organisations such as GALZ, Pakasipiti and VoVo (Voice of the Voiceless). Engaging with families presents a more sustainable opportunity for influencing negative community perceptions, and in the long run - national attitudes towards LGBTI persons. The family has been seen to be a very strong socializing structure and is therefore a viable entry point for interventions seeking to address anti-LGBTI attitudes and practices. Sandfort and Reddy (2013) have made interesting observations about one of the major recurring themes in much of the recent literature on LGBTI. They note that religion does, almost invariably, contribute to the current high levels of homophobia in southern Africa, Zimbabwe included. They go on further to say that religion also offers an opportunity to address the problem, fostering acceptance and understanding or at the very least tolerance. Curiously, non-mainstream SOGI is said to be a foreign import and un-African in every respect, while research shows that about 86% of the continent’s population subscribes to the “imported religions” of Islam and Christianity. This exposes the irony in how those who condemn homosexuality as alien, rest their arguments on rationale from the ‘foreign’ religions of Christianity and Islam12. Some religious leaders have been on the forefront of fuelling homophobia from the pulpit and working towards curing the ‘spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah’. A case in point is the well known prolific religious leader Walter Magaya, who is known for conducting ‘healing’ sessions for LGBTI members. A worrying trend is also emerging where intolerance to LGBTI persons has started manifesting more and more in corrective rape13. This is one of the extreme forms of violations perpetrated mainly against lesbians by men. Though no absolute figures are available as yet, urgent responses are required to arrest the behaviour before it escalates. 7.3 Contribution of the media to the environmental context. Over the years, GALZ has noted with concern, the negative contribution to, and exacerbation of public prejudices by the media against LGBTI persons in Zimbabwe. There is an observable trend in the Zimbabwean media, both private and public, to report negatively in stories where sexual orientation or gender identity is the subject. Often the stories tend to portray homosexuality as linked to violence and crime14. The 12 13 14 Sandfort and Reddy. GALZ Newsletter March 2017 GALZ 2011 Violation Report An analysis of the state of human rights violations against LGBTI persons in Zimbabwe (2011-2017) 13