ABOVE: U.S., USAID and Pride flags. Photo courtesy USAID’s Facebook page.
A six-month investigation conducted by openDemocracy has revealed multiple aid-funded health facilities in three African countries have been administering conversion therapy to patients.
“Health facilities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have provided, or provided referrals for, controversial anti-gay ‘conversion therapy’ to ‘quit’ same-sex attraction,” said openDemocracy in a statement.
Additionally, the statement mentions that undercover reporters who spoke to some staff at these facilities were offered help to quit same-sex attraction and were told that “being gay is ‘evil;’ and homosexuality is ‘for whites’, caused by peer pressure and a mental health problem.” They were advised to “give a gay teenager a sleeping pill to prevent him from masturbating.”
In an article that highlights their findings, openDemocracy reports that a receptionist at Mulago National Referral Hospital, Uganda’s largest public hospital and HIV clinic for marginalized and most-at-risk populations, said that an undercover reporter’s 17-year-old gay brother could “quit” his same-sex attraction.
“Whoever wants to quit homosexuality, we connect them,” said the receptionist to outside counselors, who have included Pastor Solomon Male, a well-known gay rights opponent in the area.
The receptionist also referred the undercover reporter to a former patient who she claimed was no longer gay and gave the reporter the patient’s phone number.
Mulago, like a number of health facilities in Africa, receives foreign aid and funding from organizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Global Fund, PEPFAR and the U.K.-based NGO MSI Reproductive Choices.
OpenDemocracy reports the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau network received more than $1 million from USAID between 2019 and April 2021. It remains uncertain whether the specific hospitals identified in investigations received any of this money.
The donors in response to the investigation’s findings have committed to launching a separate investigation into the health facilities and taking action against so-called conversion therapy practices they are administrating.
“We strongly condemn this harmful, unethical practice, which goes against everything we stand for as an organization,” an MSI Reproductive Choices spokesperson told openDemocracy. “We are grateful for all safeguarding concerns raised and thank openDemocracy for their investigation.”
MSI Reproductive Choices also receives millions in aid from the British government and other international donors to specifically provide health services to marginalized communities, including gay men and transgender people.
Survivors of anti-LGBTQ treatments’ in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have come forward to describe their experiences with conversion therapy.
“I was not allowed to make or receive any phone calls. They also gave me a lot of drugs that made me drowsy and exhausted all the time,” said Samuel (not his real name) to openDemocracy of his experience with conversion therapy. “I felt abandoned and was afraid I was going to die.”
Samuel’s parents sent him to a conversion therapy institute for a year and a half. OpenDemocracy said he was given electric shocks and shown pictures of “ruptured anuses and wounded penises” by people who told him that if he didn’t stop being gay, he would “meet the same fate.”
A transgender woman in Tanzania recounted that her mother took her to a hospital in Dar es Salaam, the country’s commercial capital, where a doctor attempted to convince her that being trans is improbable.
OpenDemocracy also cites two men in Kenya who said they received hormones to appear more ‘masculine’ and to limit a trans person’s ability to present in their preferred gender.
As investigations into the allegations ensue, aid donors have begun to take action regarding health facilities that prescribe conversion therapy.
Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, the Africa director at the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights organization, told openDemocracy that aid donors should ensure their money does not fund any conversion therapy activities — and to withdraw money if it does..
“Redirect funding,” said Yvee Oduor of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya. “We already have clinics and health centres run by LGBTQI+ people all over the country. Why not fund these community initiatives?”
A USAID spokesperson in a statement to the Washington Blade said the agency “does not fund or promote anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy.”
“The United States government, through staff at the U.S. Embassy in Uganda, has engaged leadership of the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau and the Infectious Disease Institute (IDI) Uganda concerning the allegations cited,” said the spokesperson. “IDI subgrants to the Most At Risk Populations Initiative (MARPI) clinic in Kampala, with U.S. funding.”
The USAID spokesperson told the Blade that officials from the U.S. Embassy in Uganda “emphasized the need to ensure support for key populations, including the LGBTQ+ community.” The spokesperson added “the implementing partners agreed to take steps to ensure” that “appropriate gender and sexual diversity training is provided to all implementing partner staff and health care workers and ensure refresher trainings” are carried out, that “hiring practices include principles of nondiscrimination in personnel contracts” and “a patient’s bill of rights is posted in facilities, and service delivery issues raised through PEPFAR’s Community-led Monitoring program are addressed.”
