Introduction
On March 4, 2023, Sistah Sistah Foundation, a Zambian feminist organization, convened a march in Lusaka to raise awareness about sexual and gender-based violence. Social media promotion of the march included alarming statistics about the prevalence of violence against women and the existence of a rape culture in Zambia.Footnote 1 For example, a social media post titled “Why We March” expressed concern about how “sexual violence against womxn and girls has been so normalized” (@SistahSistahFo1, 2023, see Figure 1). The post also highlighted recent disturbing incidents of gender-based violence, such as the case of a 17-year-old girl who was raped by a guard at the University Teaching Hospital, where she had gone to seek medical treatment (@SistahSistahFo1, 2023).
Figure 1. Why We March, @SistahSistahFo1, March 3, 2023.
Although the march gathered significant citizen support, it elicited an extremely negative response from the state, whose officials misrepresented its goals. Police said the march had “turned into a forum for championing homosexuality” (Lusaka Times Reference Times2023), and Home Affairs and Internal Security Minister Jack Mwiimbu condemned it for allegedly being “against Zambian values and the law” (Short Reference Short2023). According to the police, Sistah Sistah Foundation had been given a permit “to protest sexual and gender rights and not promote LGBTQ rights” (Short Reference Short2023), implying that LGBTQ rights are excluded from “sexual and gender rights.” Four of the organization’s leaders were arrested on accusations of promoting LGBTQ rights, which is not actually illegal.Footnote 2 Some Zambian media outlets branded the march as an “LGBT protest” (Daily Nation Reference Nation2023), further fueling social and political backlash. Police subsequently initiated investigations into the activities of the Sistah Sistah Foundation (Lusaka Times Reference Times2023; Short Reference Short2023).
The state’s arrest of the Sistah Sistah Foundation leaders illustrates the politicization of women’s rights, LGBTI+ rights, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Zambia. From a public health perspective, Zambia’s official policies are relatively progressive. For instance, its 2022–2026 National Health Strategic Plan includes commitments to “reduce the proportion of pregnant women with complications of abortion from 5% in 2021 to 3% by 2026” and to address the risk of sexually transmitted infections among “marginalized populations such as migrants, refugees and key populations” (Republic of Zambia n.d., 33, 47). Though the strategic plan does not explicitly define the term “key populations,” it gives the examples of “female sex workers (FSW), and mobile, migrant and internally displaced populations” (Republic of Zambia n.d., 52). International donors and domestic actors in Zambia’s health sector also interpret the term “key populations” as including sexual and gender minorities, in line with how it is used elsewhere (World Health Organization 2014). However, while Zambia expresses a commitment to comprehensive health service provision, in practice, abortion and LGBTI+ rights are stigmatized and restricted, with the state often invoking its Christian “moral” and anti-Western credentials.
The activism of organizations like the Sistah Sistah Foundation evidences coalition building between feminist and queer activists and troubles prevailing religious nationalist constructions of Zambian identities and sexualities. This paper explores these competing narratives, analyzing the parallels in the social, legal, and policy challenges to LGBTI+ inclusion and abortion rights in Zambia, the domestic counternarrative, and implications for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Drawing on qualitative field research on Canada’s engagement in sexual and reproductive health and rights in Zambia, involving forty-five semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Zambian stakeholders and international aid officials, it answers the questions: How do legal and policy ambiguities in Zambia enable the delegitimization of sexual and reproductive health and rights? What opportunities do these ambiguities create for feminist advocacy and coalition-building?
Building on Chela’s (Reference Chela2023) analysis of acts of resistance among lesbian, bisexual, and queer women in Lusaka as a form of decoloniality, and Ross’s (Reference Ross2017) theorizing of reproductive justice as an intersectional framework for interrogating reproductive politics, we analyze the parallels in the social, legal, and political challenges to abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia. We argue that ambiguity simultaneously constrains reproductive justice and creates space for feminist rewritings of Zambian sexualities. On the one hand, religious nationalists exploit multiple layers of ambiguity to construct abortion and LGBTI+ rights as un-Zambian and un-Christian—to uphold a socially conservative, heteronormative ideal of Zambian sexuality—resulting in a policing of bodies and sexualities by the state. This policing is a form of reproductive oppression as it restricts the right to nonreproductive sexual activity. On the other hand, a feminist subculture grounded in human rights discourse is actively challenging dominant, monolithic narratives of Zambian sexualities. Within this subculture, emerging coalitions between feminist and queer activists connect advocacy for abortion rights, LGBTI+ rights, and broader reproductive justice to promote health service access and bodily autonomy for all. Paradoxically, the conflation of those issues by those who oppose them is contributing to greater cooperation among those who defend them. In this context, protecting sexual and reproductive health and rights requires centering and supporting domestic activism, variously defined by local actors. Through analysis of context-specific struggles for sexual and reproductive health and rights, this paper contributes to broader scholarship on reproductive justice, sexual rights, and feminist advocacy.
We structure this paper in three sections. After a review of the study’s methodology, we briefly review the literature on anti-homosexuality and anti-feminist discourse in Zambia, and on reproductive justice, to situate the paper’s contribution. Second, we explain key findings from interviews, noting the social and legal challenges to access to abortion and LGBTI+ inclusion. In the third section, we analyze interviewee perspectives relative to critical scholarship, showing how ambiguous legal contexts and religious actors’ politicization of abortion and LGBTI+ rights lead to a discriminatory policing of bodies and sexualities. We also discuss the acts of resistance contesting religious nationalist discourses. Finally, we analyze the implications of ambiguity and resistance for coalition building and broader sexual and reproductive health and rights. We conclude with directions for future research. Our comparative analysis of abortion and LGBTI+ rights is inspired by interviewees, many of whom noted how they are both constructed as un-Zambian and un-Christian. As such, both are about the contestation of Zambian sexualities and national identity.
Methods
This article is based on document analysis and forty-five semi-structured qualitative interviews with Zambian as well as Canadian and Swedish actors. Between September 2022 and August 2023, Author 1 interviewed thirty-three stakeholders who work or have experience in sexual and reproductive health in Zambia, including feminist and gender activists, and current and retired officials of bilateral aid agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the national government. She also interviewed eleven officials of Canadian and Swedish NGOs or agencies active in Zambia. Perspectives shared by interviewees represent their own personal opinions, not those of any organizations with which they are affiliated. Most interviews were conducted through Zoom or over the phone due to COVID-19 pandemic-related travel challenges. Author 1 followed up with in-person fieldwork in Zambia in June 2023, where she conducted some in-person interviews and attended two meetings of organizations and actors in the sexual and reproductive health sector. To protect confidentiality, we provide a generic title and the date of the interview when quoting interviewees. For interviewees who preferred to be cited anonymously, we provide a generic title and only quote the month rather than the exact date of the interview, to protect their privacy and anonymity. While most interviews were conducted in English, some Zambian actors included bits of Chinyanja in their interviews, which Author 1 translated into English.
In preparing this article, we also reviewed the relevant academic literature, as well as project- and aid-related documents, many of which were obtained from publicly accessible websites, and some from interviewees. Author 1 conducted initial data analysis using Microsoft Word to analyze and code interview transcripts and field notes and generate code categories (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw Reference Emerson, Fretz and Shaw2013). She began with analytic open coding, conducting a line-by-line analysis to identify an initial set of key themes, then followed with focused coding based on a subset of those themes, also through line-by-line analysis (Emerson, Fretz and Shaw Reference Emerson, Fretz and Shaw2013). She then analyzed recurring themes for patterns and variations. Author 2 contributed to the framing of this article and its arguments and drafted the section on LGBTI+ inclusion, which Author 1 reviewed and edited. Conversely, Author 2 reviewed and edited the other sections of the paper that Author 1 initially drafted. Author 2 also provided substantive feedback on the original research proposal, research design and research ethics that guided fieldwork and data collection.
Context: Situating anti-LGBTI+ and anti-feminist discourse in Zambia
Sexual and reproductive health and rights are a relatively well-established gender equality and human rights norm, recognized in international policy documents such as the World Health Organization’s definition of sexual rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Sanders Reference Sanders2018; World Health Organization 2006; United Nations 2015). However, SRHR—especially its sexual rights components—remains contested. Sexual rights encompass “all rights related to sexuality” (Ali, Kowalski, and Silva Reference Ali, Kowalski and Silva2015, 32). They include “the right of all persons, free of coercion, discrimination and violence” to “pursue a satisfying, safe and pleasurable sexual life” (World Health Organization 2006, 5; see also World Association for Sexual Health 2013). As such, they protect the right to reproductive autonomy and nonreproductive sexual activity. Sexual rights face increasing backlash in the context of a growing “global anti-gender movement” (Sigvaldason and Ómarsdóttir Reference Sigvaldason and Ómarsdóttir2022, 433) that is fueling resistance to abortion (Sanders Reference Sanders2018; Sigvaldason and Ómarsdóttir Reference Sigvaldason and Ómarsdóttir2022; Zaremberg, Tabbush, and Friedman Reference Zaremberg, Tabbush and Friedman2021) and LGBTI+ rights (Angotti, McKay, and Robinson Reference Angotti, McKay and Robinson2019; Ayoub Reference Ayoub, Brysk, Stohl and Elgar2018).
In many African countries, abortion and LGBTI+ rights remain contentious due to religious and cultural fundamentalism (Freeman and Coast Reference Freeman and Coast2019; van Klinken and Phiri Reference van Klinken, Phiri, Derks and van den Berg2020; Izugbara et al. Reference Izugbara, Bakare, Sebany, Ushie, Wekesah and Njagi2020; Oronje et al. Reference Oronje, Crichton, Theobald, Lithur and Ibisomi2011). In Zambia, opposition to abortion and LGBTI+ rights stems from cultural and religious nationalist ideologies that frame Christianity and heterosexuality as central to national identity (Banda Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022; van Klinken Reference van Klinken2017; Müller, Meer, and Meerkotter Reference Müller, Meer and Meerkotter2021). In 1991, President Frederick Chiluba—himself a devout Pentecostal whose political victory benefitted from widespread support from evangelical and Pentecostal churches—declared Zambia a Christian nation (Cheyeka, Hinfelaar, and Udelhoven Reference Cheyeka, Hinfelaar and Udelhoven2014; I.A. Phiri Reference Phiri2003). This declaration reflected Pentecostal nationalist ideology and was affirmed through a preamble that was added to the constitution in 1996 (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Zulu, Moland, Haukanes and Blystad2020; van Klinken Reference van Klinken2014). The preamble states: “WE, THE PEOPLE OF ZAMBIA … DECLARE the Republic a Christian Nation” (Comparative Constitutions Project 2019, 11). This preamble has come to define Zambian national identity (Cheyeka, Hinfelaar, and Udelhoven Reference Cheyeka, Hinfelaar and Udelhoven2014) and has “[shaped] dominant discourses on morality, sexuality and reproduction” (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 6).
Pentecostal nationalism has positioned heterosexuality as a Zambian national value whose promotion is “political currency” (Müller, Meer, and Meerkotter Reference Müller, Meer and Meerkotter2021, 9). As a result, nonheteronormative sexualities have increasingly and consistently been stigmatized and criticized. Activist Francis Chisambisha was among the first Zambians to publicly identify as gay in an interview published in The Post, an independent Zambian newspaper, in 1998 (L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017; van Klinken Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018; Long, Brown, and Cooper Reference Long, Brown and Cooper2003). The interview brought homosexuality into public debate (van Klinken Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018) and “provoked a vast national controversy” (Long, Brown, and Cooper Reference Long, Brown and Cooper2003, 34). Numerous religious and political leaders, NGO officials, academics, members of the public, and state-sponsored media condemned homosexuality as foreign and un-Christian, a view reinforced by Western governments’ and NGOs’ expression of support for Chisambisha (Long, Brown, and Cooper Reference Long, Brown and Cooper2003; van Klinken Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018).
Chisambisa subsequently established the Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender Persons Association (LEGATRA) to advocate for the rights of queer people in Zambia (L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017). However, opposition was so strong that he was never able to register it as an NGO and eventually sought asylum in South Africa (Long, Brown, and Cooper Reference Long, Brown and Cooper2003; van Klinken Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018). Other queer activists have since faced similar hostility, with Zambia’s Christian identity often invoked as an argument against homosexuality (van Klinken Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018). Similarly, religious nationalist ideologies frame abortion as a threat to Zambian traditional values and national identity (Blystad et al. Reference Blystad, Haukanes, Tadele, Marte, Sambaiga, Zulu and Moland2019; Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019).
However, emergent pro-rights discourses are disrupting Pentecostal nationalist, heteronormative discourse. For example, Chela (Reference Chela2023) describes events hosted by the Zambian NGO Women’s Alliance for Equality (WAfE) as acts of “intimate everyday resistance” (Lugones Reference Lugones2010, 743, quoted in Chela Reference Chela2023). As the only entity focused on women who have sex with women in Zambia, WAfE strives to create safe spaces for lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women to socialize freely (Chela Reference Chela2023). WAfE parties and gatherings are not publicized, to avoid attracting undue attention in Zambia’s hostile context (Chela Reference Chela2023). By creating such spaces and “alternative queer subjectivities” outside of the popular criminalizing narrative, LBQ women in Lusaka are broadening understandings of Zambian femininity and citizenship (Chela Reference Chela2023, 568). Chela further argues that because Zambia largely continues to reflect colonial religious and political values, this rewriting of Zambian femininities is a form of decoloniality. Our analysis will show additional layers of resistance that also contribute to a rewriting of Zambian sexualities.
Much of the literature on abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia treats them in isolation. What is not often explored is the relationship between these two struggles, specifically in their relationship with the state. Informed by critical feminist scholarship and the perspectives of actors interviewed for this research, we use the reproductive justice framework as an analytical lens to analyze parallels in the social, legal, and political challenges to abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia. Developed by the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, the reproductive justice framework allows for an intersectional analysis of the systemic inequalities that situate reproductive choices (Bailey Reference Bailey2011; Ertl et al. Reference Ertl, Maroney, Becker, Paschen-Wolff, Blankenau, Hoffman and Tross2024; Macleod Reference Macleod2019; Ross Reference Ross2017). It names control over reproductive choices, including restricting the choice to engage in nonreproductive sexual activity, as a form of oppression (Ross Reference Ross2017). It arose as a critique of the tendency within mainstream feminism to homogenize women and their reproductive choices (Morison Reference Morison2021; Ross Reference Ross2017). It brings attention to the racialized, classist histories of reproductive oppression that shape the experiences of women of color (Bailey Reference Bailey2011). It offers a “sturdy intersectional framework for analyzing reproductive politics” (Ross Reference Ross2017, 306). As such, reproductive justice extends to other marginalized groups who experience “reproductive oppression,” including LGBTI+ people (Ross Reference Ross2017, 219). It “demands sexual autonomy and gender freedom for every human being” (Ross and Solinger Reference Ross and Solinger2017, 9).
We apply a reproductive justice lens to a comparative analysis of the ambiguous legal, social, and political contexts of abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia. Haaland et al. (Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019) argue that ambiguity is used both to advocate for and to restrict access to abortion in Zambia. We extend this argument by examining how similar ambiguities shape both abortion and LGBTI+ rights, building on Ross’s (Reference Ross2017) theorizing of reproductive justice, and Chela’s (Reference Chela2023) analysis of LBQ resistance in Lusaka. In the next section, we begin with an overview of key findings, followed by a discussion of the parallel challenges and ambiguities shaping abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia and their broader implications for sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Findings: Perspectives on abortion and LGBTI+ rights
Abortion: Legal yet out of reach
Respondents described a stigmatizing context for abortion rights in Zambia, one in which access to safe abortion is limited, despite its legality. Many described the abortion law itself as a barrier to access. As a gender expert explained, the law is “supposed to help abortion but actually encourages unsafe abortion, because the hurdles for having safe abortion it’s so much … that you would rather go to the backstreet” (Retired gender expert, interview, Zoom, February 28, 2023). Because of these restrictions, some NGOs have devised their own systems to facilitate access to abortion, such as creating a pool of providers available to sign abortion authorization forms as needed (NGO employee, interview, Zoom, July 10, 2023) or using pre-signed letters to ensure timely access to abortion services (Anonymous interview, Lusaka, June 2023). Other interviewees described covert efforts to share information or answer questions about abortion on social media (Gender Based Violence expert, interview, Zoom, November 8, 2022).
Religion structures the politics of abortion in Zambia. Respondents noted that most religious and political leaders condemn abortion as un-Christian, along with LGBTI+ rights and in some cases, comprehensive sexuality education. These things are often lumped together as un-Christian and therefore un-Zambian. As one SRHR specialist explained, “You will never hear a public pronouncement on LGBTI, for example, or even abortion work. Those are things that are considered anti-Christian and nobody will really support that” (Interview, Zoom, March 3, 2023).
The religious stigmatization of abortion creates fear for women and healthcare workers. Several interviewees noted how many women are afraid of being arrested for even asking about abortion. Others noted how healthcare workers who provide abortion services experience stigmatization in the community and from fellow healthcare workers. Nurses providing abortion services are sometimes labeled “murderers” by other nurses (NGO official, interview, Lusaka, June 14, 2023). As a result, some nurses are reluctant to provide these services. Even some NGOs that offer abortion services avoid discussing the topic in public.
The reluctance to discuss abortion in public leads to knowledge and information gaps. Some interviewees—who, it is worth emphasizing, work in SRHR—erroneously stated that abortion is prohibited in Zambia. Others noted that many women are unaware that abortion is legal or assume it illegal because Zambia is a Christian nation. As such, the women do not know that they can access it nor do they know how or where to access it.
The dearth of accurate information, coupled with stigma and fear, drives many women to seek clandestine abortions with negative sexual and reproductive health consequences, as illustrated by this account from an interviewee who wished to remain anonymous:
I was actually a victim of a botched abortion, when I was 21 … had I used the correct channel, I don’t think it would have gone as horrible as it did. But then I also was duped into believing it’s illegal and I could be arrested for even asking about it … I lapsed [exceeded] the weeks when to use the [abortion-inducing] pills. So, it was like a partial [incomplete] abortion … When I went to the hospital, they told me it [the fetus] got stuck on one side … And I was also perforated because they didn’t do it properly. So, I only have 50 percent of the chance to have a child …. (Anonymous, interview, Zoom, November 2022)
In sum, abortion remains difficult to access in Zambia, despite it being legal. However, several interviewees voiced strong support for access to abortion care and women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies.
Access denied: Legal and health service challenges for LGBTI+ individuals
Respondents described a similarly restrictive context for sexual and gender minorities in Zambia. Some Zambian women’s rights activists and organizations do not wish to engage with LGBTI+ rights, invoking primarily legal concerns—which are not justified by the letter of the law—but also presumably concerned about being stigmatized by association. As one gender and women’s rights expert argued (Interview, Zoom, June 27, 2023), ignoring the fact that roughly half of LGBTI+ people are women:
because we’re a women’s rights organization, we were always being challenged as to … why we were not programming around … the LGBTQ. But our point was that we would not do that because first and foremost, we are an organization that is duly registered in Zambia, and by law, LGBTQ in Zambia is not recognized and therefore it will avoid us being found … on the other side of the law. We would not be programming around there because culturally and Zambia being a Christian nation.
In Zambia, as elsewhere, international organizations and bilateral donors often promote the inclusion of sexual and gender minorities in SRHR under the umbrella term of key populations, especially regarding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Some Zambian SRHR officials consider that donors, especially USAID, are forcing domestic actors to include key populations in their programming (SRHR Researcher, NGO, interview, Lusaka, June 16, 2023).
Some health workers who provide SRHR services hold prejudices against LGBTI+ people and misunderstand the nature of homosexuality. For instance, one interviewee stated:
It’s because somebody introduced it to them at a younger age … For most of the people the story is that there was some kind of abuse. And it was introduced to them by an older boy … an older person. (NGO manager, interview, Zoom, September 18, 2022)
In theory, healthcare providers should ensure the same standard of care to any individual in need, regardless of their personal beliefs. As one interviewee stated, “So if an LGBTI person goes into … a clinic or hospital and they have a need and they need to be taken care of, a healthcare worker cannot say ‘I can’t because you’re gay’ or whatever. They will just provide the service because they need it” (SRHR specialist, interview, Zoom, March 3, 2023). Some NGOs openly embrace that mandate. For instance, an official from Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (Interview, Lusaka, June 14, 2023), while expressing their belief that homosexuality is a choice, explained their work with different key populations:
we are taking care of the men having sex with fellow men, female sex workers, transgender and the ones who inject drugs. So these are human beings, except that they’ve chosen the other sexual orientation … HIV is the one that we are trying to address with these guys … If we find that they are positive, we put them on ARVs [antiretroviral medication] …. And for men having sex with men usually the warts, we take care of them. Transgender, we don’t have a service of transforming [probably referring to hormone treatment]. But if they want an HIV test, if they want family planning, yeah, the SRH services.
In practice, however, LGBTI+ individuals are often not treated equally and sometimes even deliberately humiliated when accessing healthcare. An NGO-based SRHR researcher recounted how
It’s really more complex, especially for men who have sex with men … the social stigma and discrimination … to the point where … they go in the nurse’s room and then the nurse leaves and says, “Oh, come and see this person who is in my room.” And you see a number of staff … walk in to just come and see you … I don’t support this [sexual and gender minorities] myself … But I also feel that if someone goes to seek services, then they can be provided with services, and then use a separate space to provide the moral criticism, moral correction and other things that [go] on. Because I think most of the [LGBTI+] people really, really fail to go for even normal services. (Interview, Lusaka, June 16, 2023)
Despite expressing compassion, even that person admitted how they actively avoid being seen as defending the rights of LGBTI+ people and other key populations, for fear of being criticized, making a point of stating their disapproval to LGBTI+ clients:
You can’t even say “oh, we are providing services to …” [because] then they say you’re promoting. But even for us, we make it clear even to the female sex workers, men who have sex with men, we tell them, we don’t promote this, not at all. But you need the services. And we’ll try to give you the space where you can access the services, but we do not promote it … But rather, our aim is to just make sure that you have equitable access to sexual [and] reproductive health services. (SRHR Researcher, NGO, interview, Lusaka, June 16, 2023)
The stigmatization of LGBTI+ rights extends to SRHR. In fact, the Zambian government prefers not to mention the rights dimension of SRHR in large part because “It touches on LGBTQ” (Former Canadian government development officer, interview, Lusaka, June 19, 2023). As an SRHR consultant explained (Interview, Zoom, March 23, 2023), mentions of SRHR or inclusion in Zambia are seen to imply the promotion of LGBTI+ rights.
Although some interviewees expressed hostility toward LGBTI+ individuals and issues, others expressed support. Some activists decried the lack of appropriate health services for trans women, whereas others described efforts to expand access to SRHR commodities and services for LGBTI+ individuals. For example, given the hostility and the risks LGBTI+ people confront when going to health centers, one interviewee described how he and some friends took on the responsibility of obtaining and distributing condoms and lubrication for LGBTI+ people in Zambia:
You cannot even go [to the hospital] because you are scared that they will out you. So, what I was doing the time I was in South Africa, I would send lube through a bus [to Zambia] and condoms. And then one of my friends … would receive that and then everyone that wants lube, we would send them, go and see this person, and then the person would give them lube and condoms. (LGBTI+ activist, interview, Zoom, January 29, 2024)
Another interviewee described how LGBTI+ individuals continue to live their lives despite the hostile context:
The LGBT community in Lusaka organizes a Pride month event, usually at the end of June. To get an invite, you must know someone who knows someone. And you get texted the location the day before the event. They keep the event quiet and on the DL [downlow] because of the laws. (Anonymous, interview, Lusaka, June 2023)
Discussion: Ambiguity, reproductive justice, and the (re)writing of Zambian sexualities
Policing women’s bodies
Several social, political, and legal factors constrain women’s access to safe abortion in Zambia. The Termination of Pregnancy Act is itself a barrier to access as it simultaneously permits and restricts abortion (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019; Reference Haaland, Zulu, Moland, Haukanes and Blystad2020). When Parliament adopted the legislation in 1972, its proponents and opponents “were arguing for a clear law that would regulate and restrict access to abortion services” rather than liberalize it (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 8). What emerged was a law that is “inherently ambiguous” (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 3) and contradictory. It “permits abortion on a wide range of grounds” (Footman et al. Reference Footman, Chelwa, Douthwaite, Mdala, Mulenga, Brander and Church2021, 181), such as when continuing the pregnancy is a risk to the woman’s life or her mental and physical health (Government of the Republic of Zambia 1972). However, the Act stipulates conditions that are out of reach for many Zambian women, such as the requirement of signatures from three registered medical doctors, one of whom “has specialized in the branch of medicine in which the patient is specifically required to be examined” (Government of the Republic of Zambia 1972). In a country with a significant shortage of healthcare workers, this requirement poses a significant barrier to abortion access, particularly for women in rural areas (Blystad et al. Reference Blystad, Haukanes, Tadele, Marte, Sambaiga, Zulu and Moland2019; Footman et al. Reference Footman, Chelwa, Douthwaite, Mdala, Mulenga, Brander and Church2021; Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Zulu, Moland, Haukanes and Blystad2020).
The ambiguity in the Termination of Pregnancy Act is not limited to who can provide abortion services but also applies to where abortions can be provided. The Act requires that an abortion be performed in a hospital, except in emergencies where it is needed to save a woman’s life or protect her mental health (Government of the Republic of Zambia 1972). The language in the Act creates ambiguity about what constitutes a hospital as it defines a hospital as “any institution run as such by the Government or any other institution approved in writing for the purposes of this Act by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health” (Government of the Republic of Zambia 1972, emphasis added). This definition could be read to imply that abortions can be done in a hospital or in “any other institution” approved by the Ministry of Health; or that a hospital providing abortion services can either be a government-run hospital, or a private hospital run “by any other institution.” The latest guidelines on comprehensive abortion care, issued by the Ministry of Health in 2017, add to the confusion by stipulating that emergency abortions can take place in “any other place or health facility” (Government of the Republic of Zambia 2017, 21, emphasis supplied). As some interviewees noted, advocates are seeking change and clarity on these regulations to expand access for women.
The inconsistencies and restrictions in the Termination of Pregnancy Act undermine its ability to protect abortion rights and create confusion about the legality of abortion in Zambia (Cresswell et al. Reference Cresswell, Schroeder, Dennis, Owolabi, Vwalika, Musheke, Campbell and Filippi2016; Blystad et al. Reference Blystad, Haukanes, Tadele, Marte, Sambaiga, Zulu and Moland2019; Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019). Studies have shown very low levels of knowledge among Zambians about the conditions under which abortion is legal (Cresswell et al. Reference Cresswell, Schroeder, Dennis, Owolabi, Vwalika, Musheke, Campbell and Filippi2016). Though the penal code was amended in 2005 to allow abortion for child victims of rape (Cresswell et al. Reference Cresswell, Schroeder, Dennis, Owolabi, Vwalika, Musheke, Campbell and Filippi2016; Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019), misconceptions persist about the legality of abortion under such circumstances. These knowledge gaps pose a significant barrier to abortion access and contribute to a cycle of negative health consequences, as noted by interviewees. For example, the inability to access abortion due to confusion about its legality can exacerbate the trauma experienced by victims of sexual and gender-based violence. The Termination of Pregnancy Act thus effectively “fails to provide strong and unequivocal rights to access to the services it permits and regulates” (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 10).
Legal ambiguities aside, there is a “powerful anti-abortion discourse” (Blystad et al. Reference Blystad, Haukanes, Tadele, Marte, Sambaiga, Zulu and Moland2019, 7) in Zambia, fueled by Christian nationalism that stigmatizes abortion and constrains access and information sharing. This discourse stigmatizes women seeking an abortion and healthcare workers who provide abortion services. In this context, some healthcare workers are less willing to provide signatures for legal abortions (Blystad et al. Reference Blystad, Haukanes, Tadele, Marte, Sambaiga, Zulu and Moland2019; Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019). Further, there is a general reluctance to discuss abortion or abortion services in public, even by NGOs that provide abortion services. This reluctance reflects the strong influence of Zambian Christian leaders and politicians who shape public perception and discourse on abortion.
In the context of an ambiguous legal framework and the religious politicization of abortion, women’s bodies are violently policed and, borrowing from Tiessen’s (Reference Tiessen2015) analysis, essentialized. Several interviewees cited instances of women who had been arrested for illegal abortions, such as 27-year-old Nancy Kunda who received a three year sentence for an abortion described by the judge as a “crime” that “cannot go unpunished” (Lusaka Times Reference Times2018). Given the considerable obstacles to accessing legal abortion, arresting women for illegal abortions represents a form of violence. It illustrates the discriminatory policing of women’s bodies and sexualities. In her critique of Canada’s Muskoka Initiative for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health,Footnote 3 Tiessen (Reference Tiessen2015, 83) argues that the government of Canada, under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, adopted a “focus on mothers [that obscured] other aspects of women’s identities and [essentialized] all women in relation to their biology.” The Conservatives framed maternal health solely in the context of motherhood, which showed a “failure to recognize the complex and multifaceted identities of women” (Tiessen Reference Tiessen2015, 92).
Similarly, the socio-legal-political context in Zambia essentializes women as mothers and reproducers. When women choose not to reproduce by securing abortions, they are stigmatized and policed, sometimes violently. This policing is evidence of the complex positionality of women’s sexualities in Zambia. Van Klinken (Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018, 145) argues that “Victorian notions of decency and morality have shaped the discursive politics of sexual citizenship in Zambia.” These notions are heteronormative, patriarchal, and critical of female bodies (van Klinken Reference van Klinken, Bompani and Valois2018), and thus prescribe a role for Zambian women that centers on motherhood, church, and marriage (Chela Reference Chela2023). Outside of those roles, “there is little structural power Zambian women can wield or respect they can garner” (Chela Reference Chela2023, 564). Abortion represents a break from Christian, heteronormative perspectives of Zambian femininity.
A central principle of the reproductive justice framework is recognizing that the meaning of justice varies across differently oppressed groups (Ertl et al., Reference Ertl, Maroney, Becker, Paschen-Wolff, Blankenau, Hoffman and Tross2024; Morison, Reference Morison2021; Ross, Reference Ross2017). For some women, particularly Black women who were historically constructed as “socially undesirable reproducers,” reproductive justice has meant the right to choose to have children, and to do so safely and with dignity (Gomez, Mann, and Toress Reference Gomez, Mann and Torres2018, 191). In Zambia, where religious nationalist discourse positions women’s sexuality primarily in relation to motherhood and reproduction, reproductive justice may instead involve the right to not reproduce, and to have that choice respected rather than criminalized or stigmatized.
Interviewee perspectives show that Zambian feminists are actively advancing this kind of reproductive justice by challenging dominant narratives of Zambian femininity and working to expand access to abortion services. Many are self-described feminists who strongly advocate for women’s reproductive autonomy. Much like LBQ activism in Lusaka, which is redefining Zambian femininity (Chela Reference Chela2023), the activists interviewed for this research are constructing alternative narratives of Zambian femininity that challenge the monolithic assumption that abortion is inherently un-Zambian. Though their voices may not represent the majority, they contribute to a broader and more diverse understanding of Zambian femininities, one that is often overshadowed by religious nationalist discourse.
Challenges to abortion access in Zambia also underscore how the discourses and contexts through which law is interpreted are just as important as the law itself (Blystad et al. Reference Blystad, Haukanes, Tadele, Marte, Sambaiga, Zulu and Moland2019; Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019). Improving access to abortion requires dedicated efforts to change religious nationalist discourse and clarify legal ambiguities, which the government has to some degree promised to do. Zambia’s National Health Strategic Plan includes a commitment to “capacity strengthening for comprehensive abortion care” and “enhancing advocacy for the revision of Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1972” (Republic of Zambia n.d., 33). However, such efforts must also engage the “Christian nation idiom” (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 6) that shapes public opinion and discourse. Challenges to abortion access parallel those that LGBTI+ individuals face in Zambia, as we discuss in the next section, and reflect a broader policing of nonreproductive sex.
Policing LGBTI+ rights
Like abortion, the legality of homosexuality in Zambia is often misconstrued (Banda Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022). The Penal Code, in provisions adopted in 1933 while Zambia was still a British colony known as Northern Rhodesia, prescribes up to fourteen years’ imprisonment for anyone who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” or “permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature,” while “gross indecency” between men is punishable by five years’ imprisonment (Government of the Republic of Zambia 2012, Sections 155 and 158). In 2005, Parliament increased the penalties to 25 years–life imprisonment and to 7–14 years respectively and extended gross indecency to apply to women too (Banda Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022, 240–41). The law’s outdated, euphemistic language appears to criminalize all instances of anal sex regardless of the sex of the participants (thus including married, heterosexual couples) and ban other forms of sexual activity initially between men but later applying to all same-sex couples, even when conducted by consenting adults in private.
Though there is no clear explanation of what constitutes acts “against the order of nature,” this provision tends to be interpreted by the Zambian police and the public as criminalizing most forms of nonreproductive sex. As Banda (Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022, 250), explains, the anti-sodomy laws “took a life of their own” in postindependence Zambia, becoming tools for the criminalization of sexual minorities. In practice, the law is “exclusively applied against homosexual persons and other sexual and gender minorities in Zambia, even where acts of sodomy or gross indecency have not occurred” (Banda Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022, 241). A recent example is the sentencing of a male couple to fifteen years’ imprisonment, which elicited widespread condemnation by international actors in 2019. After the US ambassador publicly expressed being “horrified” by the verdict, the Zambian government’s outrage led to him being recalled to Washington (BBC News 2019). The two men were discreetly granted a presidential pardon in 2020, along with some 3,000 other prisoners (Mendos et al. Reference Mendos, Botha, Lelis, De La Peña, Tan, Savelev and Tan2020, 125), possibly influenced by international pressure.
Other sections of the Criminal Code are used to target transgender people, including imprecise provisions against a “person who, without lawful excuse, publicly does any indecent act” or “publicly conducts himself in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace” or who is “found wandering in or upon or near any premises or in any road or highway or any place adjacent thereto or in any public place at such time and under such circumstances as to lead to the conclusion that such person is there for an illegal or disorderly purpose” (Government of the Republic of Zambia 2012, Sections 178 and 181). Again, the terminology is unclear and ambiguous, notably what constitutes an “indecent act” and the intent of a “disorderly purpose.” The law can also be interpreted as holding responsible the victim of transphobic violence for having caused “a breach of the peace.”
Zambian law thus criminalizes certain homosexual (and heterosexual) sexual acts. It does not, however, criminalize being LGBTI+, expressing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity per se, or advocating LGBTI+ rights. Nonetheless, the police use the ambiguities in the law to harass, detain, and physically and sexually abuse LGBTI+ individuals, even if relatively few of those arrested are ever convicted (Banda Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022, 252). The very existence of such laws reinforces the stigmatization of LGBTI+ people and, in the general public’s view (if not legally), criminalizes their very existence. Zambia is one of the most LGBT-phobic countries in the world, ranking 165th of the 175 countries included in one study’s “LGBTI Acceptance Index” in 2017–2020, with a score that has dropped significantly since 2005 (Flores Reference Flores2021, 33–34, 46). Churches, especially Pentecostal ones, profoundly shape negative government and public views and discourse about LGBTI+ people (Muwina Reference Muwina, Chitando and van Klinken2016; van Klinken Reference van Klinken2014).
Politicians and religious leaders frequently inveigh against LGBTI+ people and rights, citing not only national laws but also, as with opposition to abortion, invoking Zambia being a “Christian nation” and framing LGBTI+ issues as un-Christian, un-Zambian and un-African. Thus, they portray LGBTI+ people as criminals, sinners, and immoral, as well as people unworthy of full citizenship. The mainstream media reflects the government’s perspectives (L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017, 12).
As a result, LGBTI+ social life is mainly held “underground.” For instance, Chela (Reference Chela2023, 557) describes “vibrant subcultures and community formations” for lesbian, queer, and bisexual women and nonbinary people, “despite legal barriers and patriarchal interpretations of traditional culture.” Interviewees also commented on these subcultures.
The impact of LGBT-phobia on individuals’ health and well-being cannot be underestimated. Many LGBTI+ people are rejected by their families, including kicked out of the family home at a young age, subjected to violence in their communities, including sexual violence and so-called conversion therapies, and discriminated against at school and at work; they also have trouble accessing various forms of healthcare, as mentioned above (Mulavu et al. Reference Mulavu, Menon, Mulubwa, Matenga, Nguyen, MacDonell, Wang and Mweemba2023; Müller, Meer, and Meerkotter Reference Müller, Meer and Meerkotter2021, 13–21).
No politicians have been willing to speak in favor of LGBTI+ rights or even LGBTI+ people’s access to services because they fear a career-ending backlash. Further, most Zambian human rights NGOs and SRHR organizations are extremely reluctant to speak publicly in favor of LGBTI+ rights due to similar concerns about being associated with a cause that is widely stigmatized. Even the Zambian Human Rights Commission has taken “an overtly anti-LGBTI human rights position” (L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017, 15; see also van Klinken Reference van Klinken2017). There are some exceptions, but most organizations’ refusal to take a principled stand leaves LGBTI+ people with very few allies in a context where the government does not permit them to register their own organizations–of which there are at least five (L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017, 18)—and where LGBTI+ activists are at risk of reprisals if they speak out. Like abortion, the fear of publicly advocating for LGBTI+ rights illustrates how Zambian Christian leaders and politicians control public discourse about them.
Several Western bilateral donors support LGBTI+ organizations and, as mentioned above, inclusion in SRHR programs is part of their support for the human rights and health sectors. However, well-intentioned expressions of support for LGBTI+ rights in several African countries have been followed by counterproductive backlash (Brown Reference Brown2023). In Zambia in particular, international actors must be careful not to be too visible in their actions, given past sensitivities about Western influence. Further, the government does not hesitate to push back, which increases stigma and reinforces the belief that LGBTI+ rights are a foreign agenda that aid donors are trying to impose. A recent example of this dynamic was the Zambian reaction to Western embassies flying the rainbow flag on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, which opponents portrayed as culturally offensive and disrespectful to Zambian law (Mwamba Reference Mwamba2023).
The idea that homosexuality is un-African obscures the diversity of African cultures and sexualities (Ibrahim Reference Ibrahim2015; Kaoma Reference Kaoma2016; Pincheon Reference Pincheon2000). In Zambia, stories of activists like Chisambisha, whose coming out sought to bring visibility to homosexuality (Long, Brown, and Cooper Reference Long, Brown and Cooper2003), challenge the framing of homosexuality as un-Zambian, as does the advocacy of Zambian queer activists and organizations. Several LGBTI+ civil society organizations are active in Zambia (Müller, Meer, and Meerkotter Reference Müller, Meer and Meerkotter2021). For example, the Transbantu Association Zambia, the Lotus Identity, and the Intersex Society of Zambia are defending the rights of sexual and gender minorities despite the legal, political, and social backlash (Collison Reference Collison2022; L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017). Among other things, they are conducting research, advocating for key populations in the public health sector, and sharing support and information, often covertly to minimize the risk of social and legal consequences (Collison Reference Collison2022; L. Phiri Reference Phiri2017). Forms of activism highlighted by interviewees, including providing SRHR commodities and sharing information on social media, similarly represent efforts to counter the narrative of LGBTI+ rights as un-Zambian. This activism seeks to affirm that nonheteronormative sexualities are in fact part of Zambian identity.
The delegitimization of sexual and reproductive health and rights
Opposition to abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia illustrates how multiple layers of ambiguity compromise rights by limiting reproductive justice. As discussed above, the penal code criminalizes acts “against the order of nature” (Government of the Republic of Zambia 2012, Sections 155 and 158) without specifying what those acts are. That space of ambiguity has been occupied by a religious nationalist discourse that extends the provisions in the penal code on sexual acts to LGBTI+ individuals themselves, creating an oppressive environment in which they are denied their basic human rights. Similarly, ambiguities in the Termination of Pregnancy Act collide with religious politicization to heighten stigma and fear and compromise women’s rights to bodily self-determination.
Paradoxically, the “Christian nation idiom” (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 6) that shapes the restriction of abortion and LGBTI+ rights itself reflects ambiguities and selective interpretations of the Zambian constitution. The same preamble that declares Zambia a Christian nation also includes a commitment to “uphold the human rights and fundamental freedoms of every person” (Comparative Constitutions Project 2019, 11). This preamble holds tremendous “discursive power” (Haaland et al. Reference Haaland, Haukanes, Zulu, Moland, Michelo, Munakampe and Blystad2019, 6) and frames a broader story about Zambian national identity. However, that story emphasizes the “Christian nation” part more than the preamble’s subsequent commitments to protecting human rights and freedoms (see also Banda Reference Banda, Jjuuko, Gloppen, Msosa and Viljoen2022, 242, 247). International consensus around the language of “human rights and fundamental freedoms” recognizes sexual rights and the rights to individual bodily and sexual autonomy (Miller et al. Reference Miller, Kismödi, Cottingham and Gruskin2015; Sanders and Jenkins Reference Sanders and Jenkins2022; World Health Organization 2006). In principle, by committing to “uphold the human rights and fundamental freedoms of every person” (Comparative Constitutions Project 2019, 11), the preamble directs the government to protect the rights of LGBTI+ individuals and women’s reproductive autonomy. This principle stands unless LGBTI+ individuals are explicitly excluded from the category of “persons” in the constitution, which is clearly not the case. However, religious and political leaders in Zambia portray abortion and LGBTI+ rights as incompatible with Zambian and Christian values and therefore undeserving of constitutional protection.
The conflation and stigmatization of abortion and LGBTI+ rights leads to a stigmatization of sexual and reproductive health and rights overall. Christian nationalism facilitates a “discursive erasure” (Morison and Lynch Reference Morison and Lynch2016, 15) of abortion and LGBTI+ rights by invalidating them completely to protect the ideology of a Zambian Christian national identity. In so doing, it simultaneously conflates and undermines abortion rights, LGBTI+ rights, and other elements of SRHR considered un-Christian, such as comprehensive sexuality education. Indications emerged in 2023 that the government planned to remove the word “sexual” from SRHR specifically because of its association with LGBTI+ rights (Fallon Reference Fallon2023). Because SRHR includes the supposedly un-Christian and un-Zambian elements of abortion and LGBTI+ rights, it is stigmatized by association.
The government’s own approach to SRHR obscures nonreproductive sexual rights. The term “sexual health” does not appear at all in the National Health Strategic Plan, while the term “reproductive health” appears twelve times, showing a clear emphasis on reproduction. The term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” is only mentioned in the context of strategic intervention 4.3, which is intended to “enhance advocacy for full implementation of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights protocols (e.g. Maputo Protocol)” (Republic of Zambia n.d., 33). This reference to the Maputo Plan of Action,Footnote 4 which itself does not explicitly affirm sexual rights or mention sexual and gender minorities (Munyati Reference Munyati2018), reinforces an approach to SRHR that centers reproduction and invisibilizes other dimensions. Further, although some sexual and gender minorities are implicitly included under “key populations” in the strategic plan—notably men who have sex with men—the plan makes no explicit commitment to LGBTI+ rights.
Consequently, though the National Health Strategic Plan includes commitments to reducing abortion-related complications, it primarily views SRHR through the lens of family planning. This narrow framing undermines the broader essence of SRHR, which encompasses individual autonomy, sexual rights, and access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare. It invalidates sexual rights that fall outside of reproduction. As such, it is a form of reproductive oppression because it denies individuals the right to engage in nonreproductive sexual activity. By framing SRHR around reproduction, the state promotes a narrow vision of sexuality that defines reproduction as its only legitimate expression. Any sexual expression that does not lead to reproduction, including the choice not to have children, is deemed deviant. This delegitimization not only marginalizes women and LGBTI+ individuals but also limits broader access to essential health services. In doing so, it undermines a wider set of human rights, including Zambia’s own stated commitments to universal healthcare as outlined in the National Health Strategic Plan. This contradiction reveals yet another layer of ambiguity and contradiction: a National Health Strategic Plan that advocates universal access but does not explicitly affirm nonreproductive sexual rights or guarantee access for LGBTI+ individuals. In a socially and politically hostile context, the silences in the National Health Strategic Plan perpetuate inequitable access.
Importantly, the same ambiguity that leads to the delegitimization of SRHR also creates space for acts of resistance aimed at expanding access to abortion and healthcare for LGBTI+ individuals. Zambian feminist and LGBTI+ activists sometimes operate in grey zones of ambiguity to expand access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. There is no explicit law against the kinds of covert actions described by interviewees, such as using inclusive language on social media, using pre-signed authorization letters or forms to facilitate access to abortion, distributing SRHR commodities to LGBTI+ individuals, or advocating for their rights. As Ross (Reference Ross2017, 292) argues, “reproductive justice provokes and interrupts the status quo and imagines better futures through radical forms of resistance and critique.” The reproductive justice framework emphasizes the right to bodily autonomy and sexual freedom (Ross and Solinger Reference Ross and Solinger2017). In this context, the efforts of Zambian feminist and LGBTI+ activists represent a pursuit of reproductive justice; an assertion of the right to nonreproductive sexual activity in a society where that right is persistently challenged and invalidated. These activists view abortion and LGBTI+ rights as interconnected and many advocate for both. Their resistance and coalition-building efforts affirm that sexual rights are human rights—and are Zambian.
Conclusion
This article has examined the delegitimization of abortion, LGBTI+ rights and, consequently, of broader sexual and reproductive health and rights in Zambia. We have shown how the challenges to abortion rights and LGBTI+ inclusion in Zambia reflect the intersection of multiple layers of ambiguity: in the abortion law, in the preamble to the constitution declaring Zambia a Christian nation, in the National Health Strategic Plan, and in the criminalization of certain private sexual acts between consenting adults. Combined with multiple layers of ambiguity, religious nationalist influence undermines the legitimacy of nonreproductive sexual rights, and of broader sexual and reproductive health and rights, through the latter’s association with nonreproductive sexual rights. The result is a narrow framing of SRHR that restricts basic human rights for women and sexual and gender minorities with potential negative implications for the rights of others beyond those groups. However, rights-based domestic activism to expand access to sexual and reproductive health and rights is troubling Christian nationalist discourses.
This paper has demonstrated how ambiguity can both constrain reproductive justice and create opportunities for coalition building and resistance within legal and social grey zones. Domestic activism—led by Zambian feminists, queer organizers, and others advocating for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights—frames abortion and LGBTI+ rights as interconnected struggles. This shared framing has fostered strong alliances, evident in the activism of feminist groups and queer organizations that champion all sexual and gender rights. The Sistah Sistah Foundation march, mentioned in the introduction to this article and attended by queer activists, exemplifies this unity: the struggle for one right is linked to the struggle for the other. In a sense, by stigmatizing these rights together as un-Christian and un-Zambian, religious nationalists are inadvertently reinforcing this alliance-building because activists respond by linking their struggles in solidarity. Feminist and queer activism, variously led and shaped by local actors, is helping to redefine Zambian sexual identities beyond Christian, heteronormative norms. Over time, these acts of resistance may shift public discourse and challenge the belief that sexual rights are “un-Zambian.”
This paper offers insights into how actors operating in similarly restrictive contexts across Africa and beyond can advance sexual and reproductive health and rights through domestic activism and alliance building. It also highlights the importance for donors of supporting and aligning with domestic actors’ efforts in this area. By underscoring the centrality of domestic activism and coalition building, the paper contributes to broader scholarship on sexual rights, resistance, and feminist advocacy.
While this article analyzed challenges to abortion and LGBTI+ rights in Zambia, it did not examine the full range of resistance strategies employed by feminist and LGBTI+ activists, which are worthy of further study. Future research could also interrogate how sexual rights are restricted in other African countries, in relation to their sociopolitical contexts. Further research into the role of donors in safeguarding sexual rights in such complicated contexts is also necessary. Better understanding of the relevant legal, political, and social contexts can help domestic and international actors better navigate efforts to protect sexual and reproductive health and rights in Africa.
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