WE ENVISION A WORLD WHERE ALL PEOPLE ARE TREATED WITH RESPECT AND HUMAN RIGHTS ALIGN FOR ALL, EQUALLY.  IT IS TIME TO End PREJUDICE AND VIOLENCE against LGBTQI+ people around the world!

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AHRC provides advocacy,  humanitarian services and resources for LGBTQI people in forced displacement: Over 70 countries around the world criminalize LGBTI people, of which over 30 are in Africa (including island nations.) Of the 7 countries that impose the death penalty, 4 are in Africa.

In these countries, the criminal codes and anti-LGBTQI dicta gives license for widespread persecution, currently at an all time high. While the draconian Colonial-era penal codes remain in effect, politicians, lawmakers, and religious leaders are calling for harsher punitive measures through more onerous legislation. This milieu is ripe for so called “mob justice”,  sexual violence, public outings, evictions, firings, expulsions, banishment, blackmail, extortion, arrests, torture, assault, and even killings.

As a result, many members of Africa’s LGBTQI community are forcibly displaced, internally into hiding and in many cases flee their countries, seeking protection and refuge, as asylum seekers or refugees.  

MISSION

The African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC) works in an extremely complex environment, refugee led through the  AHRC Ambassador Program, engaging with LGBTQI organizations, activists, groups and individual refugees in and from African countries, seeking solutions, protection and to claim and defend their human rights.

Advocacy, resources and direct services, we work:

• To address anti-Queer sentiment, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia, as well as related individual case advocacy, forming coalition alliances locally, on the continent, and abroad

• To provide fully comprehensive and ad hoc case management services for LGBTI individuals in forced displacement, asylum seekers and refugees, to include humanitarian assistance, referrals and resources

• To advocate with key populations and health impact of 'rights at risk', and related issues
   

• To support refugee-led initiatives, strategies and innovations
   

• To advocate for renewed and appropriate infrastructures, innovative pipelines and advance pro-refugee sentiment
   

• To provide country conditions reporting, expert witness testimony for asylum cases and to ediucate governments on these conditions.

AHRC's  ultimate goal is to partner for change, in the hope Africa can return to its pre-Colonial time of acceptance of sexuality, so Africa's environment for LGBTI people advances the pursuit of  freedom and happiness.

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AHRC provides advocacy and humanitarian services to LGBTQI+ people in forced displacement:.

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AHRC works to mitigate the following dire needs for LGBTQI people in Africa, through direct services and coalition building:

Safe shelter, food, medical assistance and related funding, to include funding for livelihood projects

Guidance about exile options in cases where such is the only option for safety and survival

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Improved conditions and refugee registration and protection in hostile host countries

Asylum services such as living and legal resources, to include trauma informed counseling, housing, work, law and policy reform 
 

LGBTQI+ refugees in UNHCR system - management for resettlement cases, communications, advocacy

Consulting, advocacy, awareness, country conditions reporting and expert testimony, for LGBTQI people in several African countries, to include Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Cameroon, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, The Gambia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Melanie Nathan, Executive Director, has a hand on approach, directing all AHRC programs.  Melanie was born in South Africa to a family that fled Eastern European Pogroms.   Educated in South Africa,  Melanie practiced law in South Africa, before immigrating to the United States.  She is a renowned  award winning  human rights and LGBTQI equality advocate. She is a qualified country conditions expert witness in LGBTQI cases for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers from 15 African countries, providing expert testimony in the U.S and global courts.  She lectures and speaks around the world on related issues. Melanie recently participated as a thematic workshop lead in the June 2021 UNHCR Roundtable for FORCIBLY DISPLACED LGBTQI+ People and provided the roundup keynote. She sat on the UNHCR monthly panel "Closing the Gaps" where the Global Roundtable recommendations were elucidated. Melanie also provided a closing keynote speech to the WorldPride and EuroGames, Copenhagen and Malmö Summit in August 2021, on Refugees, Borders & Immigration. More details can be found at Melanie's award winning blog: HERE and speakers page HERE .
 

Marc Hanuman Cohen, Director of Humanitarian Resources, Marc is engaged in directing humanitarian alliances and protection funding. Marc brings his many years of front line advocacy in the fight to preserve the quality of life for those living with HIV/AIDS, substance abuse & club drug interventions, his Global focus on LGBTI human rights advocacy, spearheading & supporting HIV & LGBT+ Programs with a focus on prevention, treatment access & human rights violations in Canada, US, Ghana & Uganda.  In 1988 Marc began serving on the Board of Directors of University of Miami’s Community Alliance Against AIDS. In 1993, he Co-founded the Community AIDS Program on Miami Beach, serving as the Foundation's VP from 1993-97; then serving as President from 1997-2007.  

African HRC consists of a coalition of individuals, case managers, service providers, organizations, and African led ambassadors based all around the world.