Eswatini: Eswatini's Civic Freedoms On Trial in Landmark LGBTI Rights Legal Battle

For seven years the Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities group has fought the Swazi government for its citizens to have the right to freedom of association. But this is a hard fight against a government and king who believe LGBTI people have no place in the kingdom and who are trying to restrict the power of civil society organisations.

In Eswatini's second biggest city of Manzini, Sisanda Mavimbela is once again preparing for court.

As the Co-Director of Programmes and Advocacy for Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities (ESGM), a group which works to advance LGBTI rights, Sisanda has become all too familiar with the ritual of gathering documents, revisiting judgments, speaking to lawyers and asking the courts, again, to affirm what should never have been in dispute: that everyone has a right to freedom of association.

ESGM has been fighting in the courts for this constitutional right since 2019, when its application to register as a non-profit organisation was first rejected. After challenging the decision in the high court, ESGM eventually secured a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2023 which declared that the registrar's approach was unconstitutional and ordered the relevant minister to reconsider the application.

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In his reconsideration, the minister of commerce, industry and trade in September 2024 declined ESGM's application on the basis that Swazi "customary law does not recognise same-sex relationships".

In August 2025, ESGM again approached the courts challenging the minister's grounds for rejecting its application. The matter is still before the courts, but ESGM has made it clear that it has no intention...