The ANC Women’s League is moving to lobby the South African government to host the World Gay Games to promote the LGBTQIA+ community.
This is contained in the league’s discussion documents meant to be discussed last weekend at its national congress.
However, the discussions have since been deferred to the second leg of conference after delegates ran out of time to dissect them.
According to the discussion documents, there is a strong need for the ANC and its government, as it moves to pursue gender transformation, to motivate women to not leave the LGBT+ group behind. And as it moves in that direction, the documents proclaim, there is no better way than going big to crush stereotypes once and for all.
Hosting the games, it believes, will be a boost in its agenda of “gender mainstreaming in government programmes and projects”.
“[South Africa must] explore the World Gay Games,” read the documents.
As part of the offensive to conscientise society, the league also wants the governing party’s OR Tambo School of Leadership to introduce modules about LGBTQIA+, which should be compulsory to all party members.
This while simultaneously pushing for the ANC NEC to establish a sub-committee to focus on gay and lesbians issues, insisting that such issues are urgent and different to those of women.
Moreover, added the document, the league will seek to demand that gays and lesbians be represented in all ANC leadership structures from branch level to the NEC.
South Africa should also move to pass a law that recognises a 3rd gender to accommodate the alphabet community and cement this with legislation that outlaws “conversion practices that seek to change people on the basis of their gender identity”, stated the documents.
Among other key issues the women will debate in the second stanza of the national conference, said the documents, is the proposed solutions to the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
On this front, the league argued that as boys embark on the journey to manhood at initiation schools, they should be taught about GBVF. This is likely to set them on a collision course with traditional leaders, as the boy initiation spaces have been declared a no-go area for outsiders. In its view, some of the causes of GBVF is the high number of illegal immigrants in the country.
As part of possible solutions, South Africa should strengthen agreements with neighbouring countries for ease of deportation of foreign nationals who are in the country without papers.
At the level of the justice system, said the documents, the ANCWL is proposing various measures for improvement, chief among are the setting up of special courts and an aggressive recruitment of police officers who would deal specifically with GBVF cases at police stations across the country.
Further to this, said the documents, government must “facilitate the provision of housing to victims and survivors of GBVF rather than keeping them in places of safety for six months only to release them back to perpetrators”.
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