Ivorian gay community fights for right to life and love

By Joe Bavier Sep 3, 2006, 4:24 GMT

Abidjan - The tiny bar in Abidjan's Marcory neighbourhood is just one among thousands in Ivory Coast's commercial capital. And, at first, there seems little to set it apart from the others.

The music blares on the tiny dance floor as customers try out the latest moves in front of the wall-length mirrors so important for the perfection of the city's daily-changing dance crazes.

But for one young man, who prefers to be known only as Yann, this place serves as a kind of lifeline.

'I can feel completely at ease here,' he says. 'It is one of the only places.'

In a corner, a man strokes another's hand, whispering in his ear, then breaks into a smile. On the dance floor, as couples begin to pair up, the difference becomes even more apparent.

This is one of a handful of nightclubs catering to Abidjan's increasingly openly gay community.

Yann came to Abidjan from one of Ivory Coast's smaller cities 14 years ago to study at the university and live his sexuality more freely.

'In the village, there are pressures from family. Society is small. They say being homosexual is against religion, against nature,' he says.

'People are more educated here. In Abidjan, you can be anonymous.'

That anonymity has helped the city of around five million become one of the principle destinations for gays, lesbians, and transvestites from all over French-speaking West Africa.

Ivory Coast, unlike some of its more conservative neighbours, has no laws banning homosexuality. The country even boasts a gay and lesbian association, Arc-en-Ciel Plus, that has gained official recognition from the interior ministry.

'In the last year we've really been able to move things on the national stage,' says the association's former president, Carlos Idibouo Toh, who has appeared on national television to gain acceptance for the gay and lesbian community.

'I thought about keeping my head down, to take care. And finally I said to myself I didn't care what these people thought. I did it to make the community more visible.'

From just under 500 members two years ago, Arc-en-Ciel Plus' membership now numbers over a thousand.

But if homosexuals in Ivory Coast have been able to attain a relatively advanced level of state recognition, social acceptance has been slower in coming.

Two years ago, a gay high-school teacher was found cut to pieces in his home. Earlier this year, a dozen transvestite prostitutes were beaten up by police patrols. At least one was raped.

And gays and lesbians are routinely the victims of violence at the hands of family members.

'One of our friends had rat poison put in his food by an older brother,' says Yann, who was disowned by his family when they learned he was gay, driving him on one occasion to attempt suicide.

'He was poisoned by his own family. Can you even imagine?'

The gay community has also been largely left out of Ivory Coast's campaign against HIV/AIDS, one of Africa's best financed programmes in which the US government has shown a special interest.

A dozen members of Arc-en-Ciel Plus have died from the disease so far this year, five in the month of August alone, due to a lack of access to treatment.

Yet, even Ivory Coast's slow change has been too fast for some.

Recently, on top of the regular intimidation to which he'd grown accustomed, Carlos Toh began receiving threats from within the gay community.

So, last week, following an international conference on HIV and Aids in Toronto, he took the decision taken by many other West African gays and lesbians before him. He decided not to come back.

And though, Toh's choice means Ivory Coast will lose one of its main public activists, Yann says he understands.

'I can stay and succeed here,' says Yann, who has already been turned down for a visa by the French embassy in Abidjan.

'But success in Africa means having a job, a wife, and kids. I couldn't be happy. If I had the chance to leave tonight, I would go without looking back.'