Reclaiming African Pride: We Refuse to Be Legislated Out of Existence

By Benedicta Oyedayo Oyewole,

When we speak of celebration in the spirit of Ubuntu, we are not merely referring to events or visibility moments. We are evoking a deeper, collective joy rooted in resistance, relationality, and the politics of being. Ubuntu says, ‘I am because we are,’ and in that spirit, celebration becomes a political act. It takes the form of music, laughter, dance, vibrant colours, and in some African cultures, masquerades that shake the ground beneath our feet. 

These are not aesthetics for performance. They are expressions of collective memory, resistance, and survival. In those moments, people feel seen. Not tolerated, seen. Not permitted, respected. People move with agency. With defiance. With joy that is not passive, but revolutionary. 

That is Ubuntu. That is Pride. 

But that spirit has been systematically stripped away. 

The rupture between what Pride once meant within our cultural contexts and what was violently imposed through coloniality and heteropatriarchy has bred something else: fear. Fear of being visible. Fear of claiming space. Fear of simply existing outside sanctioned norms. 

Across the world, recent years have seen the rapid digitalization of social movements, a fourth wave of feminist organizing, and hard-won victories by women, girls, sex workers, LGBTQI+ persons, young people, and historically marginalized communities. From viral digital campaigns to mass protests, we’ve witnessed new forms of movement-building and global solidarity. But with these gains has also come an emboldened rise in fascism and rollback of some of these victories. As liberationist and leftist politics gain renewed momentum, especially across the Global South, we are simultaneously witnessing a concerted effort to attack human rights.  

In the African region, we have witnessed not only growing visibility of the anti-rights movements but also a sharp rollback in human rights. The rise of regressive laws and policies often framed as a return to so-called “African values” is a deliberate effort to police who we are, who we have been, and who we are allowed to become. It is a chilling testament to the persistence of neo-colonialism in the 21st century, one no longer cloaked solely in economic domination, but also in the export of ideologies that endanger lives. This anti-rights agenda is being aggressively driven by well-funded, right-wing groups from the Global North, who actively fuel regressive laws and narratives across Africa. Their interference not only undermines local human rights efforts but also deepens the structural violence experienced by already marginalised communities. 

From the signing of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world to the introduction of  Kenya’s Family Protection Bill, we are witnessing a region-wide effort to legislate queer existence out of public life.  

In Ghana, the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill was passed by parliament but withheld from assent by former President Nana Akufo-Addo. It is now set to be reintroduced and is reportedly ready for its first reading. In Mali, same-sex consensual relationships have been criminalized; Burkina Faso’s military junta has proposed a similar bill declaring that "henceforth homosexuality and associated practices will be punished by the law." A member of parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo has similarly proposed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.  

In Liberia, a legislator introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Law of Liberia 2024, which mimics many aspects of the anti-homosexuality laws of Nigeria and Uganda and the anti-LGBTQ bill that Ghana’s parliament approved. Meanwhile, in Namibia, President Nangolo Mbumba declined to sign two anti-LGBTQ+ private members’ bills. Zimbabwe has, in the same light, passed the  Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill into law, a move that severely constrains community organizing. 

Across the region, we are seeing not isolated incidents, but a coordinated attack on rights, a systematic effort that places LGBTQI+ Africans under surveillance, under arrest, under threat in their homes, communities, and in their bodies. 

In these heavy and coordinated attacks across the region, joy has become difficult to hold. The scramble for safety persists, and joy feels distant when the warplanes are still flying overhead. We are living through a terrifying global moment marked by State-sponsored repression, global broadcast of ethnic cleansing, and the shrinking of civic space. For LGBTQI+ Africans, this moment brings disproportionate subjugation. The question remains painfully urgent: Where do we go to be free? 

So, we hold space to ask: What does freedom truly mean? What counts as liberation when laws may change, but our lives remain policed? Beyond legislation, how do we centre our existence, our joy, our right to be? 

One way is through the creation of safer spaces that honour the intimacy of community and the power of being in relation with one another. We carry each other. We sustain each other. This was powerfully evident in the celebration that ushered in Pride Month, a queer play reading held in collaboration with IPPF Africa Region. We came together not just to read words on a page, but to affirm our survival, our resistance, and our collective becoming. 

IPPF Africa Region created a supportive space for this conversation for LGBTQI+ persons to feel safe within themselves and with community. 

The play reading was described as “we are all a river, growing together,” a metaphor that speaks to our collective flow, strength, and interconnectedness. In this moment, simply being together is an act of resistance. It is revolutionary. 

Given the current landscape of LGBTQI+ organizing across the continent, where visibility can come at great cost, gathering in joy, in solidarity, and in story is itself a radical form of movement-building. Rooted in collective resistance and relationality, this moment reminds us that movements are not only sharpened in protest but also in presence, in sitting beside one another and bearing witness to each other’s truth. 

The piece, "The Survival" by Achiro P. Olwoch, follows a young woman in homophobic Uganda who becomes pregnant by a homosexual man, a scandal deemed unthinkable in a society that condemns both. It is a tense, emotional journey to keep the truth hidden in a world that offers little to no mercy. 

After the reading, guests shared varied reflections, emphasizing both the need for more focused and inclusive spaces and a heightened awareness of the precarious state of human rights, not only regionally but globally. Amid these challenges, our stories of unity and purpose continue to shine. Our voices remain testaments to our resilience, and art stands as part of that resilience. As one participant said, “Let’s continue using art for the value it can bring to our society.” 

This is what African Pride looks like: fierce, rooted, defiant, collective. It is not a borrowed concept. It is ours, born of the drum, the dance, the survival, the storytelling. African Pride is not a moment. It is a movement. It is a memory. It is the future. And we will not be legislated out of it. 

Benedicta Oyedayo Oyewole,
IPPF Africa Region Community Engagement and Partnership Lead