Gays in Uganda say they face discrimination and are stigmatized by health workers when they seek care in the public and private health system. There is nothing harder in society than curbing health issues of people who are marginalized and underground," Pepe Julian Onziema, programme director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), told IRIN/PlusNews. "If this bill is passed into law, it will gravely affect HIV intervention because it will drive very many sexual minorities underground. Gays say they are regularly harassed by the authorities The Crane Survey, a 2008-2009 study of high-risk groups in Uganda, reported that HIV prevalence among MSM respondents was 13.7 percent, close to twice the national prevalence. MSM are considered by the Uganda AIDS Commission to be a "most at-risk population", but because homosexual acts are illegal, there are no policies or services targeting HIV interventions towards them. This bill respects the positive culture of Ugandans."Īctivists have decried the bill, saying it is a violation of human rights that would make men who have sex with men (MSM) even less willing to access health services. "The children of Uganda will be saved from this dangerous practice of same sexual marriages that Western countries want to impose on us. "We as government have no objection and fully support it ," Simon Lokodo, Uganda's state minister for ethics and integrity, told IRIN/PlusNews.
Ugandan society is largely homophobic, and political and religious leaders have often claimed that homosexuality is an "un-African" Western import. "Ugandans are ready to pay the price of maintaining their values, cultural and societal norms whatever the cost might be." We shall not sell our national birth right in exchange for a few dollars to soften on homosexuality," the organizations said in the petition. What value would enacting this law add to our existing body of law or fight against HIV? I think we have enough laws on defilement, rape and indecent assaultįollowing widespread international criticism, Bahati re-tabled the bill in May 2011, downgrading the punishment for aggravated homosexuality to life imprisonment and removing the crime of "attempted homosexuality" and a clause requiring people in authority to report homosexual activities they are aware of within 24 hours or face jail. The bill has continued to have strong support both in and out of parliament, despite President Yoweri Museveni distancing himself from it in 2010 following international pressure. The original version of the bill, tabled by ruling party MP David Bahati, proposed the death sentence for the crime of "aggravated homosexuality", which covers, among other things, a homosexual act committed by an HIV-positive person and homosexual acts with minors "serial offenders" would also face the death penalty. The bill seeks to widen the scope of crimes around homosexuality and to impose harsher punishments on offenders. Homosexual acts, or "carnal knowledge against the order of nature", are already illegal under the country's penal code, punishable by life imprisonment. Kadaga won plaudits at home following an October meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Canada in which she took on Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird, who had criticized Uganda's treatment of gays: Kadaga said Canada should not seek to force Uganda to embrace homosexuality and urged Canada to respect Uganda's "sovereign rights, cultural values and societal norms". We have the bill we have the order paper and the numbers ," said Kadaga while receiving a joint petition from religious leaders, civil society, and anti-gay activists who asked parliament to pass the bill as a "Christmas gift" to the country. "Parliament has been energized because you have given us the instructions.
Rebecca Kadaga told hundreds of petitioners in Kampala on 9 November that she would ensure the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which has been before parliament since 2009, would be passed before the end of 2012. Uganda's parliament will, before Christmas, pass a highly controversial bill which seeks more stringent punishments for people engaging in homosexual acts and those perceived to be "promoting" homosexuality, says the speaker of the house.