Human Rights

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. If the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 gets passed, some Ugandan homosexuals could receive the death penalty. ABC News reports that “the bill creates a new category of crime called ‘Aggravated Homosexuality,’ which calls for death by hanging for gays or lesbians who have sex with anyone under 18 and for so-called ‘serial offenders.’ ” Additionally, the bill “calls for seven years in prison for ‘attempt to commit homosexuality,’ five years for landlords who knowingly house gays, three years for anyone, including parents, who fail to hand gay children over to the police within 24 hours and the extradition of gay Ugandans living abroad.” The bill has incited international outrage, with some countries threatening to withdraw aid from Uganda if the bill is passed into law. Within Uganda, activists reject the bill, saying it would force health and social workers to spy on and report their clients, Reuters Africa reports. Additionally, as AIDS activist Rtd Maj Rubaramira Ruranga told The Independent, “ ‘We’ll lose what we’ve achieved in the AIDS fight. . . . Gay infected patients will fear to go for treatment since the law requires the doctors to report the patient within 24 hours.’ ” According to The Monitor, a Ugandan newspaper, activists petitioning against the bill said it “ ‘goes against the Ugandan Constitution which promises freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, tribe, creed, birth or religion, social or economic standing, political opinion or disability. . . . We need laws to protect people, not ones that will humiliate, ridicule, prosecute and kill them en masse.’ ” The bill’s sponsor, David Bahati, defended the bill by saying that “in Uganda, 95 percent of our population does not support homosexuality.” As one gay Ugandan told Times Online, “ ‘they want to legislate us out of existence.’ ”