Pride Around the World
Legal and Social Context Malawi’s penal code prohibits “carnal knowledge against the order of nature.” This offense, aimed at punishing sex between men, dates to British colonial rule. It carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison along with “corporal punishment.” In 2011, in a perverse gesture toward equality, Malawi’s parliament amended the penal code to add an offense of “gross indecency” between women, an act not contemplated by Malawi’s former Victorian colonial masters that now carries a sentence of five years in prison.225 The law has, on occasion, been enforced, most notoriously in a 2010 when two people perceived as gay men at the time (one later came out publicly as a trans woman) received the maximum sentence from a judge who accused them of “corrupting the mind of a whole nation” for performing a traditional marriage ceremony.226 The President ultimately pardoned the couple due to international pressure, including from then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.227 In November 2012, Malawi’s justice ministry issued a moratorium on the laws prohibiting consensual same-sex relations pending a parliamentary decision on whether to maintain the laws, although the moratorium’s legal status has been challenged in court.228 In December 2021, the Senior Resident Magistrate Court in Mangochi sentenced a transgender woman to eight years in prison for unnatural offenses and “false pretenses.” The ruling demonstrated clear homophobic and transphobic bias, with the judge describing the woman as among the “worst offenders…yet to be born.”229 225 Malawi Penal Code, Chapter 7:01 Laws of Malawi, https://malawilii.org/akn/mw/ act/1929/22/eng%402014-12-31 (accessed 23 May 2022), arts. 137A, 153; ILGA, “StateSponsored Homophobia: A World Survey of Sexual Orientation Laws: Criminalisation, Protection and Recognition,” May 2017, https://ilga.org/downloads/2017/ILGA_State_ Sponsored_Homophobia_2017_WEB.pdf, p.93. 226 Chief Resident Magistrate’s Court at Blantyre, Criminal Case Number 359 of 2009, Republic v Steven Monjeza Soko and Tionge Chimbalanga Kachepa, full judgment, https:// malawilii.org/mw/judgment/high-court-general-division/2010/2 (accessed 10 June 2022). 227 “Malawi Pardons Jailed Gay Couple,” BBC, 29 May 2010, https://www.bbc.com/ news/10190653 (accessed 23 May 2022). With support from 228 Human Rights Watch, “‘Let Posterity Judge’: Violence and Discrimination Against LGBT People in Malawi,” 26 October 2018, https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/10/26/let-posterityjudge/violence-and-discrimination-against-lgbt-people-malawi#_ftn11, “Background” (accessed 23 May 2022). 229 Republic of Malawi, In the Senior Resident Magistrate Court Sitting At Mangochi,
MALAWI
Malawi: “All the Energies into One Voice”
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