Mauritius: kidnapped to "cure" their homosexuality

Image via WikipediaSource: Tetu

Translation by F Young

Introduction by Nicholas Ritter of Collectif Arc-en-Ciel:

Although LGBT issues are evolving in the right direction in Mauritius, it takes time. Mauritius is a VERY conservative country and also VERY religious. Therefore parents who learn that their child is gay rarely accept it and act sometime like barbarians.... Thanks to the courage of those girls and the media support this strory finished with a happy end. Thanks God we are still in a democracy even if sometime its smell like banana....

By Habi Bangré

Some families arrange the kidnapping of their own child to put an end to homosexual love. A practice that the Collectif Arc-en-Ciel fights on the spot as best it can.

On June 6, Shalima’s life was radically changed. The 20-year-old Mauritian was violently abducted right before her friend’s eyes and confined for over a week in her parents’ house. "My loved ones never accepted my sexual orientation, and by abducting me, they quite simply wanted to take me away from the woman I love," said Shalima to local newspaper KotZot News.

In the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, sodomy is prohibited and society is intolerant of gay and lesbian relationships. "We've already had a case where a young girl was abducted on the beach by her parents and confined in the same way [as Shalima], or where a young girl was locked up in a psychiatric hospital and physically threatened by her family. But for every one who has the courage to testify, how many cases are kept quiet?” asks Nathalie Ahnee, President of the Collectif Arc-en-Ciel (“rainbow collective”) local association.

The police are not always cooperative. In the case of Shalima, "the police refused to take the complaint of her friend who had witnessed the abduction (...) arguing that there was nothing to prosecute, even trying to discourage and upset this young woman," said Nathalie Ahnee. Then, they did not take it up as a case of someone having been kidnapped and being held, disregarding the notion of "failure to assist a person in danger" and claiming that the parents had the right to act this way as they were her parents."

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Gay tourism: Has cheapflights.co.uk just slandered four countries?

By Paul Canning

One of the UK's top travel websites, cheapflights UK, has issued a press release about the best and the worst places for LGBT tourists.

There's little surprise that top of their list of the worst places for the gays to visit is Jamaica and their PR made the news in Jamaica, whose press seems concerned about its image abroad but constantly rehashes claims by Jamaican police that actually the problem is those 'batty boys' bashing each other, the phrase 'lover's tiffs' being a constant.

Cheapflights 'top five' also includes Fiji, Poland, Nicaragua and Mauritius. Their PR makes reference to sodomy laws but homosexuality is only illegal in Jamaica and, kind of, Mauritius. Some of the other countries have - legally speaking at least - been far more advanced than either the USA, which got rid of sodomy laws through a Supreme Court decision in 2003 or the UK which only adopted anti-discrimination in employment and services law in 2007.

'Worst places to visit', really?

Take Fiji for example. This was one of only two three countries in the world which has included protections against discrimination on sexual orientation grounds in its constitution (the others are Bolivia and South Africa). However the 1997 constitution which did this has been abolished (the country is currently run by the military and expelled from the Commonwealth) and in 2005 there was a high profile arrest and jailing of an Australian tourist but the following year the government announced a new policy of no arrests.

One of the common sources for information on otherwise ignored countries like Fiji is GlobalGayz. That carries two negative and one positive story about being gay in Fiji. A Fijian wrote to them seeing the negative stories saying "I definitely don’t agree about these negative views about Fiji and how they deal with gays."

He did say that "in the small village areas here I would advise visitors to be cautious due to cultural sensitivity. Fijian villages are very conservative and respected places therefore I believe it is fair to show mutual respect to village beliefs and traditions." And the removal of all remaining vestiges of discrimination in criminal codes by the Fijian government since 1 February this year did cause the Women’s Action for Change group in Fiji to express concern over a possible violent public backlash.

The Foreign Office does not provide country-specific travel information and the company told me that "the research was done through Cheapflights editors and obtained from various online sources.  It wasn't specific user feedback."

Well according to numerous online sources, Fiji hosts a number of 'gay-friendly' resorts.

Having a (monthly) ball in Mauritius

Although, according to ILGA, a sodomy law remains on the books in Mauritius, there is also an active gay movement represented by the Mauritian LGBTI organisation, Collectif Arc-en-ciel. There have been Pride marches and there has been serious discussion around anti-discrimination laws with the government including sexual orientation in its 2008 discrimination bill.

Image by KhayaL via Flickr

Nicolas Ritter, Collectif Arc en Ciel Vice-President, told LGBT Asylum News: "if by “gay destination” you mean a place where you can find saunas, gay and leather bars, gay hotels and nude beaches, well in that context you are right. There are no such things in Mauritius. Mauritius is not and will never be a place like Sitges, Mikonos, Sydney or San Francisco."

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