The National Council (NC) on July 24th passed the private member’s bills introduced by Swapo lawmaker Jerry Ekandjo to define the term ‘spouse’ and amend the Marriage Act of 1961.

Ekandjo last week introduced a bill on the definition of ‘spouse’, invoking articles 81 and 4 of the Namibian Constitution to contradict a decision of the Supreme Court of Namibia on same-sex marriage.

He also tabled a bill to change sections of the Marriage Act, including the definitions of the terms ‘marriage’, ‘same-sex marriage’ and ‘spouse’.

The bills were passed with minimal amendments and were overwhelmingly supported by both sides of the house.

The bill on the definition of the word ‘spouse’ sailed through the committee stage without objection.

The marriage amendment bill is the fifth one to be passed by the NC in three weeks.

In his final contribution to the bill, Swapo’s Tobias Hainyeko constituency councillor Likuwa Christopher said 99% of Namibians are Christians.

“I fail to understand in today’s Namibia for a magistrate to bond two men or women and bless them together. What will they reproduce? Water, stones, or what? If they produce zero, that means they are planning to kill the future generation,” he said.

Christopher said that he appreciates the bill and thanked Ekandjo for tabling it.

“Any Namibian who is found doing this practice must be punished,” he said.

He also requested the Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Health and Social Services to make social workers available to anyone who wants to practise sodomy.

Supporting Christopher, United Democratic Front (UDF) regional councillor for Khorixas, Gobs Sebastiaan, said same-sex marriage in whatever form is not practised in any society.

He further added that he only supports marriage in “the way known to him”.

“Marriage is a legally and socially sanctioned union usually between a man and a woman,” he said.

Okahao constituency councillor and Swapo member Shikulo Leornard said it is important that family values are protected and preserved.

“From the onset, marriage is between a man and woman with the aim of reproduction. Any deterioration of such a natural relationship is a disgrace,” he said.

He also said that same-sex marriages must be condemned in their totality.

Ekandjo’s private member’s bills were tabled in parliament early this month. This came after the executive director of home affairs, immigration, safety and security, Ettiene Maritz, said the ministry would abide by a Supreme Court judgement recognising same-sex marriages legally concluded outside the country.

On 16 May, the Supreme Court ruled against the Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security’s refusal to recognise spouses in same-sex marriages validly concluded outside Namibia for immigration purposes in terms of Section 2(1)(c) of the Immigration Control Act of 1993.

The court found that the ministry’s stance infringed on those foreign nationals’ rights to dignity and equality under Namibian law.

Swapo member of parliament and minister of agriculture, water and land reform Calle Schlettwein on Monday said the proposed bills are in conflict with enshrined rights in Namibia’s Constitution.

He said he believes the bills are against human rights as enshrined in the Constitution. He further said these cannot be changed by any politician or parliamentarian.

Schlettwein took to social media last week, saying liberty is “freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction and hampering conditions, or the power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, according to choice”.

“The parliament approved to interfere with, restrict, hamper and criminalise a choice of affection,” the minister tweeted.

Popular Democratic Movement leader McHenry Venaani last week in parliament said Ekandjo’s proposed anti-gay law would have to pass a constitutionality test.

A Congolese soldier accused of gunning down 13 people, most of them children, in the northeast of the conflict-plagued country has been arrested and will stand trial Tuesday, a military source said. 

According to witnesses to the killings in Nyakova village on Saturday, the suspect couldn’t bear the fact that his own child had been buried in his absence. 

Nyakova is a fishing village in the Djugu territory, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, one of eastern DR Congo’s violence hotspots where deadly attacks are common. 

The angry soldier had returned home and “fired on civilians” gathered “at the place of mourning, on the grounds that… his child had died and been buried without him being informed,” army spokesperson Lieutenant Jules Ngongo told AFP. 

The death toll of 13 was said to include nine children, including two of the soldier’s own offspring, the spokesperson said. 

Magistrate Colonel Joseph Makelele, senior military prosecutor at the Ituri province military court, told AFP that the 32-year-old suspect named Babby Ndombe Opetu would be prosecuted “for murder and violation of orders” Tuesday. 

Ngongo said the suspect was a noncommissioned member of the 332nd naval force based at Tchomia, just two kilometers (1.24 miles) from Nyakova on the shores of Lake Albert bordering Uganda. 

The military spokesman said the suspect had fled the scene of the attack and gone into hiding in Tchomia, where he was found late Sunday and “handed over to the courts for trial.” 

A civil society source said Sunday that a 14th victim had died due to his injuries, but that has not been confirmed. According to another source, a neighbor, panicked by the gunfire, suffered a heart attack and died.