Malawi has halted the enforcement of laws that criminalize same-sex relationships after comments made by the country’s Justice Minister Ralph Kasambara.

According to Reuters, Kasambara, who is also the Attorney General, said he wanted to have a debate on the issue before parliament decided whether to keep the laws or not.

“If we continue arresting and prosecuting people based on the said laws and later such laws are found to be unconstitutional it would be an embarrassment to government,” Kasambara told Reuters.

With the music of “Fiddler in the Roof” playing in the back of my head, this week I have been dreaming about what we could do with $1.5 million to win global equality.

My international network of friends has been working on a three-year grant proposal focusing on the intersection of LGBT oppression with HIV. For every person we place on life-saving medications (ARV’s), two people become newly infected somewhere on Earth. Meanwhile, draconian laws remain on the books of 76 countries where it is illegal to serve criminalized populations including LGBT people.

Beni Ghale, a woman in Nepal, was abandoned by her husband with no source of income and two children to care for on her own.

Rather than resort to prostitution, and with only herself to rely on, Beni began to ask local restaurants in Kathmandu for their used rice sacks. She worked hard to replicate the traditional grass baskets by making tote bags and purses from these recycled sacks.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a historic speech in Geneva on Dec. 8 calling for recognition of gay rights and support for those who brave hostility to defend gay rights, she might have been speaking of the Rev. MacDonald Sembereka who was in the audience listening.