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The Biden-Harris administration on Oct. 23 issued a business advisory for Uganda in response to the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act.
The State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Service and Commerce issued the advisory that “informs U.S. businesses, individuals and other U.S. persons, including health services providers, members of academic institutions, and investors, of potential risks they may face if they are conducting, or contemplating to conduct, business in Uganda.”
“Businesses, organizations and individuals should be aware of potential financial and reputational risks resulting from endemic corruption, described in more detail in the 2023 Investment Climate Statement, as well as violence against human rights activists, media members, health workers, members of minority groups, LGBTQI+ persons and political opponents described in the 2022 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Uganda,” reads the advisory.
The advisory states the Anti-Homosexuality Act “further increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.”
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on May 29 signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.”
The U.S. in June imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials.
The World Bank Group in August announced the suspension of new loans to Uganda. Museveni, for his part, in an open letter to Ugandans cites the “provocations by the World Bank and the thoughtless homosexual lobby” and said they “should not provoke us into being, automatically, anti-Western.”
Police in Buikwe, a town that is roughly 35 miles east of Kampala, the Ugandan capital, on Aug. 20 arrested four people who allegedly engaged in “acts of homosexuality” at a local massage parlor. Authorities two days earlier charged a 20-year-old man with “aggravated homosexuality.”
Media reports indicate prosecutors in Jinja, a city that is roughly 50 miles east of Kampala in July charged a 43-year-old man with “aggravated homosexuality.”
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.
