Homosexuality/Bisexuality

Anti-gay sentiment has reportedly been on the rise in recent years, as evidenced by the implementation of a new law criminalizing same-sex relations, despite no history of homophobic laws in Burundi. In defiance of widespread criticism from human rights and gay rights groups, the new law was introduced under pressure from president Pierre Nkurunziza, an outspoken anti-gay figure. After the senate rejected the amendment, 20,000 people took to the streets of Bujumbara on 12 March to call for the amendment to be reinstated. According to Human Rights Watch, the president’s party, CNDD-FDD bussed in school children and adults from rural provinces to participate in the protests.

The President of the National Assembly’s Human Rights Commission, Fidele Mbunde, a proponent of the amendment, said that he did not intend for arrests to be made under the law, but for it to ‘send a message about Burundian values’. The CNDD-FDD Party Chairman, Jeremie Ngendakumana, believes that ‘homosexuality is a sin. It is a culture which has been imported to sully our morals and is practiced by immoral people.’ Such anti-gay rhetoric is widespread among politicians with the President himself stating on national television that being gay is a ‘curse’.

Scott Long, the director of LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, criticized the new laws, expressing that the government has fallen back on ‘custom’ and ‘culture’ to justify this repressive step. Not only are public acts of indecency criminalised, but the legislation could also mean imprisonment of people for their actual or imputed sexual orientation, including private sexual relations between consenting adults. Human Rights Watch and others put forward a petition in April 2009, urging the Burundian Government to repeal article 567.

LGBTI persons face discrimination and marginalization by the community due to their sexual orientation. Families sometimes disown gay children who refuse to deny homosexual identity. Burundian LGBTI group Humure reports that many gay people enter opposite-sex marriages due to social pressure and that consequently 90% of gay men are married. Since the 2009 amendment to the penal code, discrimination against homosexuals has increased, however as of the end of 2010, no one had been prosecuted under the new provision.

In the Human Rights Watch report ‘Forbidden,’ members of the LGBTI community talk about how they have been fired from their jobs, beaten by family and neighbours, and evicted from their homes because of their sexual orientation. The report found that LGBTI community fears that they are more likely to be beaten or mistreated by policy or their fellow citizens simply for their purported sexual orientation. Another fear is that the enforcement of the legislation will undermine the attempts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS among the LGBTI community.

We have not found any relevant case law at this time but welcome suggestions.