MARY ALEXANDER • 8 JULY 2024

“Young Ukrainian girls are being forced into the military to fight the war against Russia,” reads the caption for a photo doing the rounds on Facebook in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and elsewhere since late June 2024.*

The photo shows a group of young women in camouflage uniform with their heads bowed.

The Russia-Ukraine war in eastern Europe has been waging for more than two years now, since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its western neighbour in February 2022.

The United States and countries of northern and western Europe have supported Ukraine with aid, weapons and military equipment.

The claim has been posted with comments such as:

• “This Conscription Of Young Girls Is One Too Many. Why Force Them?”
• “They have no respect for women, the west is immoral.”
• “Biden is e v i l.”

Joe Biden is the president of the United States.

But does the photo really show “young girls” forced into Ukraine’s military to fight Russia?

Ukrainian military conscripts must be at least 25

A reverse image search reveals that the photo is one of more than 20 showing a ceremony at Kyiv National University’s Taras Shevchenko Military Institute. Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine.

The photos were posted on the institute’s Facebook page on 11 June. The ceremony was to honour fallen graduates.

The viral photo also appears in a Ukrainian-language news report. A machine translation of its caption reads: “On Tuesday, June 11, the Military Institute of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv commemorated the fallen graduates.”

The report adds: “The rector of KNU Volodymyr Bugrov, the management of the military institute, officers, military chaplains, cadets and relatives honoured the fallen soldiers. The military chaplain of the institute Serhiy Dmitriev and other representatives of the clergy read a prayer.”

This can all be seen in the photos on the institute’s Facebook post.

And a closer look at the viral photo reveals that the women are all wearing the emblem of the Taras Shevchenko Military Institute on their left shoulders. Another photo of graduates wearing the same emblem can be seen here.

Ukraine does conscript civilians into the military, but they have to be adults. In April, the minimum conscription age was lowered from 27 to 25.

The women in the photo are student cadets at Kyiv university’s military institute, their heads bowed during a ceremony to honour fallen graduates. They aren’t being “forced into the military to fight the war against Russia”.

* 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 10 July 2024

The post Photo of Ukrainian university cadets, not ‘young girls forced to fight Russia’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

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

The post No, Zimbabwean court hasn’t threatened ‘newly married gay couple’ with death penalty if they don’t get pregnant appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 20 JUNE 2024

“CAME TO SA ON A WHEELBARROW AND LEFT WITH R17 MILLION!”

That’s the common caption for a photo of a man carrying a heavily pregnant woman in a wheelbarrow, circulating on social media in South Africa since late May 2024.*

It continues: “The court has awarded R17,2 million to an undocumented Zimbabwean woman whose newborn suffered cerebral palsy as a result of negligence by hospital staff at public hospital in Limpopo.”

One user making the claim is the X/Twitter account Dudula News. The account is allied to South Africa’s anti-migrant social movement Operation Dudula. Its post has been liked more than 1,000 times.

Zimbabwe lies on the northern border of South Africa’s Limpopo province. Operation Dudula opposes the migration of people from elsewhere on the continent into South Africa. In isiZulu, “dudula” means “force out” or “push back”.

Supporters of the movement complain that migrants take local jobs and use public services such as healthcare.

But does the photo really show a pregnant woman who came to South Africa in a wheelbarrow, and left the country with R17 million after a Limpopo hospital’s negligence left her newborn brain damaged?

Photo snapped in Zimbabwe capital in 2008

A reverse image search reveals that while the pregnant woman in the wheelbarrow was Zimbabwean, the photo doesn’t show her “coming to South Africa”. More than this, the photo was shot in December 2008 – almost 16 years ago.

It was taken by veteran Associated Press photographer Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi. On the AP Newsroom website, its caption reads: “Misheck Bunyira carries his wife, Janet in the late stages of pregnancy to hospital by wheelbarrow in Epworth, Harare, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008.”

Harare is Zimbabwe’s capital, and far from South Africa. The woman was being taken by wheelbarrow to a hospital in Zimbabwe, not South Africa.

In April 2024 Dudula News posted the same photo on X with the caption: “ZIMBABWE: MAN TRANSPORTS WIFE TO SA HOSPITAL! A Zimbabwean man with a good education wheeled his pregnant wife to a hospital in Musina.”

Musina is a town in Limpopo on the Zimbabwe border. But again, the claim is not true.

North West high court orders damages for 2013 negligence

There is some truth to the claim that a woman originally from Zimbabwe whose newborn was left brain damaged by hospital negligence was recently awarded R17 million in damages by a South African court.

But the negligence was in 2013, the hospital in North West – the province to the west of Limpopo – and the woman is not “undocumented”. And she’s not the woman in the photo.

On 16 May 2024 the North West high court ordered the head of the province’s health department to pay the mother of a severely brain-damaged 12-year-old child R17.3 million for the negligence of the hospital where the child was born.

The child suffered oxygen deprivation at birth, cannot sit unsupported and cannot speak. The court found the health department was “100% responsible” for the child’s disability.

The mother came to South Africa from Zimbabwe in 2005. She has had her Zimbabwean exemption permit since 2010, and so is not “undocumented”.

The health department’s lawyers had argued that she should be paid lesser damages because she is a Zimbabwean citizen. This was rejected by the judge, who said South Africa’s constitution gave equal protection to all.

The false and xenophobic claim mangles two separate events.

* 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 24 June 2024

The post Zim mom came to South Africa in wheelbarrow and left with millions? No, xenophobic claim a mashup of separate events appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 11 JUNE 2024

Warning: This report fact-checks and links to distressing imagery that includes sexual assault.

A video of a group of men assaulting two naked and bleeding women on a road has been circulating on X/Twitter since May 2024 with the claim that the men are Nigerian and the women South African.

A male voiceover says:

There’s a trend in Nigeria whereby two South African ladies were killed by Nigerian men, saying that they are paying revenge for their brothers who were killed in South Africa. When I say ‘brothers’ I’m talking about those drug dealers who were killed by South Africans.

He adds: “Guys, please, especially our ladies, stop dating Nigerians, guys. Stop dating these bastards. They will promise you marriage, good life, and take you to Nigeria only to kill you …”

The video has been posted with comments such as:

• They say that 2 South African women were killed in Nigeria as a form of revenge against Nigerians who were killed in South Africa.
• South African Ladies I say you must stop dating Nigerians cause you will be killed like these girls in Nigeria.
• South African jollofinas they went with their boyfriends to Nigeria and when they there their boyfriends turned their backs against them as usual …
• Jollofinas are being killed in Nigeria, ne ba ya kae [it doesn’t stop]?

Jollofina is an insulting and offensive term for a South African woman believed to have a reputation for dating Nigerian men.

Screengrabs of the video have been posted on Facebook with a similar claim.*

“IF BEING A SOUTH AFRICAN or TSWANA WOMAN IN NIGERIA IS A CRIME THAN WHY DO WE HAVE THEM HERE,” a typical caption reads. “NIGERIAN MEN allegedly Drage Two Woman believed to be MZANSI Women. Moping The Street With Their Bood.”

Setswana is a language spoken in South Africa and neighbouring Botswana. Mzansi is an informal name for South Africa.

Xenophobic killings in South Africa

South Africa has a long history of xenophobic violence against migrants from elsewhere on the continent, including Nigeria.

Since 1994, according to the Xenowatch project at Wits University in Johannesburg, “tens of thousands of people have been harassed, attacked, or killed because of their status as outsiders or foreign nationals”.

Xenowatch has recorded a total of 672 migrant deaths in South Africa from 1994 to May 2024 as a result of xenophobic violence.

And a common xenophobic stereotype in South Africa is that Nigerians are drug dealers.

But does the video really show two South African women being murdered by men in Nigeria, as “revenge for their brothers who were killed in South Africa”?

Vigilantes strip, beat suspected robbers on Ugandan highway

Comments on the video and the screengrabs indicate that it was filmed in Uganda.

One points to the blue stripes on a nearby minibus taxi, stripes commonly seen and required by law on commuter taxis in Uganda. These are not seen on minibuses in Nigeria.

Another includes a screenshot of an article headlined: “2 women stripped naked and beaten in public for allegedly stealing in Uganda.”

The article was published on Wow News in 2022. It includes a video of the same incident shot from a different angle, as well as photos that match the viral video.

A search for the headline led Africa Check to several news reports on the incident, which took place on 5 October 2022.

The women were reportedly part of a group of four, including two men, who had robbed taxi passengers along the northern bypass in the Kira municipality of Kampala, Uganda’s capital. When caught, all four were stripped.

“Two naked male suspects were dumped in a swamp while the crowd continuously beat and filmed two women,” one report reads. “Whenever the female suspects attempted resisting the order to expose their private parts, the crowd responded with caning.”

There was no report that the women were killed. Ugandan police opened a case of attempted murder and indecent assault against the assailants.

The video was shot in Uganda, not Nigeria. There’s no evidence that anyone involved was South African or Nigerian.

* 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 18 June 2024

The post South African women murdered in Nigeria as revenge for xenophobia? No, video of public assault in Uganda appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 14 MAY 2024
Published by Africa Check on 20 May 2024

“Venus Williams forfeits match against trans woman,” reads text on a graphic circulating on social media in Nigeria, South Africa and elsewhere since late April 2024.*

“I’m not playing a man,” it quotes US tennis champion Williams as saying.

The graphic includes two photos, one supposedly of Venus Williams and the other of another female tennis player.

The graphic has been posted with comments such as:

• He should go and play with his fellow men or transgender. They should have their own category. They need to stop pitching them against biological women.
• Well said all women should do this.
• Venus is absolutely right on this. These people should stop forcing themselves on others.

The graphic can also be seen here, here, here, here, here and here.

But it’s false. Before we look into why, some definitions.

What is trans?

As categories, gender and sex are different things. Gender refers to socially accepted ideas of girlhood and womanhood, on the one hand, and boyhood and manhood on the other. Sex is based on biology and physiology, usually female and male but with some variations in between.

Trans or transgender people are born biologically male or female but have a different sense of themselves, unrelated to their biological sex. A trans woman was labelled male at birth but identifies as female. A trans man was labelled female at birth but identifies as male.

Trans encompasses a broad range of human experience. Some trans people simply dress and act according to their gender identity. Others choose to undergo hormone therapy or even medical procedures to make their bodies reflect their gender.

Trans is different to intersex, people whose bodies don’t fit neatly into the sex categories of male and female. Intersex people can be born with a range of differences in their chromosomes, genitals, genetic features or other parts of their bodies. South African athletics champion Caster Semenya is widely understood to be intersex.

Trans is the T in the acronym LGBTQIA+ and intersex is the I. The other letters stand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or questioning, and asexual.

The rights of trans people have become an issue in the 2024 US presidential election. Likely Republican candidate Donald Trump has said he will roll back protections for trans people put in place by current Democratic president Joe Biden.

Back to the graphic.

Serena Williams and Amelie Mauresmo

Africa Check cropped the photos out of the graphic and ran them through reverse image searches.

We found the first photo, supposedly of Venus Williams, in a September 2022 article by the Japan Times. It’s headlined: “Serena Williams ends magical run at U.S. Open in what was likely her final tournament.”

Serena Williams is Venus Williams’s younger sister. She’s also a tennis champion.

In the article, the photo’s caption reads: “Serena Williams leaves the court after losing her third-round match to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic.” It’s attributed to the news service Reuters.

Other photos – here, here, here, here and here – show Serena Williams at the same September 2022 tournament, wearing the same outfit.

We found the second photo – claimed to be a “trans woman” – on the stock image site Flickr. It was uploaded 10 years ago in June 2014 and is titled “Amelie Mauresmo”.

Amelie Mauresmo is a retired professional tennis player based in France. She is not trans.

The photo can also be seen here, here and here, in each instance identified as Mauresmo.

Venus Williams is a famous, record-breaking athlete, and transgender issues have become a hot social and political topic. But there are no credible news reports of Williams forfeiting a match against a trans woman because she “refused to play a man”. If she had, it would have made global headlines.

The claim is false.

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after being rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.

The post ‘I’m not playing a man?’ No, US tennis champ Venus Williams didn’t refuse match against trans woman appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 7 MAY 2024
Published by Africa Check on 10 May 2024

Warning: This report fact-checks and links to distressing photos.

Photos of a woman’s lifeless body lying in a gutter have been circulating on social media since late March 2024 with the claim she was found behind the house of new Liberian president Joseph Boakai.*

Liberia is a small country on the West African coast. Boakai, of the United Party, was elected in November 2023. He narrowly beat out the incumbent, former football star George Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change, who had been in power since 2018.

The photos’ caption also claims that Boakai’s new government is “killing innocent Liberians” as his party supposedly did while it was in opposition. It reads in full:

unknown body found behind the president of Liberia house in rehab! BOAKAI and his recircle criminals in government are not just looting and stealing but also killing innocent Liberians like they did doing their opposition life!! The Disaster and Calamity Liberians brought doing the election is finally paying back to their own suffering and bad governance!!!

The claim can also be seen here, here, here and here.

But do the photos really show an “unknown body” found behind Boakai’s residence in 2024?

Twenty-year-old student murdered in Enugu

Reverse image searches of the photos reveal that they’ve been online since March 2021, more than three years ago and long before Boakai’s presidency. And they’re from Nigeria, not Liberia.

They first appeared on social media on 29 March of that year with appeals to identify the woman’s body. She had been found outside Roots Cafe on Presidential Road in Enugu, the capital of the southeastern Nigerian state also named Enugu.

Later news reports identified the woman by name. She was a 20-year-old student at Enugu’s Institute of Management Technology.

Within days, the Enugu State Police Command announced that two suspects had been arrested for her murder.

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after being rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.

The post Identified murder victim in Nigeria, not ‘unknown body’ found behind Liberian president Boakai’s house appeared first on South Africa Gateway.