Ladies’ Voice is a nonprofit Togolese organization founded in February 2014 with the aim to defend and promote the rights of Lesbians, Bisexuals, Trans* and Queer people (LBTQ) and work for a respectful community life.
In Togo, article 393 of the penal code sanctions homosexuality, which it views as an affront to public decency and penalizes with a prison sentence and a fine. Consequently, persecutions against members of our community are real and affect our life experience. To remediate to this, Ladies’ Voice extended its initiatives to the cities of Lomé and Tsévié.
The intersectionality of the struggle for women and girls’ empowerment makes issues specific to girls and women relevant to LBTQ people. This is why we have included the young Togolese woman in our action plan.
Given our particular context, the following actions are of a priority:
Empowering the young Togolese woman. We work to reduce the vulnerability of the young Togolese woman using an inclusive and intersectional approach by including heterosexual women, lesbians, bisexual and trans* women. We encourage the education of young rural women by distributing school kits, and support LBTQ people with their income-generating activities in order to help them attain financial independence.
Fighting gender-based violence. We fight against gender-based violence by contributing to the creation of a socio-legal environment favorable to LBTQ people through exchange workshops organized with human rights defenders and the media. This enables actors of civil society, our members and allies to get a better understanding of the rights of LBTQ people. We have identified adequate strategies to support our advocacy and defend ourselves when our fundamental rights are violated. We also organize meetings with thought-leaders to raise awareness on sexual diversity.
Creating a safe space for conviviality. We seek to build a convivial space in order to enable our community members and their allies to express themselves freely. We therefore organize various recreational events.
We face two main challenges:
The growing homophobia in the media. In a context more and more homophobic, making our voices heard has become a necessity. However, we often face a firm refusal from certain media experts who do not want to hear us and even go as far as airing homophobic shows that could prompts the population to violence.
Our limited financial means. Our lack of financial means considerably limits our fields of activity. This is coupled with the lack of a proper setting to carry out our activities. Indeed, for each big event we organize, we have to rent a venue, which increases our costs.
Our vision is to build a fair society where all people are equal before the law, regardless of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression.
Our mission is to gather women who have sex with women in a safe space where they can build a strong and supportive community.
At Ladies’ Voice, our actions are mainly geared towards LBTQ women, but for the sake of inclusivity, we also involve young women from rural areas of Togo.
Our objectives are closely linked to our mission and vision. Specifically, we seek to:
- Promote the creation of a socio-legal environment conducive to LBTQ people in order to fight against gender-based violence
- Build the capacity of our members and allies through training and material support in order to nurture a leadership that is female, queer and trans*
- Improve understanding of human rights issues in the LBTQ community and society at large
- Foster the fulfillment of our community members
To become a reference in terms of LBTQ issues in Togo. As the only LBTQ association in the country, we work towards managing the organization so as to become a reference on LBTQ issues in Togo. We also strive to be better able to address the needs of our community.
To establish a permanent administration. Given the cohesion that exists between the dynamic coordinators making up the current leadership team, Ladies’ Voice seeks to establish an adequate space for members of the community for our various events. And with more financial means, we hope to be able to put in place a full-time administration in order to extend our reach in more Togolese cities.
We have four main partners:
- At the international level: QAYN and FRIDA
- At the local level: Association Togolaise pour le Bien-être Familial (ATBEF) and the American Embassy in Togo
The Togolese Association for family wellbeing
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