Women’s Parliamentary conference ends in stalemate over gays and lesbians

The 5th Commonwealth Women’s Parliamentary conference in East London has ended with countries such as Zambia and Cameroon refusing to vote on a resolution on gays and lesbians. An argument emerged after the conference resolved that society should strive to protect gays and lesbians in Africa.

However, delegates from the two nations refused to support it on the grounds that in their home countries, homosexuality was illegal.

“In our country if a female gets on another female they run for a spear that is an animal so I do not want to comment about it,” says one of the delegates.

A South African delegate, Noxolo Abrahams-Ntantiso, says they will remove the issue from the conference for now.

“We discovered that other countries like Zambia and Cameroon have Christian parliaments and are against gays and lesbians, for the sake of the proceedings of the conference, we will remove it for now.”