The Indigenous Queer Vision for a Decolonial West Africa
As ECOWAS celebrates its 50th anniversary, it has an opportunity to redefine its vision for the future. A decolonized West Africa must be one where all individuals—regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity—can live with dignity and freedom.
As the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) celebrates its 50 years anniversary, it is a momentous occasion to reflect on its achievements and challenges, especially on the lives of indigenous gender and sexual minorities living in West Africa. Founded in Lagos, Nigeria, by 15 out of 16 states in West Africa in May 1975, the birth of ECOWAS marked the beginning of what was considered a new era in economic cooperation and development in West Africa. Its founding treaty emphasized the importance of mobilizing particularly the young population of men and women living in West Africa for the development of its states.
Specifically, the Revised Article 63 of the ECOWAS treaty mandated that it focused on developing policies and programs to enhance the economic, social and cultural conditions and realities of women on the West African region. The recognition of the importance of promoting gender development to eradicate poverty has motivated ECOWAS to integrate gender considerations and critical concerns of women into its policies, programming and initiatives. Its Gender Development Centre, for instance, established in 2003, is a hub for mobilizing, advancing and empowering women across member states in West Africa. While this is commendable, its engagement with gender and sexual minorities in West Africa and the issues that affect them socially, economically and politically have notably been silent in its 50 years of existence. This silence reflects the state of the rights of gender and sexual minorities in many West African states, which have often justified discrimination against queer people and the LGBTI+ community by referencing ‘African culture’.
While this reflects a broader policy gap in the human rights framework of ECOWAS, it is also an even deeper reflection of how colonialism and neocolonial narratives continue to shape discourses on sexuality and identity in West Africa and across many African states, even decades after independence. It is an indication that ECOWAS’ intentional exclusion of indigenous gender and sexual (queer) minorities living in West Africa undermines its stated development goals. True decolonization of West Africa must start from a rejection of both colonial heteropatriarchy and post-colonial homophobia. The development of West Africa is forever dependent on its ability to mobilize all its human resources, including its diversity—of which gender and sexual minorities are an integral part...
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