Act to end hate crimes targeting LGBT people, non-nationals and other marginalised people in South Africa
SOUTH AFRICA FORUM FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY (SAFIS)
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY, 18 JULY 2012
South Africa Forum for International Solidarity (SAFIS) takes the occasion of Mandela Day 2012 to remind our government, politicians of all parties, religious and community leaders that the South Africa we fought for and envisaged through our 1994 democratic transition was one where tolerance of difference and equality of all was fundamental to the transformation of the country from its racist, patriarchal past.
The country’s constitution adopted in 1996 prohibited many forms of discrimination including that based on gender, sex and sexual orientation. Various legislative instruments such as the Equality Act of 2000, the Civil Union Act of 2006 further affirmed Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT)’s equal rights and status in South African society. In 2011, South Africa further successfully championed the first ever United Nations resolution on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at the Human Rights Council, risking the ire of its many of its peer states globally who oppose the equality of LGBT people.