Opinion – Russian roulette of human rights protections – Truth, for its own sake. – New Era

Namibia should take all necessary measures to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons from threats and any form of violence, the United Nations Committee against Torture recommended to Namibia in 2016. Include same-sex relationships in the Combating of Domestic Violence Act (Act No. 4 of 2003) so as to protect same-sex partners, the Human Rights Committee (which monitors the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), in the same year (2016), urged Namibia to address. Statements by international communities and committees which Namibia subscribes to (by virtue of our Constitution to uphold the fundamental human rights of all Namibians), continue to pile up, whilst progressive legislature is not fully realised. It almost begs the question on whether or not our representation in and at international bodies is only a smokescreen to accrue international credibility when in fact targeted and selective discrimination brazenly remains the order of business on our local scenes.

The Combating of Domestic Violence Amendment Bill statement was recently tabled at the floors of parliament, in which heavy though necessary emphasis was placed on safeguarding the lives of women, children and persons with disabilities or vulnerable groups. The Bill, as the statement reads, comes at the backdrop after which a series of demonstrations were held under the #ShutItAllDownNamibia banner (and countless petitions before the birth of the movement), calling on government to decisively and urgently deal with the alarming rates of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Namibia. A petition was submitted with a host of demands pertinent to addressing and apprehending the rise in these staggering cases on SGBV across various sectors. Almost a year-and-a-half later, an amended Bill is tabled and proposed to expedite the commitment from all stakeholders to adopt and operationalise. Progressive as the Bill may be in the many strides it exemplifies for women, children and persons with disabilities, a significant gap under which human rights protections and the dignity of a minority community ought to be recognised, is still missing.

Section 3(1) of the Bill lists several forms of domestic relationships, and this only applies to victims of different sexes cohabiting or in domestic relationships, which means that same-sex couples continue to be excluded from any protection under the amended Bill, where in fact sexual and gender-based violence in domestic settings equally applies to same-sex relationships. For context in Namibia, we do not have an active database on the number of sexual, gender and sex minorities who have been victims and/or survivors of SGBV (within their own domestic relationships). Amending legislature would be beneficial not only to same-sex couples and to protect all sexes and genders from domestic violence, but it would also aid as a tool of sensitisation to law- enforcement officials, for example, who are frontline service providers meant to safeguard victims of same-sex couples in abusive relationships.

It is notably and commonly known that most law- enforcement officials are homo-bi-transphobic, in which the majority of the LGBTQIA+ persons have been mocked, humiliated, intimidated, harassed and ridiculed by them. Police officers are obliged by law to protect all members of Namibian society, regardless of their gender, a High Court judge has stated in a judgement on a lawsuit which a transgender woman instituted after she was unlawfully arrested and assaulted by a police officer in Windhoek, a headline read in The Namibian in November last year. Though this was not a matter related to domestic violence, it still exposed and confirmed prejudicial, harmful and abusive attitudes which law-enforcement officials hold against the LGBTQIA+ community because national legislation does not provide for the equal protection of our rights. Furthermore, a factsheet compiled by the Legal Assistance Centre to reiterate how the inclusion of same-sex couples in the Bill would coalesce perfectly with progressive legislature in neighbouring countries, presents the following, South Africas Domestic Violence Act 1998 provides protection from domestic violence for both same-sex couples and couples of different sexes. Similarly, the definition of a domestic partnership in Botswanas Domestic Violence Act 2008 does not explicitly require that the persons involved in such relationships must be of different sexes.

The above should compel us to reflect a little more and deeper on the many ways in which lawmakers employ Russian roulette tactics to disregard the human rights of all Namibians; the ways in which we gamble with the lives of minority identities in such a way that the outcomes are almost invariably fatal, because regardless of who is holding the gun, victims and survivors of SGBV within the LGBTQIA+ community often get harmed eventually because our political history, cultural and social memes, reinforce it to be so.

Human rights are expressly enshrined in our constitution; they are not suggested or implied. So, if the President of Namibia understands that SGBV is a human rights issue of endemic proportions in Namibia, why would we immediately exclude equal protections for same-sex couples when protections of our rights are not suggested nor implied, neither are they conferred only to a single group of people in Namibia? Perhaps international representation through signed treaties and agreements, which mandate that Namibia protects the fundamental rights of all its citizens, indeed, does serve as a red herring under which Russian roulette on the rights of minority identities may effectively and consistently be employed.

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Opinion - Russian roulette of human rights protections - Truth, for its own sake. - New Era