Re-introducing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill In Uganda-April 2018
Fearing for their lives, LGBTIQQ in Uganda have shared stories, with the editor of this paper, of horror meted against them minutes after the Ugandan parliament announced they were re-introducing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Right on the heels of the recent Ugandan Parliament session in which Members of Parliament agreed to re-introduce the Anti-Homosexuality, 15 different LGBTIQQ members expressed concern.
“ I recall with a chill coursing down my back, the day I was evicted from a house I had lived in for three years up to 2011 after it was said the previous bill would be passed,” mused Carlton ( not real names).
Carlton was referring to the 2011, event when Uganda's Parliament was consider the Anti-Homosexuality Bill the second time. This is the time when President Obama the 44th President of US, called the called the legislation “odious.” It should be recalled that Ugandan MP David Bahati first introduced a bill in 2009 that called for the death penalty for those who engage in repeated homosexual activity. It was not passed then but he never relaxed his anti-gay stance and in 2011 and 2014 he renewed his anti gay campaign. In 2011, Bahati accused the West of hypocrisy and claimed that in promoting homosexuality on the African continent they were seeking to stand in the way of democratic process.
The new law expands on pre-existing anti-gay laws in Uganda, imposing a 14-year sentence for first-time offenders. Those found guilty of "aggravated homosexuality" — which includes repeated gay sex between consenting adults as well as homosexual acts where one partner is a minor, disabled person or person with HIV — will face a life sentence. The bill had originally called for the death penalty, but that was removed following international condemnation.
Bahati was quoted in 2011 saying: ”The west is saying that for us to give you money, we want you to accept behaviour that you abhor. President Obama is a man who stood on a platform of change but certainly, this is not the change the world is looking for. It is the evil the world should fight.”
Bahati said that his bill "is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa, and also protect the future of our children. Every single day of my life now I am still pushing that it passes."
The US is the biggest development partner in Uganda, it is only one’s guess what the MPs are expecting to hear from the 45th President of US Donald Trump on this issue. It does not escape a discerning person that so much is going to happen following the preparations to re-introduce the legislation.
The Anti-gay legislation was signed and passed into law briefly in February 2014. A few months after Kim Mukisa and Jackson Mukasa appeared before a magistrate's court today in Kampala, Uganda for engaging in gay sex. Mukisa and Mukasa became the first Ugandans to face a trial under law with harsh penalties for engaging in homosexual sex. On 1st August 2014 in a packed courtroom in Kampala, a panel of five judges overturned the harsh anti-gay law declaring it "null and void” on a technicality. Pastor Martin Ssempa, a fiercely vocal anti-gay law supporter told AP. "Unfortunately, it has everything to do with pressure from Barack Obama and the homosexuals of Europe."
Already, the 15 callers are contemplating leaving Uganda to seek asylum in a next door country, many are not seeking health care services and engaging in self care or development.
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