Madagascar: Safety first, litigation-ready always

In Madagascar, the strategic litigation training and follow-up work confirmed an important lesson; before litigation can be safe or useful, communities must have reliable ways to document harm, report safely and access support.

Partners are therefore building a safety-led advocacy pathway. Current priorities include establishing a secure coordination platform, mapping referral providers, developing safe space protocols, documenting incidents, creating an incident response flow, sensitising law enforcement, and preparing anonymised case-pattern reports for relevant accountability bodies. The work also includes follow-up on priority cases involving public morality, outing, harassment, detention, blackmail and other patterns of harm.

Madagascar’s direction is not a retreat from strategic litigation. It is a disciplined form of readiness. Partners are strengthening the foundation so that any future legal intervention is informed by evidence, community safety and clear escalation pathways.

At the same time, Madagascar partners are also advancing legal research and movement-building to support the development of a country roadmap on the legal age of sexual majority for LGBTQIA+ persons. This work focuses on understanding the current legal framework, documenting how existing provisions affect communities in practice, and building a shared advocacy position on lowering the age of sexual majority to 18. While litigation is not the immediate starting point, the process is helping partners prepare a stronger evidence base, build community and stakeholder alignment, and identify possible pathways for future advocacy or litigation if needed. It is careful, strategic groundwork, the kind that makes future legal action safer, clearer and more accountable to the people most affected.

There is also promising work on safe spaces and digital referral systems, including exploration of a WhatsApp-based chatbot to support LGBTQ+ people experiencing violence. The idea is not to replace human support with technology. The idea is to create a safer first door into care, referral and protection.

In movement language; first we build the bridge, then we cross carefully.