Commonwealth Gathering Calls for Bold Action on LGBTIQ+ Rights

The 2025 Africa Regional Convening of the Commonwealth Equality Network (TCEN), hosted in Pretoria by Access Chapter 2, brought together activists, policymakers, and human rights defenders from 25 African countries.

The gathering from 19 to 21 August created space for organisations to share expertise, co-create solutions, and build solidarity in defending LGBTIQ+ rights across Africa and the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth Equality Network (TCEN) is a coalition of more than 80 organisations from almost 50 countries, working to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and gender diverse people are free and equal.

With 30 of the 56 Commonwealth member states still criminalising same-sex intimacy, TCEN provides a platform to share strategies for equality that can be adapted to diverse legal, cultural and socio-economic contexts.

A vision of solidarity

A reception event on Thursday night in Pretoria included a panel discussion on the topic of “Strengthening Relations and Human Rights Advocacy for LGBTQIA+ People in Africa.”

Delivering the keynote address, Eve Oduor, Vice Chair of TCEN and a leading Kenyan activist, set the tone for the evening.

“Our members provide health services, legal advocacy, and community support, but above all, we exist to ensure that LGBTQ+ voices are heard at the highest levels of the Commonwealth,” Oduor said. “This work can be exhausting, but networks like ours remind us that none of us stands alone. We are here to build solidarity across borders, across struggles, and across identities.”

Oduor stressed that regressive, well-resourced anti-rights movements were threatening democracies globally, and that African LGBTIQ+ communities must continue to unite and innovate in their resistance.

A call to action for Africa

The gathering also heard a call to action, read by Namibian activist Linda Baumann on behalf of TCEN Africa. The declaration urged governments, regional bodies, and allies to take decisive steps to protect LGBTIQ+ Africans.

“As Africans, activists, human rights defenders and members of the Commonwealth Equality Network, we stand united at a pivotal moment in our shared pursuit of justice, dignity, liberty and equality,” the statement read.

It called for urgent measures including the decriminalisation of consensual same-sex relations, comprehensive anti-discrimination laws, investments in mental health and emergency support systems, and genuine engagement with traditional and religious leaders to dismantle stigma.

“Our vision is a continent where every individual, irrespective of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics, can live without fear, discrimination or violence,” Baumann read. “The time for transformative change is now.”

Economic justice as unfinished business

Building on this call, panelist Steve Letsike, Deputy Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, emphasised the urgent need to link human rights to material realities.

“LGBT people are not just going to eat those rights,” Letsike declared. “They need shelter, they need access to education, they need access to job opportunities. Let’s also invest our effort there. When people are taken care of economically, they also have the energy to fight.”

She also warned of the increasingly organised backlash against LGBTIQ+ rights: “The backlash we are seeing still wears the same jacket, but it is much more organised now. They’ve managed to put money behind it.”

Laws versus lived realities

Lee-Anne Germanos, from the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), highlighted the contradiction between South Africa’s progressive laws and the lived experiences of queer people.

“South Africa was the fifth country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage in 2007. We are considered one of the most progressive in terms of law. But the lived experiences don’t reflect that,” Germanos noted.

She said the SAHRC is developing a model school code of conduct to affirm gender non-conforming learners and stressed that true equality requires cultural change: “Substantive equality can only happen when there’s a change in the hearts and minds of people.”

Accountability, not tokenism

Commissioner Leonashia Leigh-Ann Van Der Merwe of the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) emphasised the need for sharper accountability.

“At CGE, we don’t collaborate; we hold [government] accountable. That is the structure,” she said. Critiquing endless rounds of sensitisation workshops, she added: “Teaching people how to treat another human being like a human being should not be our endless cycle.”

Van Der Merwe also raised concerns about neo-colonial dynamics and the use of sovereignty rhetoric: “The language of sovereignty has always been used against queer people in Africa. We need to honestly reflect on what it means when the North tells us we cannot tell Cameroon or Kenya what to do, yet they still fund right-wing politics that affect us all.”

Intersectional struggles, united movement

The panel discussion, moderated by Prof. Anthony Brown of UNISA, closed with a reminder that LGBTIQ+ rights cannot be separated from other struggles.

“Our lives are characterised by multiple struggles, race, gender, disability, poverty, geography. We must unite, reorganise, and re-mobilise the energies necessary for true equality,” Brown said.

The discussions highlighted that while legal victories are important, lasting progress will require confronting inequality in all its forms, economic, cultural, and political. As Linda Baumann’s call to action declared, “Our time is now. Our movement is strong. Our future is bright.”