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Hivos honours savagely murdered lesbian activist
HIVOS
October 13, 2004

Fanny Ann Eddy, founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association (SLLAGA) and of the AARI, the "All-African Rights Initiative [for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders]", was raped and murdered on the night of 28/29 September in her office in Sierra Leone.

SSLAGA, the small organization founded in 2002 by Fanny Ann, forms part of AARI – the first pan-African gay and lesbian rights movement supported and funded by Hivos, the Dutch Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation. As an outstanding activist, Fanny Ann Eddy had been invited to join the first international Symposium on "Homosexualities and HIV/AIDS: More Than a Question of Rights" in Amsterdam on 21 October, and will now be sadly missed.

Hivos once more underlines the urgency of Fanny Ann’s activism and will honour her at the international Symposium on "Homosexualities and HIV/AIDS", where members of AARI will join nearly 50 gay, lesbian and HIV/AIDS experts and activists from all over the world.

Fanny Ann made a submission to the UN Committee on Human rights at the Geneva meeting in April this year which discussed the Brazilian Resolution, which would have acknowledged sexual orientation as a legitimate human right. In her presentation she highlighted the violence and state-sponsored oppression that lesbian and gay people face in many parts of Africa. She concluded:

"Silence creates vulnerability. You, members of the Commission on Human Rights, can break the silence. You can acknowledge that we exist, throughout Africa and on every continent, and that human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are committed every day. You can help us combat those violations and achieve our full rights and freedoms, in every society, including my beloved Sierra Leone."

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