Irene Major may not seem like your typical activist. She is a model and actress who happens to be a billionaire residing in one of England’s most massive castles, the 47-room Ingress Abbey. Despite all of this, Irene will tell you she is a human rights advocate and African first, specifically Cameroonian and therefore matters pertaining to Africa are of great importance to her. She is the founder of IM Life, a charity focused on Sub-Saharan Africa to provide support, food, and shelter to those in need. Irene has been an activist advocating on behalf of children in need and she has now turned her focus to the LGBT community who in Cameroon are still subjected to being arrested and abused for their sexuality based on the law. The recent reports of back to back killings of LGBT members alarmed her. The mother of five says this injustice must be addressed and more importantly, legislation should be passed to protect the rights of LGBT members.
“Incidentally it seems that that the law actually protects people who abuse and kill members of the LGBT community," begins Major. "I don't want to generalize but the only reason I say this is because throughout Africa and specifically in Cameroon, Uganda and South Africa there are so many reports and incidents of LGBT people being killed or abused and justice for them is not served in the manner that it should be. Crimes against the LGBT community seem to not be of great urgency in some of these judicial systems. This is not right. We must speak up."
According to Human Rights Watch, murders against the gay population is on the rise. BBC recently reported that there has been a spree of murders targeted towards Gay women in South Africa. Journalist, James Fletcher wrote that "In a country where crime rates, in general, are high, black lesbians in poor townships face particular risks and often suffer the most violent crimes. As women, they're vulnerable in a country with one of the highest rates of rape in the world. As lesbians in an often homophobic and patriarchal society, they face a further danger – the idea that they can be "changed" and "made into women" through what is known as "corrective rape".
Sadly it seems that many of the female victims that are being murdered are being raped first as BBC discovered. The day after being assaulted by a young man near her home in Driftsands, South-Africa, gay rights activist Noluvo Swelindawo was abducted from her home allegedly by 10 suspects. Her body was later discovered by police near a highway.
In May 2016, Police Clerk Nosis Sonjani who was gay had been stabbed and strangled to death with an electrical cord from a toaster. Her decomposed body was later found in her home in Khayelitsha, South Africa.
Motshidisi Pascalina was a 21-year-old South African gay student. Her family accepted her as she was but not everyone else. She had just graduated. She disappeared after a party in December. BBC reported that "two days later Pasca's body was found in a field in a neighboring township. She had been beaten and mutilated. At the morgue, her family couldn't recognize her face and could only identify her by a tattoo on her leg."
Photo: BBC.com
"I find this idea of using tradition to validate murder problematic and the concept of corrective rape is barbaric," said Major. I see the hypocrisy of those communities that complain that their own cultures and traditions have been oppressed and are discriminated against and yet use their culture and traditions as justification or at the very least a fig leaf, for oppressing and discriminating against their own LGBT communities. These women don't have to keep dying like this."
Men are not to be exempt either. In March 2011, Roger Jean-Claude Mbédé, a Cameroonian philosophy student, was arrested after sending a text message to another man. The text read: “I’m in love with you.” According to a statement he made to Human Rights Watch, Mbédé was then arrested and beaten by police. Mbede spent time in prison as he awaited bail. One month later, he was sentenced to three years in prison for homosexuality, which, in Cameroon, is a crime punishable by up to five years of jail time. He was released on bail pending sentencing. When the time came, he avoided turning himself in. He was very ill and had been diagnosed with testicular cancer soon after leaving prison. During this time, Mbede was sequestered in the village where he was born by his family. He needed medical treatment that he was not able to get when he was sequestered at home. His family didn’t take him to a hospital “telling a messenger that they wanted him to die to cleanse him of the curse of his homosexuality” On January 10, 2014, Mbédé died in Ngoumou, the small village in which he was born. He was 35.
"I hope that through my campaign and through raising awareness people will accept the key message which is Let Love Love. I hope that our continent as a whole will recognize the great contributions made by members of the LGBT community where they are not oppressed or silenced, I think my strong belief in the universality of fundamental human rights should not be silenced," said Major.
