UN Secretary General Calls Out African Homophobia

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged African nations to end government-sanctioned discrimination and violence against LGBT people.

Speaking at the African Union summit on Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ban Ki-Moon called the discrimination a violation of the UN's universal declaration of human rights.

"One form of discrimination ignored or even sanctioned by many states for too long has been discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity," he said, according to Agence France Presse. "Confronting these discriminations is a challenge, but we must not give up on the ideas of the universal declaration of human rights."

The U.S. and the U.K. have begun pressuring some African nations, with threats of reduced aid, to reign in some of their virulent antigay policies.