Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009: Human Rights Violation and a Scapegoat for Uganda’s Real Problems.

The criminalisation of same-sex relations in Uganda is a Human Rights violation in many forms, as it restricts the right to live, freedom from injustice and encourages cruel and inhumane treatment of homosexuals.

Uganda’s bill proposes the criminalisation of homosexuality and introduces the death penalty for people who are homosexual, trans-gender, bisexual, inter-sex persons, HIV-positive or engaged in sexual acts with children. Whilst many people might agree with the death penalty for paedophiles, the proposed law is fundamentally unjust as it takes away the citizens’ rights to privacy as well as the right to live. It threatens the lives of ordinary Ugandans, who now face three years imprisonment if they fail to report any homosexual relations they come across.

As a result, this unjust legislation is hazardous. It threatens the social cohesion of the country and promotes violence and fear towards homosexuality. It threatens the basic human right to personal security, psychological integrity and freedom to love whoever we desire regardless of sexual orientation. The ideas promulgated by this bill create irrational prejudice and hatred towards homosexuals and also encourage abhorrent violent behaviour towards this group of people. It is dangerous as it inevitably threatens the homogeneity of the country, reinforcing a divided nation between peoples of an ethical stance having to imprison innocent friends, and those who hold a vehement, misguided fear of homosexuals. The government is, therefore, consciously approving of sexism and ingraining trepidation, regarding homosexuals who have done no harm in the Ugandan society compared with the civil wars and dictatorships the country has faced.

For the Ugandans, the pretext of the bill is to protect family relations and yet, the reality highlights quite the contrary. Professor Tamale, the Dean of Law at the University of Makerere, raises the argument that the bill will lead to the blackmailing of homosexuals and thus, the undermining of individual rights and family life for these particular individuals and those connected to them. Trust and privacy will be destroyed as a wide class of people become entangled in the liability clause when alerting their suspicions to the government and hence imprisoning their friends and neighbours. Furthermore, the bill places an unimaginable strain on counsellors, priests, doctors and teachers who are sworn to confidentiality. It places them in an ethical dilemma and leaves no one safe from an intrusion of their privacy or their ethics and moral code.

Additionally, the research or advocacy of issues pertaining to sexual orientation, risk individuals partaking in the studies to be sentenced up to 7 years imprisonment. That is why, despite the United Nations provision of $285 million for HIV and AIDS programs in Uganda, only a mere $5,000 was used by the ‘Most at Risk Population Network‘, who themselves reported in TIME magazine that “we are lacking funding because we can’t register… without getting arrested.”

Furthermore, this bill digresses from the urgent issues Uganda should be dealing with, such as issues of hunger, ill-health, unemployment, unequal education, violence, unfair trade and labour practices, all of which are halting the country’s progress and threatening its social fabric. The bill might have been proposed as a coy by the government to use homosexuals as a scapegoat to addressing the real problems at hand. The issues of hunger, violence and unemployment should take precedence to an Anti-Homosexuality Bill and yet the Ugandan Parliament will not address any of these problems nor improve the standard of living in the country. Consequently, the bill is only more likely to fuel issues of violence as it encourages and entrenches sexism in Ugandan society.

Moreover, the ramifications of this bill extend even further than Uganda. The international community should respond by sharing its concern for these basic Human Rights issues and appealing for the Ugandan Parliament to withdraw its support for this horrendous legislation, as this increasingly justified homophobic culture can then act as a catalyst for other African nations to take the hard line on homosexuality. Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill not only deviates from the real concerns of Uganda but also from the surrounding southern African nations, issues of poverty, unemployment, unequal education, starvation, low living standards and a high mortality rate. The Ugandan government should instead work towards addressing these problems and not creating a potentially popular scapegoat, thus encouraging a vicious cycle of unresolved issues.

Ultimately, the international community should aid Uganda in addressing the primary concerns it has as a developing nation and also discourage the Anti-Homosexuality Bill for being a brutal violation of Human Rights, which should never have been thought of in this modern age.