law that provides a three-year prison sentence for same-sex intimacy. The new bill would add the same punishment for people who:
  • Identify as LGBTQ
  • Participate in gender-reassignment surgery; or
  • Enter into or attend a same-sex marriage.
  • It would also impose prison sentences of up to 10 years on people who “promote” LGBTQ activity.

Haiti:

• Haitian migrants face uncertain future as US revokes the Humanitarian Parole Program.

Hungary:

• Hungary passed a law banning pride events and allowing facial recognition software to identify attendees who will be fined, under amended child protection and assembly laws. Depiction or promotion of homosexuality to minors is banned, including on TV, in films, ads, books and school programs.
  • Budapest: thousands come out in protest in response to the bans.

Russia:

• Russia’s Interior Ministry is reportedly compiling  a sweeping electronic database of LGBTQ+ people in the country.
• January 2025: Escape or die: The deadly crackdown on LGBTQ+ lives in Dagestan

Serbia:

• Labris, Serbia’s largest lesbian organisation, joined broader protests for justice, transparency, and civil rights following the Novi Sad railway station disaster in November 2024. In addition to other failures of the Vučević government, they had adopted 2 anti LGBTQIA laws inspired by Russia – one an anti gay propaganda law and another on “foreign agents”, intended to target organisations reciving international funds.

Tonga:

• September 2024: Homophobic South Pacific nation of Tonga gets a gay chief justice but Tonga’s king rejects U.N. women’s rights treaty for fear of same-sex marriage

Trinidad and Tobago:

• Trinidad and Tobago’s anti gay laws were had been deemed unconstitutional and overturned in 2018 but a 25 March appeal decision has partially reversed the change and reinstated portions of the original laws, albeit with reduced penalties.

Tunisia:

• https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/tunisia-authorities-step-up-crackdown-on-lgbti-individuals-with-wave-of-arrests/

Turkiye:

• Türkiye’s new judicial reform package will introduce a separate criminal offense for “promoting or encouraging homosexuality” under the penal code, along with a series of new LGBT-related penalties.

Uganda:

• Anti LGBT arrests rising in Uganda
• Anti gay violence is on the rise in Uganda they passed some of the most blatant anti-homosexuality laws in the world in 2023

Vanuatu:

• November 2024: Anti-gay moves in South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu