A couple of weeks ago, a colleague and I travelled to Malawi – me in my role with the International PRIDE Centre, and him as a representative of Refugee Entrepreneurship Association Limited (REAL[CB1] ) – to conduct a mapping of LGBTQI-led organisations operating across the country. This is the first of two blog posts about the trip, in which we share some insights into our takeaways about the climate for LGBTQI+ rights in Malawi, and the challenges faced its vibrant queer rights movement. The second blog post will look more into some of the recommendations made by the people we met about how to ensure progress continues to be made, with a focus on the role of international partners and donor organisations.
My colleague and I met with activists, organisations, and informal associations of people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, or sex characteristics (SOGIESC) from Lilongwe, the country’s political capital; Blantyre; its economic hub; and Dzaleka camp, the home to around 52,000 refugees. When speaking with these groups and individuals, we wanted to understand how conversations around LGBTQI+ rights and inclusion had progressed, or regressed, in Malawi over the last few years. In answering this question, two issues dominated every discussion: last year’s constitutional case on the criminalisation of same sex activity; and the recent USAID funding cuts.
Initially, these seemed to me to be unrelated events, different in both category and consequence. The constitutional case, which was lodged in 2023 and heard in 2024, challenged the Penal Code’s archaic provisions outlawing “unnatural sexual offenses” – laws originally written in 1930, and inherited from the British upon Malawi’s independence.
The case challenged these provisions on the grounds that they violated constitutional rights to privacy and dignity. It was one of multiple similar petitions lodged across Africa in recent years – cases which have been won in Botswana, Namibia, and Mauritius, resulting in the decriminalisation of same sex activity in each of these countries; but lost in Kenya – and lost in Malawi.
While the ruling from Malawi’s constitutional court did not change the legal status quo in the country, most LGBTQI+ organisations we met with told us the same thing: that the case was widely perceived as a national verdict on whether LGBTQI+ people have the right to exist. In the lead up to the court’s judgment, religious leaders, both Christian and Muslim, led protests across the country. These protests were vague in their aim, but were seen by many as simply
being protests against people with diverse SOGIESC, as a group. When the case was lost, many people – including service providers and law enforcement personnel – felt the ruling meant that queer Malawians were no longer to be afforded their basic rights. Numerous individuals told us that since the decision in the case had been handed down, they have tried to seek medical services at the hospital, or report crimes committed against them to the police, only to be turned away by healthcare workers or police officers who told them that they could not help them, erroneously citing the judgment in the case.
Religious leaders lead protests against same sex relations in Lilongwe. Photo credit: Thomas Mukoya/REUTERS.
The organisations and activists we spoke to explained that in Malawi, the USAID funding cuts, too, have been seen by many as a verdict on the rights and existence of the LGBTQI+ community. As one activist explained,
In the US, it [the directive to suspend USAID funding] is not an anti LGBTQI+ directive. It is an anti US-spending-money-in-other-countries directive. But in the local mindset, it is about LGBTQI+ people. Because one of the first directives Trump did was against trans people, saying there are only two genders. So then when he stopped the funding, people thought that it was because he wanted to stop funding to LGBTQI+ people, and our government must have been spending money on LGBTQI+ issues before – which is not true.”
In our interviews, we repeatedly heard that religious leaders and conservative activists have platformed the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQI+ stance, treating it as a validation of their arguments and proclamations against the queer community. There is an irony to this, given the persistent narrative, contended with by LGBTQI+ communities and activists across Africa, that people with diverse SOGIESC simply do not exist on the continent – that queerness is a Western import, un-African, and a symptom of liberal excesses. A statement released by a group of Bishops in Malawi in 2023 complained that homosexuality was “imposed on Africa, Asia and Latin America by foreign societies; taking advantage of abject poverty in our countries as well as high illiteracy levels in the same continents.”
And yet, priests from Kenya to Nigeria to Zimbabwe have applauded the Trump administration’s advocacy for “conservative Christian values” and “morality and social order” – even as it slashes programmes providing life-saving medical assistance across the continent. A similar trend has been seen in Western Africa and the Sahel, where anti LGBTQI+ advocates have been quick to pick up and propagate Russian messaging denouncing diverse SOGIESC, and linking Russian influence to the protection of family values. And in Malawi, religious leaders were happy to accept funding and resources from externally-based religious groups to organise protests against the LGBTQI+ population in the lead up to the ruling on the constitutional case. Suddenly, the leaders of these movements do not seem so concerned with decrying the influence of foreign actors. In fact, the Malawian court case and the US government directive are seen as two sides of the same coin: a national and international mandate to discriminate against the LGBTQI+ community.
Contrary to the position of the religious leaders and anti-LGBTQ protestors in Malawi, queer people not only exist, but include amongst them a group of highly organised activists, forming a vibrant civil society presence across the country. Many of these Malawian organisations have been agitating for the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights – often, in small ways, successfully – for many years. Others are comprised of members of younger generations, who have more recently come together both in person and online. When my colleagues and I sent out requests to meet with people in the movement, we were bowled over by the number of responses: we ended up speaking to over 60 people, through interviews and focus group discussions; and there are still more getting in touch.
The space in which these activists and organisations are able to operate is shrinking – because of the constitutional case, because of the USAID funding cuts, and because of the hostility towards the community that have been bolstered and encouraged by both. But they are not giving up – and when we spoke to them, they had a long list of ideas for how to ensure the fight for their rights is able to continue, despite the challenges. These insights and recommendations will be the subject of the next blog post on our trip to Malawi. We look forward to our collaboration with these groups, who refuse to bow to domestic and international pressure to slow the momentum they have built for a better future for LGBTQI+ people, in Malawi and beyond.
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