Eswatini: Marginalised communities breaking barriers
Across Eswatini, the struggle for equality is deeply shaped by a system where patriarchal customs and state repression continue to limit the freedoms of women and LGBTQI+ communities. At the intersection of culture, politics, and human rights, these groups have faced consistent marginalisation. Women remain excluded from owning land despite constitutional guarantees, often finding themselves stripped of property after divorce or the death of a spouse. LGBTQI+ communities, especially transgender people, continue to be denied basic recognition, healthcare rights, and the ability to legally organise.
And yet, amid these challenges, voices of resistance are growing louder. Rural women’s movements are demanding security of tenure and economic justice. Civil society organisations are using the courts to challenge discrimination. Transgender activists are shifting healthcare conversations from silence and stigma to dignity and affirmation.
This blog explores how Eswatini’s women and LGBTQI+ communities are pushing forward, breaking barriers, resisting systemic exclusion, and redefining equality in ways that could transform the country’s social fabric.
For women in Eswatini, land is more than an economic resource. It represents survival, independence, and dignity. But under Swazi Law and Custom, access to land is controlled by chiefs and usually granted through male relatives. Widows and divorced women are particularly vulnerable, often dispossessed by their in-laws or community leaders despite protections in the 2005 Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law.
A widow in Lubombo recently described her struggle after her husband’s death:
“The chief said the land belonged to my husband, and now that he is gone, it reverts to his family. But this is the only home my children know.”
Such cases are not isolated. Women frequently turn to customary courts only to be told their rights are secondary to custom. The contradiction between constitutional rights and traditional practice leaves many without legal recourse.
Yet, women are refusing to remain silent. Rural women’s groups, some aligned with larger civil society coalitions, are organising community dialogues and lobbying government ministries. They are calling not only for land security but for economic justice, recognising that women’s exclusion from land ownership perpetuates poverty and inequality.
Their efforts have already influenced court debates. In landmark cases, judges have been forced to grapple with whether custom can override constitutional guarantees. While the legal victories are uneven, the persistence of women-led advocacy signals that the fight for land is no longer confined to private struggles; it is becoming a public, political demand.
If women’s exclusion is rooted in patriarchy, LGBTQI+ communities face an equally formidable barrier: the state’s refusal to acknowledge their very existence. In Eswatini, homosexuality is still criminalised under colonial-era laws, and the government has consistently refused to register organisations working on LGBTQI+ rights.
This refusal was tested in court when civil society groups sought recognition for LGBTQI+ organisations, arguing that denying them registration violated the constitutional right to freedom of association. The cases have sparked national debate, exposing the contradiction between Eswatini’s commitments to international human rights treaties and its domestic policies of exclusion.
For many LGBTQI+ people, however, the struggle is not only legal but deeply personal. Without official recognition, organisations cannot openly operate, apply for funding, or provide structured support. This leaves individuals, particularly young queer people isolated and vulnerable to violence, blackmail, and social exclusion.
“They want us invisible. But we are here, and we are not going anywhere,” one transgender activist in Mbabane put it bluntly.
That defiance is at the heart of the movement. Whether through court battles, underground support networks, or public advocacy, LGBTQI+ communities are carving out spaces of resilience and solidarity.
Among the LGBTQI+ community, transgender people face unique and often overlooked challenges. Healthcare is a critical area where systemic barriers persist. Public hospitals rarely provide gender-affirming services, and stigma from healthcare workers drives many trans people away from seeking even basic care.
Trans activists have begun reshaping this conversation. By organising workshops with healthcare providers, they are highlighting the urgent need for rights-based and affirming healthcare that recognises gender diversity. They argue that inclusive healthcare is not a luxury but a necessity—one tied to the right to dignity and health.
These efforts are slowly shifting the narrative. While state policy has yet to catch up, there are signs of progress: some clinics, through partnerships with civil society, are beginning to pilot services tailored to key populations, including trans people. These initiatives remain fragile and underfunded, but they represent an important foothold in a sector long dominated by silence and stigma.
Eswatini’s judiciary has become a key arena for struggles over equality. Civil society organisations have increasingly turned to the courts to challenge both patriarchal customs and state repression.
Cases brought by women around property rights have forced judges to confront contradictions between custom and constitutional guarantees. Meanwhile, LGBTQI+ activists are demanding judicial recognition of their organisations and protection against discrimination.
Though progress is uneven, these legal battles are reshaping public discourse. They are also highlighting the resilience of marginalised communities who refuse to accept invisibility. As one lawyer representing an LGBTQI+ case noted:
“Every judgment, win or lose, leaves a mark. It makes the state answer for its decisions and keeps the conversation alive.”
Beyond the courts, grassroots organising is where resilience takes its deepest root. Women’s groups in rural communities are creating cooperatives that provide financial independence outside male-dominated land systems. LGBTQI+ collectives, even without legal recognition, are running safe spaces where young queer people can find support, mentorship, and community.
These movements often intersect. Women and LGBTQI+ activists are recognising their shared struggles under patriarchy and state repression. Joint campaigns, whether around healthcare, economic rights, or freedom of association, are building bridges between communities that might once have organised separately.
This intersectional approach is powerful. It not only strengthens the movements but also challenges the state’s strategy of divide and marginalise. By presenting a united front, these groups are harder to silence.
Eswatini’s government may continue to resist change, but the momentum for equality is undeniable. Women are asserting their constitutional rights against customary dispossession. LGBTQI+ activists are demanding recognition in the face of criminalisation. Transgender people are reshaping healthcare conversations long dominated by stigma.
These struggles are not without setbacks, court defeats, social backlash, and state intimidation remain daily realities. Yet, the resilience of these communities sends a clear message: repression will not erase their existence or silence their demands.
Equality in Eswatini is being redefined not by government policy but by the lived resistance of marginalised communities. It is being shaped by widows who refuse to be dispossessed, by queer youth who refuse invisibility, and by trans activists who refuse to accept silence in healthcare.
Breaking barriers in Eswatini is neither easy nor guaranteed. The weight of patriarchy, custom, and state repression continues to bear down heavily. But as this blog shows, women and LGBTQI+ communities are not standing still. They are moving, organising, resisting, and imagining a different future.
Theirs is not just a fight for recognition but for transformation, of laws, of institutions, and of culture itself. In pushing forward, they are not only redefining equality but redefining what it means to belong in Eswatini.
A more just and inclusive society may still feel distant, but every act of resistance brings it closer. Every court case, every community meeting, every safe space created is part of a broader struggle that refuses to be silenced.
And that is the power of Eswatini’s marginalised communities: even in the face of repression, they continue to break barriers and push forward for equality.
#PushForward4Equality
(Written by: Sifiso Nhlabatsi, Journalist from Eswatini)