By Melanie Nathan - December 21, 2025. This essay is a call to rethink how LGBTQI+ funding is allocated in times of crisis, and to ensure that survival, not visibility, is treated as the first obligation of global solidarity. It is a call for partnerships from foundations, funders, donors and LGBTQI+ organizations. Its an urgent matter of life or death. A global humanitarian collapse is underway and LGBTQI+ people are being abandoned first. As U.S. foreign assistance is cut a

When Protection Is Denied Before It Is Heard: Across the current U.S. asylum landscape, individuals fleeing persecution are increasingly being sent to countries with which they have no legal, social, or historical connection —places they have never lived, where they have no community, and where they cannot safely exist. For LGBTQI+ asylum seekers, this practice is especially dangerous. It exposes people whose identities are criminalized to governments that neither recognize t

Please consider that, across the entire United States, African Human Rights Coalition  is the only known LGBTQI+ organization providing direct consistent food-distribution support to LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers in Africa. Though we have provided these services since 2014, we have been doing this as consistent programing since 2019. We have one partner for our program for one such country - Safe Place International - which has been helping by picking up 50% of the cos

Burkina Faso: Raises Alarming Human Rights Concerns By Melanie Nathan, Dec 02, 2025. The African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC) has received confirmation of a case in Burkina Faso in which a foreign national was convicted under the country’s newly enacted anti-LGBTQ provisions. According to publicly available information released by the Burkina Faso Ministry of Justice, the individual identified as K.M. was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment, a 2,000,000 CFA franc fine, and

By Melanie Nathan, Nov 29, 2025. All of the countries under review — including Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Zambia, Guinea-Conakry, Cameroon, Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria are parties to the core universal and regional human-rights treaties which together enshrine the fundamental human dignity, equality and protection against discrimination, violence, and arbitrary deprivation of freedom of all persons. For example, each is a State Party to the International Covenant

By Melanie Nathan, November 08, 2025. Nov 08 2025, - An Open Letter to Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani - Now That You Are Elected — You Must Speak Out Dear Mayor Elect Mamdani, Now that you are about to hold the highest office in New York City, your voice carries global weight. That voice can no longer remain silent about the atrocities of the country of your birth, Uganda, a country whose passport you reportedly still hold, where you visit regularly, and where you recently celebr

by Melanie Nathan, Oct 31, 2025. On October 31, the Trump administration published its Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions (PD) in the Federal Register, which sets the refugee admissions ceiling at the historic, cruel and shameful low of only 7,500 people. The PD also prioritizes the resettlement of Afrikaners (white South Africans) - while turning its back on over 120,000 refugees who were already conditionally approved for resettlement as of January 20. The ind

By Melanie Nathan, Oct 24, 2025 When governments criminalize identity—whether via immigration policy or sexual orientation laws—they coerce people into the shadows to flee danger, yet the underground offers no safety at all—only a stopgap for immediate survival. Under Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns, thousands of immigrants, and even U.S. citizens of color, live under the constant threat of racial profiling, unlawful detentions, arbitrary arrests and deportation. Raids,

By Melanie Nathan, Oct 24, 2025.   This week, Ghana’s opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), took to national television to announce that the controversial bill known as the Proper Human Rights and Family Values Bill had mysteriously disappeared from Parliament. The bill had appeared on the official Order Paper (Parliament’s agenda) for debate—then suddenly vanished. The bill, commonly referred to as the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill (originall

True solidarity starts in Africa — confronting the laws, hate, and hypocrisy that still criminalize and kill our own - rendering boycott foolish, cruel and counter-productive. By Melanie Nathan, Oct 22, 2025 Johannesburg Pride, Africa’s oldest Pride celebration, is under attack, not from the usual homophobes or politicians, but from local activists. Several organizations are calling for a boycott of this year’s Pride because one of its sponsors, Amazon, is accused of supporti