Leading South African LGBTIQ+ and HIV activist Steve Letsike has been appointed Chair of the Commonwealth Equality Network. The Commonwealth Equality Network (TCEN) is a community of civil society organisations that work to uphold the human rights of LGBTI+ people across the Commonwealth of Nations, most of which are former British colonies.
Appallingly, more than 30 of the 54 Commonwealth member states still criminalise same-sex behaviour. A number of these countries have life imprisonment for gay sex and in parts of two, Nigeria and Pakistan, there is the death penalty. “I am looking forward to creating pathways for change where those pathways don’t exist,” said Letsike in a statement.