Eswatini

Common law in Eswatini criminalizes consensual same-sex intimacy. Trans people have no access to legal gender recognition, and only limited access to gender-affirming health care. Intersex people lack safeguards against nonconsensual medical interventions and experience social marginalization within a society that enforces binary understandings of sex.

In April 2022, the High Court in Eswatini rejected a bid by the country’s leading LGBTIQ group, Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities (ESGM), for official recognition as an association. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court in June 2023 declared the Registrar’s decision void, ruling that “the approach undertaken by the Registrar in this regard does not meet the legal requirements contained in Section 33 of the Constitution,” which provides for the right to administrative justice. The Ministry for Commerce, Industry and Trade still refuses to register the organization because the NGO’s name and objectives allegedly “seek to offend against the customary principles as preserved,” claiming that “in our Swazi law and custom…a man and a woman shall start and maintain a love relationship.” As the organization has again had to approach the court, four UN Special Procedures mandate holders sent letters of communication to the government of Eswatini in November 2023, demanding an explanation of how the refusal to register ESGM complies with international human rights law. ESGM filed a new application in 2025 to address the state’s noncompliance with the judgment.

In January 2026, education minister Owen Nxumalo threatened to expel students in same-sex relationships from school, provoking outrage from civil society groups.