![]() ![]() Jonathan previously worked at an insurance company and dreamed of becoming an actor – until one of his bosses began to show an interest in him. ‘I can’t go on dates… I don’t have a job.’ ‘I can’t be myself,’ he says quietly, squinting in the sun outside his new home. Jonathan* lives in a shelter on the outskirts of Kampala, where skyscrapers give way to dirt roads and goats munch on thin grass. In just a few months it has made life harder for people already facing discrimination. The law represents a tightening of the noose. Failing to report same-sex acts is a potential crime anyone can be an informant. ‘Promoting homosexuality’ carries a 20-year jail term. Landlords convicted of ‘facilitating the commission of the offence of homosexuality’ face nearly as much time in prison, which could criminalize those providing housing for LGBTIQI+ people and has already led to spate of evictions, according to HRAPF. The penalty for attempted gay sex has been upped to a decade. ![]() Anyone found guilty of ‘aggravated homosexuality’ – defined as sexual conduct with a minor, a person with mental or physical disabilities, transmission of a terminal illness, or even repeat offences – can be put to death. This latest incarnation is harsher than its predecessor, adding new punishments. In May, President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law. Then, in 2023, parliamentarian Asuman Basalirwa brought the act back, introducing it as a private member’s bill that was passed by an overwhelming majority – all but two of the 389 parliamentarians present voted in favour of it. An earlier version of the Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed in 2014, but quickly quashed on procedural grounds. Although that law was rarely enforced, its existence helped encourage violent homophobia within society. The country’s penal code, a relic of British colonial rule, already criminalized same-sex conduct. The difficulties faced by Uganda’s embattled LGBTQI+ community are not new. Mukiibi frets about how to get enough medicine, with the stores empty and money running low.Īmid this intensifying clampdown, LGBTQI+ people describe an environment of fear and near-constant threat, but also assert their own determination to challenge the legislation in Uganda’s constitutional court and to continue living authentically. A grainy photo accompanying the message shows a young man with blood gushing from his left leg and pooling on to the floor. Shortly after we meet in the bare clinic, Mukiibi sends me a text message to say that two people have been brought in for treatment – beaten in homophobic attacks. Civil society organizations like HRAPF can only do so much, and it is often dangerous for LGBTQI+ people to go the police, for fear of being ignored or arrested. ![]() ‘Many cases of violence go unreported,’ says HRAPF director and lawyer Adrian Jjuuko. It estimates there have been some 140 attacks against LGBTQI+ persons since the act was signed into law. In September 2023 alone, the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), a Kampala-based law clinic and advocacy organization, recorded 68 violations against the LBGTQI+ community.
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