A human rights watchdog says it is alarmed over reports of increasing vigilante violence in Kenya against people accused of homosexual conduct and groups offering HIV/AIDS services. 

New York-based Human Rights Watch has condemned anti-gay violence that erupted last Friday in a coastal town northeast of the port city of Mombasa.  

According to Human Rights Watch sources in Mtwapa town, an armed mob of 200 to 300 people raided a government health center that provides HIV/AIDS services to the community in a bid to “flush out gays.”  The mob severely beat a man who tried to enter the health center and tried to set him on fire before the police arrived and took the half-conscious man into custody.  

The following day, another mob attacked a volunteer at the health center in Mtwapa before he, too, was taken into police custody.  The violence spread to Mombasa, where a crowd beat a suspected homosexual in the streets.  A second man accused of being a homosexual was attacked in Mombasa on Tuesday.

Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya and is punishable by as long as 14 years in jail.  Human Rights Watch says while the accused men taken into custody were never charged and later released, the police have not tried to arrest any of the mob leaders nor halt the attacks.

A prominent Kenyan gay activist Pouline Kimani says attacks on the government health center and suspected homosexuals began after a rumor began circulating in late January.  The rumor involved a gay wedding that was allegedly going to take place in Mtwapa town on February 12.   

Kimani says local Christian and Muslim leaders urged their congregations to expose homosexuals and to turn them in to the police.  The religious leaders also criticized the Kenyan government for providing HIV/AIDS service to gays, describing them as “criminals.”

“I completely understand that all of us have very different ways of thinking,’ said Kimani. “But religious leaders start to make very hateful speeches and incite violence on a community and not one single authority has spoken against it, even though incitement of hatred is criminal in our laws.”

In neighboring Uganda, a controversial anti-homosexuality bill, now before the Ugandan parliament, also has alleged links to religious leaders.  

It has been widely reported that the bill, which contains a clause that allows capital punishment for some gay people, was inspired by American evangelical preachers involved in a movement to stop homosexuality through prayer and faith in Christianity.

Homosexuality is already against the law in Uganda and punishable by lengthy jail terms.

U.S. President Barack Obama has called the proposed legislation in Uganda “odious.”  

Human rights activists say violence and discrimination are rising against gays because authorities in the region are condoning public hostility.  Rights groups say they also worry that attacks on clinics providing HIV/AIDS services could affect not only gay men, but millions of heterosexual people suffering from the disease.

-Voice of America

This self-defence group began in 2007 as way of fighting back at the young bandits of Korogocho

By Boris Bachorz (AFP)

KOROGOCHO, Kenya — At the age of 60, 80 or maybe 100, the karateka grandmas of Korogocho slum are learning the rudiments of martial arts in order to survive in one of Kenya’s most dangerous shanty towns.

Only a dozen or so kilometres (eight miles) from the heart of the capital Nairobi, Korogocho’s residents — all 155,000 of them — are crammed into an area measuring just 1.5 square kilometres.

Most of the young people here survive by scavenging what they can from the giant rubbish heap at neighbouring Dandora.

Even venturing into one of the main streets in broad daylight to queue at a water point is a calculated risk.

So, in this sun-baked universe of mud bricks and rusting corrugated iron, devoid of vegetation, the mat of the “Streams of Hope and Peace” association looks like a haven of tranquility and optimism.

A plastic cover gives some shelter from the sun and the corrugated iron has been painted in bright colours.

This self defence group started in 2007 as way of fighting back at the young bandits of Korogocho

Inside, about 20 elderly women, barefoot and clad in shapeless dresses and headscarves, are sitting in a circle on a mat encouraging one of their number who is hitting a punchbag yelling Noooooooooooo!

The blows lack force, but according to the women’s teacher Sheila Kariuki, that’s not the crucial thing.

“You don’t need to hit hard to be accurate,” says Kariuki, a youngster by comparison to her charges at 29. “Accuracy is the key to the technique.”

She demonstrates the vulnerable points on a young man acting as guinea pig for the class: the nose, chin, collarbone, and of course the genitals.

This self-defence group began in 2007 as way of fighting back at the young bandits of Korogocho who took to raping women three or four times their age.

“Every time the boys make a robbery, they will ask the grandmas to sleep with them,” explains Mary Wangui, 73, who was one of the oldest pupils and is now a teacher.

“Young men believe that young girls are all infected with Aids, so they’d rather go to the old ones because they know we don’t have any more partners.”

The undisputed star of this particular group is Gladys Wanjiku, who thinks she must be “about 100″ — an idea that seems surprising when you see her hit the punchbags with measured, confident blows.

If a man with evil intent comes close, “I will hit him,” she says, smiling confidently.

Fortunately, she has been spared attack — “I pray so much for them not to come,” she explains — but “if a young man wants to rape me, now I know where to hit.”

She likes the practice. “I feel so much better, and my body feels so light after the training.”

Kariuki, who holds her classes on a voluntary basis, was herself trained by an American woman the self-defence techniques developped by US feminists from the 1970s.

She in turn teaches her elderly students “a mixture of karate, kung-fu and taekwondo.”

The group, which has no public money or donations, meets around once a week in a room provided by a charity. Another class is for younger women aged up to 30.

Kariuki harbours no illusions about the chances of Kenyan police providing protection, and so also trains the women how to negotiate and how to overcome their fear.

“I teach them to yell, which is the opposite of screaming,” she continues. “When you yell, you are in control, relaxed, telling the world that you don’t like what these young boys are doing to you, and telling them to stop.”

“The police help but their number is very few,” she adds.

“Our programme does make a difference. We have testimonies of old women now able to defend themselves using verbal or physical techniques.”

All the women in this class live alone, usually in a rudimentary one-room brick shelter protected, at best, by a little lock. There’s no running water, and electricity is patchy.

If anyone tries to harass her, says 70-year-old Joyce Wanjiru, “I will use the negotiation scheme and afterwards I will yell to attract attention.”

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.