Although the Nigerian Same Sex Marriage Bill of 2006 appears to be at least temporarily shelved, no one knows if and when it will reappear. For the moment the focus is on another proposed “morality” legislation, the Dress Code Bill sponsored by Senator Eme Ekatte, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women and Youth Affairs. At first glance her logic is beyond belief but when looked at in the context of the fundamentalist religious movement led by Bishop Akinola on the one side and Sharia advocates on the other, is it really so surprising? What we have is a country of Jekyll’s and Hyde’s, obsessed by religion and morality one minute and condoning infidelity and silent on sexual and physical child abuse, the next. Despite the wide condemnation of the Bill in the press, reading between the lines there is still the widely held belief that women and girls are the seducers of men.

Mrs Ekatte.……..indecent dressing promotes “vices in the society, we are seeing a lot of moral decadence in the society today.” She says her bill will help “to preserve cultural norms and values”. Hear her: “If you want to wear something, I believe that there are certain parts of the body that must be covered. You cannot go naked in the name of fashion.”

Whilst the country seems to be split over the Dress Code Bill, when it comes to the the Same Sex Marriage Bill, everyone forgets and quickly defends their homophobia on the grounds of the holy trinity of religion, morality and culture. No one wants to hear THESE stories! Between August the 5th 2007 and 15th January 2008, Global Rights Nigeria documented reports and incidents of violence against LGBTI people………

* Reports/incidents of protest or demonstration against LGBTI rights and other related issues by individuals, groups or community organizations.

* Reports/incidents of violence against LGBTI people/individuals by use of forced eviction from community, torture, etc
* Incidents/reports where pressure, organized by individuals and communities appear to have influenced the perception on LGBTI rights and related issues.

* Any incidents where actions to protest or demonstrate against violations of LGBTI people and other related issues were met with/obstructed by violence [by SSS, Police, Hizbah, individuals in communities, etc]
* Reports on Statements or Declarations by organizations [such as: Church groups, Religious bodies, Community Based Organization (CBO), Traditional Institutions, Professional associations, etc] about LGBTI and related issues in their State/Zone.

* Reports on bias legal and court proceedings against LGBTI related cases.

Altogether 34 incidents were reported where individuals faced violations of their human rights and acts of violence. Only two weeks ago a member of Changing Attitude Nigeria was verbally abused, beaten and kicked nearly to the point of death by a mob in Port Harcourt while he was attending the funeral of a friend. People including the police stood by and did nothing to help him. Stephanie Adaralegbe a trans woman has written many times about some of the horrendous abuses she has faced over the past 10 years whilst trying to live and survive in various parts of Nigeria.

The wanton violations and abuse of fundamental human rights started from my classroom in the University. As a Law student in the University, I was very iconoclastic with my gender orientation. My lectures prevented me from entering the classroom and I missed a lot of lectures during the Semesters. However, my predicament was not limited to ostracism. I was also subjected to a lot of violent hate attacks by students and people in general. My institution was awash with homophobia when I came out of my closet with my sexual and gender orientation. I was besieged so many times at night in wanton banditry and savagery by trans phobic boys. The security guards in my institution also attacked me and got me severely beaten up with planks, iron bars and the base of their gun. I was hospitalized in the University health center as a result of this and incident occurred in June, 2000. Eventually, I frustrated by lecturers to drop out of school in the year 2001.

Between 1997 and 2006 Stephanie was in police detention 10 times, repeatedly abused, beaten up, her clothes removed and placed in solitary confinement. Despite the SSMB being put on hold, LGBTI people are still being harassed, beaten and illegally detained sometimes for months. Unless you have access to money or the international human rights / LGBTI community who can take up your case, people are at the mercy of the mob and or the police and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it as Stephanie will tell you.

The language of both the Bills and their supporters is full of fears. Words like culture and moral decadence are used to defend patriarchy and sexual repression and hide the Fear of loosing control. Fear of women having the freedom to express themselves and take control of their own lives independent of men; fear of their own sexuality which contributes to their homophobia; fear of being found out - Nigeria is not a place to be Different. Police are everywhere, fashion police, sexuality police, religious police, culture police, protocol police, gender police. But alas there are no corruption police. No one is policing the sexual abuse of children and young people. No one is policing the use of child labour, domestic violence or female circumcision. On the contrary standing up and speaking of these abuses and you may find yourself facing the wrath of the people police, guardians of our culture and shame.

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