Rwanda recognises queer community

Rwanda's Gender ministry, on March 31, launched a Comprehensive Sexuality Education Toolkit', which recognises and promotes education about genderqueer and different sexual orientations.

In the new book, titled ‘Amahitamo Yanjye’, (loosely, ‘My Choice’), gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation are explained using new Kinyarwanda terminologies, such as ‘abagabogore’ and ‘igitsina cya gatatu’.

The toolkit is an out-of-school material for adolescents and young people aged from 10-24 years, and among other things, it argues that there is no relationship between gender and sex.

The book is a joint effort by, among others, the Ministry of Health, Rwanda Biomedical Centre, and Plan International.

Rwanda has always treated sexual orientation as a private matter that needs no government intervention or particular legislation.

In 2010, it voted to re-introduce ‘sexual orientation’ as a category in a UN resolution on ‘extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions’ after the reference had been removed a year earlier.

And, in 2011, it joined four other African countries in signing a UN Joint Statement, Ending Acts of Violence and Related Human Rights Violations Based On Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.