The webtalk “Colonial Legacies and Neocolonial Dynamics: LGBTIQ+ Rights and the Global Power Struggle in Africa”, was organised by the Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation and Amnesty International as part of the project “The Pink Factor – LGBTIQ+-Rights in the Geopolitical Conflict about Values and Resources.”
Impulse by Sarah Kohrt, Hirschfeld-Eddy-Foundation at the German protestant church congress (DEKT) in Hanover 2025
“Celebrating Pride and diversity — Together against racism, anti-queerness and populism” was the title of the discussion in the Neustädter Hof- und Stadtkirche St. Johannis at the German Protestant Church Congress 2025 in Hanover. The event took place as part of the “Centre Rainbow and Gender”. The event commemorated the Imam Muhsin Hendricks, Executive Director Al-Ghrubaah Foundation, Capetown/South Africa, who had been invited as a panelist and fell victim to a hate crime near his home in February 2025. An obituary for Muhsin Hendricks can be found here.
Webtalk, May 9, 2–3:30 PM CEST
You are cordially invited to this Webtalk:
Anti-rights-movements increasingly target LGBTQI+ and women’s rights globally. Across the African continent, the struggle for human rights and particularly for sexual and reproductive rights is shaped by both colonial legacies and contemporary geopolitical shifts. The U.S.’s departure from its leadership role in development cooperation and humanitarian aid, and the impact of globally operating faith-based actors in shaping anti-LGBTQI+ legislation impact feminist and LGBTQI+ human rights defenders. In this time of multilayered global assault on the rights of LGBTQI+ individuals, it is crucial to respond in solidarity and in a way that takes a decolonial approach seriously.
A New Scramble for Africa: Foreign Actors and Fake De-Colonization
(…)In all the events undermining the human rights, dignity, and access to healthcare of Africans described above, there is a foreign footprint, or rather, multiple foreign footprints. The most widely reported has been the footprint of the US Christian Right, specifically Sharon Slater of Family Watch International (FWI), who was famously in a bilateral meeting with Madame Kagame in March 2023, appearing to take over where Scott Lively had left off in providing external validation for a cruel piece of legislation targeting an already marginalized group (…)
Written by Neil Datta, executive director at the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights. The Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation would like to thank Neil Datta for the kind permission to publish this text.
Einladung zum Webtalk am 26. Nov 2024 von 17:30–19:00
English below
Flyer
Florence F/Khaxas, Y‑FEM Namibia
Matlhogonolo Samsam, Black Queer DocX Botswana
Beim Einsatz für die Menschenrechte von LSBTIQ* wird oft der Vorwurf des Neokolonialismus erhoben, obwohl gerade die homophoben Gesetze eine Auswirkung der Kolonialzeit sind. In Namibia kippte der High Court erst im Juni 2024 das Verbot von gleichgeschlechtlichen Handlungen, das seit der Kolonialzeit bestand. Welche Chancen gibt es vor diesem Hintergrund für transkontinentale solidarische Allianzen?
I am grateful to Sarah Kohrt of the Hirschfeld-Eddy-Stiftung for the opportunity to share my thoughts on why it is important to decolonize foreign policy. In the current global context of long-term wars which necessitated major shifts in funding priorities being redirected to defence, security and militarisation, discussions of foreign policy mainly focus on human security, fuel energy and trade. In this regard, contemporary foreign policy engagements are organised and held with specific focus on powerful partners of the United States of America, Russia and China respectively.
Video message (YT) by Ymania Brown, at the Conference “Cultures and Colonialism”, 24 Oct 2024
Talofa lava, kia orana, bula vinaka, and warm Pacific greetings to you all. It is my profound honor to stand before you today, in a foreign country doing the work I do to help decolonise minds and hearts and laws – when in my own country of Samoa—our cherished heart of the Pacific—there is a historic gathering of CHOGM happening right now. The Commonwealth. The heart of Victorian Era laws that criminalise who we love and who we start a family with, laws we are all trying to reverse.
24 October 2024, Berlin, Refugio, Axel Hochrein, Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation Board
A warm welcome to everyone at the conference “Cultures and Colonialism – Decoloniality and LGBTIQ+ Human Rights”. Thank you for coming, and we are very happy to see the great level of interest. It is an honour for me to open this event, which is part of our “Cultures and Colonialism” project this year. The project was made possible by a year of funding from the Federal Ministry of Justice in response to a resolution by the German Parliament, for which we extend heartfelt thanks.
How a peculiarity of the UK legal system contributes to the discrimination of LGBTIQ+ people in the Caribbean today
The author argues that UK judges have systematically stopped Caribbean independent nations from dismantling the oppressive colonial system. This short piece shows a structural peculiarity of the British legal system that enables the continuation of colonial attitudes in today’s legal system and reveals structural racism that persists to this day.
24 October 2024, 2–6 pm
The Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation cordially invites you to the conference “Cultures and Colonialism ‒ Decoloniality and LGBTIQ+ Human Rights”. Topics: the impact of European colonization on queer lifestyles and gender, and practical opportunities for postcolonial project work.