P hD defence by Travor Murai - Experiences of civil society organizations advocating for the rights of men who have sex with men in Zimbabwe

On 22 November 2023, Travor Murai will defend his thesis exploring the operationalization of Human Rights-based Approaches (HRBAs). The thesis uses the case of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) advocating for the Sexual Rights of Men who have Sex with Men (SR-MSM) in Zimbabwe.
In his thesis he explores how the political context within which donor-funded MSM projects are implemented, global funding rules, conditionalities, dependencies, capacities and constraints internal to CSOs, influence the nature and extent to which the CSOs operationalize HRBAs.
He shows that the Mugabe government mobilized homophobic tropes and tightened sodomy laws as a ploy to promote a homophobic national agenda and set the tone for cultural and religious debates regarding SR-MSM, all in the name of regime self-preservation. This had a significant adverse impact on the potential for HRBA operationalization

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