At a shelter for lesbian women in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, gone are the days when the residents, having fled abuse and stigma at home, could breathe easy and be themselves.
That came to an end a month ago when parliament passed some of the world’s strictest anti-LGBTQ legislation, which would criminalize the “promotion” of homosexuality and impose the death penalty for certain crimes involving gay sex.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday last week said that he supports the legislation, but has requested some modifications from parliament, including provisions to “rehabilitate” gay people, before he signs it.
Photo: Reuters
Staff at the shelter, a nondescript building in a busy part of town, now instruct residents to be discreet and blend into their surroundings, even if that means changing their behavior or physical appearance.
“You won’t find people sagging their pants and walking around in the shelter or ... bringing their girlfriends around the shelter and then making out at the gate,” said Joan Amek, who runs the foundation that manages the facility. “All that has been restricted one way or another.”
Being LGBTQ in Uganda was not easy before. A British colonial-era law bans gay sex, and members of the community are often victims of violence and discrimination, but LGBTQ Ugandans say nothing could have prepared them for the past few weeks as the bill’s passage sent homophobic abuse into overdrive, unleashing a wave of arrests, evictions, denunciations by family members and mob attacks.
One resident contrasted the current atmosphere with 2013, when parliament passed a bill that strengthened penalties for same-sex relations. The resulting law was struck down by a domestic court several months later on procedural grounds.
“When the [2013] bill came, we had the right to get up and speak,” the resident said, asking to remain anonymous. “In 2023, the bill instilled fear. You can’t even stand up and say: ‘I am human. Don’t do this to me.’”
After parliament passed the bill, she deleted her Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter accounts.
When a friend told her that people in the neighborhood were discussing her sexuality, she left home, fearing being sent to prison, where she would be a target of sexual violence.
Unlike most anti-LGBTQ legislation in Africa, the latest Ugandan bill does not just criminalize same-sex acts, but openly seeks to silence a community that lawmakers allege, without evidence, is conspiring to recruit children and weaken traditional family and religious values.
It would impose the death penalty for cases of so-called aggravated homosexuality, which include having gay sex when HIV-positive.
Other LGBTQ Ugandans said that they were taking security precautions like changing the routes they use to travel between home and work, and carrying pepper spray.
“I feel like it’s going to be a different environment altogether,” said another resident at the shelter, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “It might get so brutal.”
Others are looking to leave Uganda altogether.
Amek said her organization has been contacted by at least 14 people asking for help seeking asylum in Western nations.
For LGBTQ Ugandans living abroad, the new reality is also clouding their prospects of ever returning home.
“There’s a lot of stories that I wanted to tell in that place so it really hurts me that I can’t go back,” said DeLovie Kwagala (Papa De), a queer Ugandan photographer living in South Africa.
Amek faces enormous risks as the director of the foundation under a provision of the bill that punishes the promotion of homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison.
“I am worried about everything, worried about how I will live, how I will access accommodation, how I will access food, how I will access employment,” she said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS