Ugandan Lawmakers Approve New Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill that would further criminalise consensual same-sex sexual relations and LGBTQ+ people in the country.
The Associated Press reported nearly all Ugandan MPs voted for the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would punish the “promotion, recruitment and funding” of LGBTQ+-specific activities in the country with up to 10 years in prison.
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Human Rights Watch notes “any person who ‘holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, a queer, or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female'” would face up to 10 years in prison.
President Yoweri Museveni has said he supports the bill, as ‘Washington Blade’ reports.
“We shall continue to fight this injustice,” tweeted Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesara, a Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist, after the bill’s passage. “This lesbian woman is Ugandan, even (though) this piece of paper will stop me from enjoying my country. (The) struggle (has) just begun.”
Uganda is among the dozens of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalised.
Museveni in 2014 signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The law was known as the “Kill the Gays” bill because it previously contained a death penalty provision.
The U.S. subsequently cut aid to Uganda and imposed a travel ban against officials who carried out human rights abuses. Uganda’s Constitutional Court later struck down the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act on a technicality.
“One of the most extreme features of this new bill is that it criminalizes people simply for being who they are as well as further infringing on the rights to privacy, and freedoms of expression and association that are already compromised in Uganda,” said Oryem Nyeko of Human Rights Watch in a press release that condemned the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act. “Ugandan politicians should focus on passing laws that protect vulnerable minorities and affirm fundamental rights and stop targeting LGBT people for political capital.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
Ugandan Bill Threatens Jail For Saying You’re Gay
Ugandan MPs Revive Hardline Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill, Calling Homosexuality A “Cancer”
Ugandan Government Shuts Down LGBTQ+ Group
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni Rejects Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill
Uganda Plans To Impose The Death Penalty On Homosexuals
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