LGBTQ and intersex activists protest in front of the Ugandan Embassy in D.C. on April 25, 2023. Companies have pulled out of Uganda and NGOs have suspended their work in the country after President Yoweri Museveni signed the law. (Washington Blade photos by Michael K. Lavers)
KAMPALA, Uganda | The effects of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act signed by President Yoweri Museveni late last month are already being felt in the country, even though it has been challenged in court.
Some companies have stopped services that violate the new law, while others have suspended theirs pending the court’s decision. Others have staged boycotts in solidarity with Uganda’s LGBTQ+ community.
DStv is one of the international media companies that has stopped the airing of gay content in the country to comply with the law banning the promotion of homosexuality.
The sub-Saharan African video entertainment company owned by MuiltChoice Group stated that it abides by every country’s laws in its film and television business of enriching the lives of people in relation to Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law.
“MultiChoice takes into account all laws and regulations under which we are governed and aims to adhere to those set rules in the countries in which we operate,” the South Africa-based company confirmed to local press the day after Museveni signed the law on May 29.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act contains punitive provisions, such as the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” and a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality, which MultiChoice wants to avoid in its programming.
The Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, a health-oriented NGO that advocates for equal access to services by all people including LGBTQ+ persons, has suspended its work over the anti-homosexuality law.
The organization through a May 30 statement said it suspended its malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV services until the court clarifies the law to avert any prosecution for offering services to LGBTQ+ people.
“The board has decided that as HRAPF seeks an interpretation of these provisions from the constitutional court, it will stop work that the government has formally or informally indicated may be illegal under the new law and other work that we suspect may be interpreted as promotion of homosexuality under Section 11,” the statement reads.
Uganda’s NGO Bureau in January listed HRAPF among the civil society organizations under investigation on allegations of promoting homosexuality, which was not recognized as an offense before the new law came into effect.
“No details were given as to why HRAPF was being investigated, and this leaves us in the dark as to why we were being investigated,” reads the statement by HRAPF Executive Director Adrian Jjuuko.
The organization is among other petitioners that are challenging the legality of numerous contentious clauses in the anti-gay law including reporting gay suspects to the authorities under Section 14.
Persons who report the suspects are guaranteed state benefits like protection from punishment as whistle-blowers.
The harsh law on LGBTQ+ people has also impacted the once busy U.S.-funded HIV/AIDS treatment center in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, because patients fear the police will identify and arrest them.
The new law criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations with life imprisonment while transmitting HIV, which falls under the law’s “aggravated homosexuality” provision, carries the death penalty.
The deserted clinic always received a minimum of 50 patients daily for HIV/AIDS preventive services like condoms and antiretroviral therapy. Service providers are therefore concerned over a potential spike in HIV/AIDS cases.
The clinic has been instrumental in the fight against HIV in the country where 1.4 million people live with the virus and 17,000 annual deaths from the disease, according to the latest figures by Uganda’s AIDS Commission.
Prominent author turns down invitation to speak at Ugandan university
Mukoma wa Ngugi, a U.S.-based Kenyan author and professor of English literature at Cornell University, has boycotted an invite he received from Makerere University, Uganda’s premier university, to give a public lecture in August.
Wa Ngugi, a son of the globally-celebrated Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, said he decided to boycott lecture in solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in Uganda on grounds that the Anti-Homosexuality Act curtails freedom of expression.
“The anti-gay bill passed in Uganda is gratuitous in its cruelty,” said Mukoma. “It criminalizes the human body, speech, thought, intent, literature, music and language. In short, it criminalizes culture itself while claiming to be protecting African culture.”
He reiterated that the new law censures him from sharing his works; such as his poem supporting LGBTQ+ Africans, thus conflicting with his artistic honesty and integrity. Wa Ngugi noted that forbidding people’s gender identity should not be tolerated since it is like “outlawing humanity.”
“How does just being who are you become illegal? Should we not be protecting and celebrating our sexual diversity?” Mukoma posed.
He accused Museveni of leading the country to the wrong path of “anti-decolonization” through the anti-gay law. Wa Ngugi also likened Uganda’s decision to criminalize homosexuality to what is happening in Florida “where being gay, or Black, or an immigrant or woke is an anathema.”
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com
