Katy Fentress, Nairobi Community Manager
On the 27th of May 2012, the Kenyan LGBT news agency Identity reported that two men were caught having sex in the night in Kayole, a north Nairobi slum. According to the article, the men were attacked and stoned. One of them got away, but the other succumbed to his injuries; his body was later found at a dumpsite near where he had been caught.
The incident highlights a difficult reality for Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) living in Nairobi slums. Sleeping in cramped quarters, with privacy a luxury that few can afford, and forced to conceal their sexual identity for fear of repercussions, MSM hide in the shadows and often lack access to the medical services the rest of the population enjoys.
Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya, and people caught in the act can face up to 14 years in jail. That said, Nairobi is one of the better places in the region for LGBT people to live their lives. There are few cases of people actually ending up in court, and a number of NGOs and community organisations work for gay rights, advocacy, and outreach.
In September 2011 the LGBT group Gay Kenya hosted the first Gay Film festival; an openly gay candidate almost ran in the recent elections, the country hosts LGBT awards and the media is open to some amount of debate on the issue – which is more that can be said about most of Kenya’s neighbouring countries. Nevertheless, there remains the challenge of how to get important health information and services to gay men who do not have the benefit of being educated and computer literate.
According to a report by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR): “MSM in low- and middle-income countries are on average 19 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population”. Ignorance as to how HIV is contracted is one of the main causes for such a high prevalence of infection.
In Kenya, the stigma attached to being open about one’s sexual orientation extends to talking about sex in general. So in what way does essential health-related information for MSM find its way to the heart of the slums? How do men, some of whom may have come straight from the rural areas and know little about STI and HIV transmission, become informed?
“It is definitely a challenge,” says Wyclif Abasi (not his real name), Health and Program Officer at Ishtar, an organisation that has been offering consultation and outreach to MSM in Kenya since 1997. “We cannot just walk into slums and distribute safe sex information, condoms and condom compatible lubricants to MSM… we would be putting ourselves at incredible risk; anyway, I doubt anyone would come forward for fear of being singled out.”
The solution, says Abasi, comes in the form of informal networks through which information can be passed along and which hopefully reaches the most vulnerable of MSM: sex workers.
“MSM in slums have meeting points and develop support networks,” Abasi tells us. “Through these and a combination of SMS messaging and peer education and other outreach activity, we aim to inform men about health-related issues.”
Abasi explains that nightclubs are the main places where MSM meet, and that it is here that peer educators share important health-related knowledge and advise people to visit VCT (voluntary counselling and testing) centres. Ishtar has free drop-in centres where, he tells us, they offer free medication sponsored by the Liverpool VCT, SASA centres run by Ishtar in partnership with other local organizations.
When it comes to medical services, Nairobi boasts a number of centres that treat MSM without questions or stigmatization. According to Abasi, Kenyatta hospital (one of the main hospitals in the city) is one of these, a significant step in a country in which same sex relationships are technically illegal.
“As long as the criminalization of MSM continues to be prevalent,” Abasi concludes, “it will remain an impediment towards successfully tackling the spread of HIV/AIDS in Nairobi and beyond. To get the message out, we need to be free to step up our advocacy and sensitization efforts and create more awareness amongst MSM and society at large.”