METHODOLOGY

Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission conducted research for this report from November 1998 through December 2001, with additional documentary research carried on afterward. Human Rights Watch conducted a mission to South Africa and Namibia in 2001. IGLHRC visited Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in 1998; returned to Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2000; and conducted additional missions to Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa in 2001. Human Rights Watch staff also cooperated with IGLHRC in organizing a human rights workshop for regional activists in South Africa in 1999, at which the conceptual outlines of this report were discussed in detail. We worked closely with many nongovernmental organizations to identify and interview lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people, as well as other victims of abuse or discrimination based on their sexual conduct, many of whom were reluctant to speak with us until we assured them that we would protect their identity. We agreed to protect the identity of many of the people we interviewed, and in appropriate cases have used pseudonyms and withheld any other identifying information. Cases where pseudonyms are used are identified in the footnotes. In some other cases, at the request of the interviewee, we have used only his or her first name. We also interviewed human rights activists, including women's rights activists, lawyers, HIV/AIDS peer educators and organizers, academics, journalists, and government officials.

The vast majority of people we interviewed in South Africa were of African descent; approximately twenty percent were white, coloured, or Indian. In other countries, a still larger proportion of those interviewed were of African descent. In Botswana, we interviewed men and women in Gaborone. In Namibia, we interviewed men and women living in Windhoek and in surrounding townships. In South Africa, we interviewed men and women living in urban areas, townships and rural areas, mostly in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Eastern and Western Cape provinces. In Zambia, we interviewed men and women living in Lusaka and surrounding high-density areas, as well as visiting a penitentiary and court in Kabwe. In Zimbabwe, we interviewed men and women living in Harare, Mutare, Bulawayo, and Masvingo, as well as high-density suburbs and rural areas.