Regard condemns the decision of the UK Government to co-host this Tuesday’s Global Disability Summit with the Government of Kenya
It is hard to imagine a less suitable partner to co-host Tuesday’s Global Disability Summit in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park than the Government of Kenya — apart from its neighbour, Uganda. It is illegal to be gay in both countries, and as a result many LGBTQI+ people develop lifelong impairments.
LGBTQI+ people in Kenya are routinely banished from their families, denied work and accommodation, imprisoned and persecuted. They face severe barriers to forming and maintaining relationships and to living as a couple, the ‘Right to Family Life’ that every human is promised. This results in widespread damage to their mental and physical health, creating impairments where none previously existed.
This is reflected in the high level of asylum applications to the UK from LGBTQI+ asylum seekers from Kenya and other African countries. Despite their experiences, the majority are then refused asylum in the UK and forcibly returned home, where many disappear or are murdered. In Kenya itself, LGBTQI+ asylum seekers from other African countries are refused refugee status and criminalised instead by the Government of Kenya, with the UN High Commission for Refugees left powerless to intervene. Follow this link to find out more from the Peter Tatchell Foundation; http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/un-fails-ugandan-lgbti-refugees-abused-in-kenya/
Just this April, President Kenyatta said that LGBT rights are “not acceptable” and not “an issue of human rights”. The Government of Kenya repeatedly states that this is a non-issue for Kenyans, meaning it is accepted that LGBTQI+ people should be condemned for existing and are not worthy of basic human rights. If you are Kenyan or Ugandan and are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or intersex, it is an issue that completely dominates and dictates your life, and for many Disabled people from Kenya, it is the reason they developed an impairment in the first place.
Regard, the UK’s LGBTQI+ Disabled People’s Organisation, says: “The involvement of the Government of Kenya discredits any debate that takes place at the Global Disability Summit, let alone the recommendations that come out for other countries about implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Whatever the political reasons for involving Kenya in co-hosting the first Global Disability Summit, the rights and welfare of Disabled people seem to have had very little to do with it.”
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