Original version

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Radio

World Service Radio

The Documentary

Documentaries

Factual

The Documentary Podcast

Investigating global developments, issues and affairs.

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

The Documentary: Who Decides if Gay is OK?

Boy Boy Barber Shop.jpg

29/07/2017 GMT

Who Decides if Gay is OK?

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Who Decides if Gay is OK?

Why is it OK to be gay in the UK but not in Zambia?

Why is it OK to be gay in the UK but not in Zambia? Jo Fidgen looks at the changing attitudes towards homesexuality in the UK and compares them to those in Zambia.

Why is it OK to be gay in the UK but not in Zambia? In 1967, a turning point for the gay rights movement in the UK, England and Wales decriminalised sex between men. Fifty years on, four out of five British people say they have no problem with homosexuality. Yet it remains a taboo and a crime in many former British colonies, including Zambia.

What brought about the change in the UK and why it has not happened in Zambia, which largely inherited the British legal system?

The UK case raises significant questions about the law and whether it exists to reflect existing public attitudes or to change them. Jo Fidgen discovers how the debate moved from grudging tolerance of homosexuality in the 1960s to a discussion of rights and equality in the 1980s. She hears about the impact of homosexuals playing an increasingly prominent role in cultural life and how the Aids crisis forced the establishment to accept that it had to work with organisations representing gay people.

Despite the greater urgency in Zambia of addressing HIV/Aids than in 1980s Britain, male-to-male transmission has largely been ignored by the authorities. A government minister tells the programme that homosexuality does not exist in Zambia. Colonial-era laws which make homosexual acts a crime remain on the statute books, supported by public condemnation of homosexuality as sinful and “unAfrican”. Donor countries that seek to tie aid to gay rights are condemned as imperialists. Zambia was declared a ‘Christian nation’ 25 years ago; since then American-inspired evangelists have become very powerful. Jo considers the competing claims that both homosexuality and homophobia are Western imports.

(Photo: A barbershop in Zambia. Credit:  Kieron Humphrey)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Documentary

Who Decides if Gay is OK?

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service

About BBC World Service