Emotional Story Of An Assaulted Same-sex Nigerian

THIS IS TRULY NIGERIAN..GOOD PEOPLE, GREAT NATION

LAGOS, Nigeria — When a gang of men ambushed Rashidi Williams and a male friend earlier this year, the 25-year-old man-lover Nigerian was too afraid to report the attack to police or even to his family. Doing so would only create more problems, he says, in this country where legislators are now seeking to criminalize man-lover marriage. Here in the megacity of Africa’s most populous nation, Williams says marriage though is the last thing on the minds of many man-lover and lady-loving-lady Nigerians who fear physical danger in this conservative country. “I took myself to the hospital but couldn’t say why I had been beaten up because that would have started another set of discrimination for me,” said Williams, who hurt his shoulder blade in the attack. “These things are so underreported in Nigeria. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist , People are getting killed.” Activists fear that discrimination and violence will only increase if a bill drawing strong support in Nigeria’s legislature is passed. Under the measure, couples who marry could face up to three years in jail, and witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to five years behind bars. “If this bill passes into law, the Nigerian government will be sanctioning even greater discrimination and violence against an already vulnerable group,” said Graeme Reid, lady-loving-lady, man-lover, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights director at New York-based Human Rights Watch. The proposed law also has drawn the interest of European Union countries, some of which already offer Nigeria’s intimate minorities asylum based on gender identity. The British government also recently threatened to cut aid to African countries that violate the rights of man-lover and lady-loving-lady citizens. Homosexuality is already technically illegal in Nigeria, a country that may be evenly divided between Christians and Muslims but is nearly universally opposed to homosexuality. In the areas in Nigeria’s north where Islamic Shariah law is enforced, man-loving-men and lady-loving-ladies can face death by stoning. Across the African continent, many countries have made homosexuality punishable by jail sentences. Ugandan legislators introduced a bill that would impose the death penalty for some man-loving-men and lady-loving-ladies, though it has not been passed into law two years later. Even in South Africa, the one country where man-loving-men can marry, lady-loving-ladies have been brutally attacked and murdered. A group of international human rights organizations earlier this month sent a letter opposing the Nigerian bill to legislative leaders, the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who has to approve the bill for it to become law. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International man-lover and lady-loving-lady Human Rights Commission also fear the legislation could set back HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts in Nigeria, which has the world’s third-highest population of people living with HIV/AIDS. Some gender experts say the bill could be an attempt to stir anti-man-lover sentiment.