A simple message: "You're a perfect child of God." Simple, yes, but it is also a profound message that everybody can and should hear -- hopefully repeatedly -- and one that seems especially urgent for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth in an era of entrenched bullying, depression, and...

Imagine -- if you will, for a moment, hard as it may be -- that you are under a collapsed building, fighting for your life. Think of the chaos, the pain and suffering, the confusion, the yearning to get out from under the heaps, the visceral need to break free....

An oft-told African proverb (whose precise culture of origin often changes with the teller) asserts that "When elephants fight, the grass suffers." Put another way, the powerless are trampled in the clashes of mammoth decision-makers. An elephant match is currently underway between the government of the United Kingdom, which has...

It was a stuffy, windowless broom closet like any other -- replete with empty cardboard boxes, threadbare rags, mops, and of course brooms. The thick layer of dust on two straight-backed wooden chairs facing each other amidst the debris indicated that they had not been sat upon for weeks, maybe...

What comes to your mind when you hear the words "AIDS orphans"? Do you imagine a skinny, destitute African child with matchstick legs? Is he or she young -- maybe 7- or 8-years-old? Are there flies in the child's eyes? What do you think would be the best way to...

Recent television reports suggest that Alice Nkom, the well-known lawyer who founded the Cameroonian non-profit Association to Defend Homosexuals (ADEFHO), may be arrested in the next few days. A representative of Cameroon's Ministry of Communication suggested on the television show Canal Plus Sunday afternoon that Ms. Nkom was...

In case you haven't been following closely, the recent elections in the West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire, the region's richest country by far, haven't been going so well. While a number of analysts are comparing the current debacle to electoral shenanigans in other African countries, some parallels...

How activists are using coalitions to promote LGBTI rights in Uganda.

The kuchu movement is abuzz in Uganda. Kuchu is a word (plural: kuchus), apparently of Swahili origin, that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) Ugandans have minted to describe their identities. "We do not...

Human rights activists plot the path forward in the wake of the recent same-sex court case.

Before the outsized international human rights outcry. Before the world had even heard of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Before their chinkhoswe...

MAN, Côte d'Ivoire. On December 23, an event that would have seemed frightening and dangerous in most parts of the world transpired in Guinea. Just hours after the president of this nation of 10 million people passed away, a military faction took power in a coup d'état. The National Council...