A recent Guardian newspaper interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner and Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf confirms just how far we still have to go where LGBTI rights are concerned.
Sirleaf seemed personally affronted when a journalist asked for her stance on decriminalising homosexuality in Liberia.
She answered that she would not make any attempts to change Liberia’s law, which can see gay people imprisoned for a year for ‘voluntary sodomy’.
“We like ourselves just the way we are,” Sirleaf said. “We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve.”
Former British prime minister Tony Blair, there to discuss his role with Liberia and the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), meekly refused to enter the fray.
Even the journalist seemed shocked with Sirleaf’s answer, and repeated the question.
Sirleaf was awarded her Nobel Prize for her fight for women’s rights and peace building in the previously war-torn nation. I’m not sure where exactly lesbians fit in her vision of a unified country.
Given that Liberia has come out of a 14-year civil war and is one of the poorest nations on earth, I’m sure there are, as Blair put it, many other issues to face.
But when do LGBTI human rights matter? When is the right time to talk about these issues?
Human Rights Watch reports anti-gay sentiment is rising in Liberia with reports of threats and violence against LGBT people. There are also two bills being drafted to increase criminal penalities for people engaging in homosexual sex.
With a smug sort of smile, Sirleaf dismisses the real concerns of LGBT citizens out of hand.
A short video doing the internet rounds features a remix of comments from a speech UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon made on LGBT rights at the time members of the UN Human Rights Council staged a walkout.
“To those people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, let me say, you are not alone, your struggle for an end to violence and discrimination is a shared struggle today. I stand with you and I call upon all countries and people to stand with you to,” he said.
“The time has come.”
If only people would listen.
