Sexual minorities in Africa aren’t passively waiting for outsiders to come in and conduct their activism for them, Robbie Corey-Boulet told a panel discussion in Washington, DC on November 21. And outside intervention, whether by governments, NGOs or churches, isn’t always helpful even if the intentions are good, he said at the event presenting his new book Love Falls on Us: A Story of American Ideas and African LGBT Lives.
Neela Ghoshal took part in the talk hosted by the Institute of Current World Affairs and moderated by Chloe Schwenke. ICWA executive director Gregory Feifer gave the introduction.
Robbie was an ICWA fellow (2013-2015) in the Ivory Coast and Cameroon, where he researched LGBTI activism and homophobia. He covered the Khmer Rouge tribunal for The Phnom Penh Post in Cambodia before working as a freelancer in Kenya, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal. He’s reported for The Associated Press, CNN, The Atlantic and other outlets and is currently based in Addis Ababa as an Ethiopia/AU correspondent for Agence France Presse.
Neela is senior researcher in the LGBT Rights program at Human Rights Watch. Chloe is a human rights activist and international development practitioner. She is a former vice president for global programs at Freedom and former senior adviser for LGBTQ+ policy (global), and democracy, human rights and governance (Africa), at the US Agency for International Development in Washington.
Link to purchase Robbie’s book HERE.
