Human Rights Watch (HRW) has raised alarm over the intensifying persecution of LGBTQ Ugandans following the enactment of the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2023, one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ laws.
In a report released Monday, HRW detailed a climate of widespread fear, violence, and discrimination that has taken root since the controversial law was passed two years ago. The legislation imposes life imprisonment for consensual same-sex relations and includes the death penalty for so-called “aggravated homosexuality.”
“LGBT people, LGBT rights organisations, are basically living in a climate of fear because there’s a law that justifies people taking out violence against them,” said HRW researcher Oyem Nyeko in an interview with AFP. “(The law) made homophobia legitimate. It institutionalised it.”
The report draws on nearly 60 interviews with LGBTQ individuals, their families, human rights activists, and political figures, and paints a grim picture of life for sexual minorities in Uganda today.
HRW documented numerous cases in which the police “harassed, extorted and arbitrarily arrested and detained people on the basis of their perceived or real sexual orientation or gender identity.” Victims described a surge in threatening phone calls and stalking.
“People would keep on calling you [saying]: ‘We know where you stay. We know what you do’,” one interviewee recalled.
Another LGBTQ activist recounted a harrowing attack at her home in 2023, when three men broke in, physically assaulted her, and sexually assaulted her friend. She told HRW that one of the attackers declared, “I am not just beating you for your unholiness but because you make me ashamed to be Ankole. If we want, we can kill you and no one will look for you.”
Kampala-based rights group DefendDefenders reported a disturbing surge in abuse immediately after the law was passed. “Within just 24 hours of parliament passing the law, they identified eight cases of physical and sexual violence, including cases of rape by men of people they presumed to be gay in order to ‘convert’ them to heterosexuality,” the organisation said.
Requests for assistance have become overwhelming. “The number of requests (for assistance) is overwhelming,” one DefendDefenders member told HRW.
Prominent LGBTQ organisations have been shut down, their staff arrested, threatened, or forced into hiding. Even lawyers representing LGBTQ clients have reportedly faced “heightened harassment” as the law’s chilling effect ripples through civil society.
HRW noted that it reached out to the Ugandan government, law enforcement, and public prosecutors to share its findings and request comment, but received no response.
Since the law’s enactment, several international donors and development partners have suspended aid or publicly condemned the legislation, citing severe human rights violations.
Nyeko concluded: “This law hasn’t just emboldened violence — it has given it legal cover.”
