7. The environmental context of LGBTI rights violations 7.1 LGBTI through the political and legal lens. The Zimbabwean constitution has outlawed marriage between individuals of the same sex, while common law to some degree makes is difficult for gay men or lesbians from expressing themselves in their preferred sexual orientation. Lesbian relationships are not criminalised, though socially they have remained unacceptable, and are often frowned upon. What is most common and well understood is the criminalisation of sexual relations between two men. Such an ‘offence’ may attract some jail time if fully convicted. This however does not happen often and when it does, chances are that the prosecution is followed with keen interest.5 In many of the cases where persons from the LGBTI community have been arrested, the charges are usually unclear from the onset and at best individuals are charged with loitering, indecency or public order offences. This has resulted in many LGBTI people in Zimbabwe falling victim to police harassment, arbitrary detention, intimidation, and in some cases extortion. Over the last five years public homophobia has been escalated by political and government leaders. Various government of Zimbabwe officials and other persons of influence often took the opportunity to paint any behaviour outside the heteronormative as unnatural and immoral. For the duration of the period 2012 to 2017 the same homophobic narrative was maintained by high level political offices, inclusive of the former President, Robert Mugabe, a strong critic of same sex marriages. Mugabe was quoted in several of his speeches denouncing homosexuality. Even when a small spectre of possible change came in the form of change of leadership from Mugabe to the current President Mnangagwa, all hope was quickly dashed when the latter declared that he would continue to uphold the Constitution and the laws of Zimbabwe as they were. Speaking however during one of his first international trips in Davos, Switzerland as the new president of Zimbabwe, Mr Mnangagwa was quoted saying that it was the responsibility of members of the LGBTI community to canvas for their interests.6 It was unclear whether that meant that the president was prepared to afford the LGBTI 5 6 Country Policy and Information Note Zimbabwe: Sexual orientation and gender identity Version 3.0. May 2018. CNN speaking to President Mnangagwa 24 January 2018, url An analysis of the state of human rights violations against LGBTI persons in Zimbabwe (2011-2017) 10