Hopes of a second victory for LGBTQ+ rights activists in southern Africa were dashed Friday when the High Court in Malawi rejected two challenges seeking to overturn the nation’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws as the nearby nation of Namibia did on June 21. The ruling involved two separate cases — that of Dutch national Jan Willem Akster and that of Malawian trans woman Jana Gonani, who were separately charged in 2021 with engaging in homosexual acts. Gonani is currently serving an eight-year sentence at Blantyre Prison, a men’s prison.