The absurd and harmful claim has met approval from social media users across the world.

MARY ALEXANDER • 23 JUNE 2024

“A High court in Zimbabwe has ordered a newly married gay couple to be put under house arrest for 12 months,” reads a claim circulating on social media since May 2024.*

“If by the end of the period none of them will be pregnant, the court further ordered a death penalty.”

The claim uses a photo of two men cuddling on a couch. It’s been posted in Kenya, Kuwait, Nigeria, South Africa and the USA.

Comments include:

• South Africa’s government why don’t you take good advice from Zimbabwe?
• That’s the only thing I like about Zimbabwe.
• Applause for that government. Yes, each African nations must take a staunch stand against that human corruption.
• God was not insane when He created Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve.

But the claim is false, and not only because Zimbabwe’s restrictive laws against LGBTQ+ people would make it impossible for a court to pass such a ruling.

Gay marriage and sex between men illegal in Zimbabwe

First, same-sex marriage is not recognised in Zimbabwe. It’s also illegal.

Section 78 of the country’s 2013 constitution deals with marriage rights. It reads: “Persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other.”

Second, consensual sex between men (but not women) is also illegal. The 2004 Criminal Law Act lumps all sex between men under the label “sodomy”, under a part of the law titled “Sexual Crimes and Crimes Against Morality”.

Section 73 of the act reads:

Any male person who, with the consent of another male person, knowingly performs with that other person anal sexual intercourse, or any act involving physical contact other than anal sexual intercourse that would be regarded by a reasonable person to be an indecent act, shall be guilty of sodomy and liable to a fine up to or exceeding level fourteen or imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or both.

Level 14 fines are the highest level courts can impose.

Death penalty on hold in Zimbabwe

But no law in Zimbabwe imposes the death penalty for same-sex marriage or relationships.

Capital punishment remains on the country’s statute books, but no-one has been executed there since 2005. The 2013 constitution protects the right to life. For these and other reasons, Zimbabwe is considered a de facto death penalty abolitionist state.

In February 2024 the Zimbabwe cabinet approved the Death Penalty Abolition Bill. If passed, the new law would prohibit any court from imposing a death sentence and prevent any previously imposed death sentence from being carried out.

Discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in Zimbabwe often hits the headlines. But there have been no credible news reports of a court making this absurd order.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 27 June 2024