“Homosexuality has once again become a focus of debate among the political classes in Senegal, where newly appointed Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has alternately claimed that homosexuality is tolerated in the nation, and advocated for harsher criminalization of same-sex intimacy.
Senegal lesbians and gays already face penalties for same-sex intimacy, with up to 5 years’ imprisonment and fines of 1.5 million CFA francs (approximately U.S $2,500), making advocacy for LGBTQ rights extremely difficult.”
Awa (pseudonym): I’m the president of a women’s association [Editor’s note: for security reasons, the name of the organisation is being withheld] in Dakar and I can say that in the current political and social climate in Senegal, lesbians, although invisible in the public debate, are often exposed to corrective rape at an early age.
Very often, when a family suspects that a young girl is a lesbian, she is taken by force to a marabout who, far from giving her a religious education, will rape her. This does not happen all the time, or in all social contexts, but in rural Senegal it is far from rare.
Then there is the psychological reconstruction work that needs to be undertaken, with a lot of listening, tact and solidarity towards young women who arrive in Dakar weakened and traumatised when they have managed to escape from their family environment, after several years of forced marriages. In that sense, nothing has changed, despite the passing years.”
Continue reading: https://76crimes.com/2024/06/26/two-senegal-lesbians-fight-for-visibility/ (Source)
Listening to Lesbians 