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Recognized |
Civil unions or registered partnerships but not marriage |
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Mozambique does not recognizesame-sex marriages orcivil unions. The Family Code of Mozambique recognizesde facto unions but only for opposite-sex couples and bans same-sex marriage. Some protests for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage occurred in 2006, asdiscussions on this issue were ongoing inSouth Africa.
In July 2006, a few months beforesame-sex marriage was legalised in neighbouringSouth Africa, theAgência de Informação de Moçambique newspaper reported that a group of gay men inMaputo would petition theAssembly of the Republic to legalisesame-sex marriage. In October 2006, human rights activistAlice Mabota urged Mozambique's gay and lesbian citizens "to organise and fight for their rights", but added that her organisation, the Mozambique Human Rights League, would not campaign on specific issues such as the legalisation of same-sex marriage. "It would be gay people themselves who should raise such a demand, if they wanted to marry", Mabota said. Activist Danilo de Sousa stated at the time "that few Mozambican gays are open about their sexuality. Many lead a semi-open (or semi-closed) life, while the majority keep theirsexual orientation completely clandestine, or even deny it. One often finds homosexuals married to members of the opposite sex, merely to please their family and society." Activist Danilo da Silva, founder of the LGBT advocacy group Lambda Mozambique, also said that "Mozambican gays should concentrate on removing any clause from the country's laws that might be used to criminalise gays, and to introduce measures that ban discrimination on the base of sexual orientation." Silva did not call for the legalisation of same-sex marriage but rather suggested a "gradual recognition of the rights of gay partners living inde facto unions".[1]
While same-sex marriage remains illegal, Mozambique has made significant strides onLGBT rights. Reforms to the employment law were passed in 2007 forbidding employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and in 2015 the Criminal Code was amended to remove vague references to "practices against nature", which were interpreted as banning same-sex sexual relations.[2] Nevertheless, LGBT people still facediscrimination and violence,[3] and laws do not permit or recognise same-sex marriages orcivil unions.[4]
Article 8 of the Family Code of Mozambique, passed by the Assembly of the Republic in 2019 and published in theBoletim da República on 11 December 2019,[5] definesmarriage as the "voluntary and singular union between a man and a woman, for the purpose of starting a family, through a full communion of life".[a] The Code further defines thefamily as "the fundamental element and the basis of every society", and article 2 states that the "singular, stable, free and notorious union between a man and a woman is recognized as a family entity".[5] As a result, same-sex couples are unable to marry in Mozambique. The Family Code also introducedde facto unions (Portuguese:união de facto,pronounced[uˈnjɐ̃w̃dɨˈfaktu]) for opposite-sex couples after three years of continuouscohabitation.[6] Ade facto union is defined in the Family Code as a "singular connection existing between a man and a woman, with a stable and lasting character" between partners capable of marrying but who have chosen not to.[5]
TheConstitution of Mozambique does not explicitly address same-sex marriages, but Article 119, which defines the family as "the fundamental unit and the basis of society", states that:
The State shall, in accordance with the law, recognise and protect marriage as the institution that secures the pursuit of family objectives.[b]
While many modern-day Mozambican cultures historically practicedpolygamy, there are no records of same-sex marriages being performed in local cultures in the way they are commonly defined inWestern legal systems. However, there is evidence for identities and behaviours that may be placed on the LGBT spectrum.[10] Contemporary oral evidence suggests that same-sex relationships were "common" and "prevalent" amongTsonga miners in South Africa and southern Mozambique in the early 20th century.[11] In 1912, Swiss-born missionaryHenri-Alexandre Junod described "elaborately organized homosexual relationships among miners". The younger partner, known asnkhonsthana in theTsonga language, was "used to satisfy the lust" of the older partner (nima).[11] "He received a wedding feast, and his elder brother received abride price." Junod described a dance in which thenkhonsthana donned wooden or cloth breasts, which they removed when paid to do so by theirnima. A Tsonga local told Junod at the time: "Each of thesenima would propose a boy for himself, not only for the sake of washing his dishes, because in the evening the boy would have to go and join [him] on his bed. In that way he had become a wife. The husband would make love with him. The husband would penetrate his manhood between the boy's thighs. Fidelity was expected, and jealousy on occasion led to violence." He added that male couples "would quarrel just as husbands and wives do", and when asked whether thenkhonsthana wished to become someone's partner, he replied, "Yes, for the sake of security, for the acquisition of property and for the fun itself."[11]
These "mine marriages", which also occurred among miners in South Africa andZimbabwe,[12] were "accepted, indeed taken for granted by women (including wives) and elders at home, and relationships might extend beyond a single work contract".[11] However, these relationships differed strongly from the Western understanding of same-sex marriages, as men who entered these "mine marriages" continued to marry women and "conform, or appear to conform, to gender expectations", and would not consider themselves as homosexual or bisexual, or "unfaithful to [their] marriage vows".[13] This practice gradually disappeared as Mozambique became moremodernized and exposed to Western culture andhomophobia in the 20th century.[14]
TheCatholic Church opposes same-sex marriage and does not allow its priests to officiate at such marriages. In December 2023, theHoly See publishedFiducia supplicans, a declaration allowingCatholic priests tobless couples who are not considered to bemarried according to church teaching, including theblessing of same-sex couples.[15] TheEpiscopal Conference of Mozambique issued a statement that "irregular unions and same-sex unions should not be blessed in Mozambique", but encouraged "all ordained ministers to show closeness and accompaniment to those living in irregular unions".[16][17]
As theAnglican Church of Southern Africa was discussing the possibility of blessing same-sex unions, dioceses in Angola and Mozambique split to "form a more conservative Anglican province" in 2021. Known as theAnglican Church of Mozambique and Angola, it does not offer blessings to same-sex unions.[18][19]
A September 2013 Lambda Mozambique survey of people in the cities ofMaputo,Beira andNampula found moderate levels of support for the legal recognition of same-sex unions:[20] 37% of Maputo residents, 18% of Beira residents and 28% of Nampula residents supported same-sex marriage. A Lambda 2017 survey found that support for same-sex marriage had increased in all three cities; 47% in Maputo, 38% in Beira and 42% in Nampula.[21][22]
