Uganda considers criminalising LGBTQ+ people for ‘simply being who they are’

The Parliament of Uganda has introduced chilling new legislation – and the name of it says it all, the ‘2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill’.

Lawmakers introduced the legislation on Thursday that human rights experts say violates multiple fundamental rights and freedoms.

More than 30 African nations already have laws in the books (usually the artefacts of colonial rule) that ban same-sex relations.

But according to Human Rights Watch, if passed, the private bill would be the first in the continent to ban merely identifying as LGBTQ+.

An earlier draft of the bill included in a motion last month hints at what’s to come: It makes clear that being LGBTQ+ is a ‘creeping evil’ to stamp out for the sake of ‘protecting children and youth susceptible to sexual abuse’.

Same-sex sexual acts are already illegal in Uganda, carrying up to life in jail.

But the bill would stretch this out, such as ‘touching’ someone of the same gender ‘with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality’.

By considering all same-sex sexual acts as non-consensual, the proposals would allow ‘victims’ to seek out compensation for the ‘psychological harm’ caused.

It also makes clear that simply ‘holding out as’ LGBTQ+ will now be a punishable offence of up to a decade in prison.

The bill would enforce mandatory HIV tests if someone is convicted of ‘aggravated homosexuality’ and hand down five years for people who ‘promote homosexuality’.

Five years in prison is also the fate for those who ‘purport to contract a marriage with another person of the same sex’.

The legislation, introduced by Justice Forum MP Asuman Basalirwa, would even sentence a landlord who rents a property to an LGBTQ+ person to prison.

Oryem Nyeko, Uganda researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: ‘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.

‘Ugandan politicians should focus on passing laws that protect vulnerable minorities and affirm fundamental rights and stop targeting LGBT people for political capital.’

The proposal is similar to an earlier bill of the same name, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2014, that sought to introduce the death penalty for gay sex and criminalised being lesbian.

But after drawing widespread international criticism, the Ugandan constitutional court struck down the bill on procedural grounds.

Parliamentary speaker Anita Among read out the 2014 bill’s successor to the house before sending it to committee for scrutiny and a public hearing on Thursday.

‘Let the public come express their views – including the homos – allow them to come,’ Among said,

But to MPs, she said: ‘This is the time you are going to show us if you are a homo or not.’

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