ANC Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte says that South African leaders must tackle LGBTIQ inequality with the same passion that they did apartheid.

On Friday, Duarte attended a public meeting organised by the Embrace Diversity Political Movement, an ANC-aligned LGBTIQ organisation, at the Johannesburg City Hall.

The event aimed to solicit feedback from the LGBTIQ community that will be submitted to the ANC’s NEC (National Executive Committee). The hope is that this input will be used by the NEC to inform the development of the ANC’s manifesto ahead of next year’s elections.

“We are here to contribute to the manifesto,” speaker and activist Steve Letsike told Duarte. “We are LGBTIQ persons, comrade Jessie, we are here and we are here to stay and we want the ANC NEC to remember us because we are coming to reclaim what many of you fought for in terms of human rights.”

Addressing the small but enthusiastic crowd, Duarte said she was concerned about the high rate of drop-out of LGBTIQ children in schools, as well as the discrimination and invisibility faced by LGBTIQ people in rural areas. She also condemned the scourge of ‘corrective rape’ as well as church leaders who “beat people up to put them straight in the church…” Read more via Mamba