World Delegates Fight to Protect Homosexuals and Prostitutes in Uganda

via AllAfrica.com, by Gloria Nakiyimba

World politicians meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, have agreed on the need to repeal laws discriminating against HIV/Aids which they say have contributed to an increase in the rate of new infections.

MP's at the Inter Parliamentary Union assembly said laws that criminalize transmission of HIV, laws against sexual workers and those discriminating against sexual minorities need to be repealed.

Speaking during a panel discussion, Professor Sheila Tlou, UNAIDS Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said "there is a fear that a still highly stigmatized condition such as Aids can, and will, fall out of the agenda of national and global leaders".

Tlou said early signs of a decreasing commitment to Aids in the form of reduced funding for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support were worrying especially since the epidemic is far from being over.

She said where the law deepens social fractures and inequality, denies access to services and criminalizes those who need these services it becomes an obstacle to the Aids response.

In Uganda, the HIV and Aids Prevention and Control Bill 2010 was aimed at criminalising attempted transmission of HIV. The anti-homosexuality bill which remains on the shelves of parliament was identified as discriminatory and hampering the fight against HIV/Aids.

MP's called for zero discrimination against people living with Aids if the new campaign for zero new HIV infections and zero Aids related deaths is to be successful.

Tlou said UNAIDS was working with countries to introduce a programme to eliminate mother-to-child transmission to ensure that no child is born with the disease.

In 2009, the World Health Organization estimated there are 33.4 million people worldwide living with HIV/Aids, with 2.7 million new HIV infections per year and two million annual deaths due to Aids.

Ugandan MP Doctor Elioda Tumwesigy said 7,000 people are infected every day worldwide - half the number are women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa.

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[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Ugandan Gay Rights Activists Fight Against Anti-Homosexuality Bill

via Chicago Sun Times, by Frank Mugisha

The world listened last week as Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf defended her country’s laws that discriminate against its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex population. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, she spoke of preserving Liberia’s “traditional values” and said in part, “We like ourselves the way we are.”

It’s a sad sentiment I hear in my own country of Uganda: the idea that homosexuality is somehow un-African and foreign to our culture, an import of the West that must be stopped. But it is not African to restrict another’s freedom. It is not African to spread lies and dissent and urge brutality against others. And it is certainly not African to deny fellow citizens basic human rights. No, these are ideas introduced and fostered by our colonizers, not by our ancestors.

My organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda, works against these forces of hate and division, and we live every day under the threats of violence that keep so many LGBTI Ugandans from coming forward. In 2010, a local newspaper published photographs and addresses of many of us under the headline “Hang Them.”

But still we work, because there is so much work to be done: gay men to be rescued from jail after arbitrary arrests and beatings. Lesbian women who need to be sheltered after curative rape assaults. Friends to be healed after being denied medical care.

The anti–gay groups call this struggle a campaign for gay rights. But there is nothing gay or straight about the right to worship, to assemble publicly or to live without fear of sanctioned brutality.

In Uganda today, bosses routinely fire employees suspected of being gay. We can be expelled from school or denied medical attention. Our friends and neighbors can be persecuted just for being seen with us.
The Ugandan Parliament is pushing a bill that is inspired by hateful ideas brought to us, not from within Africa, but by anti-gay activists like Scott Lively from the United States. The new law would equate gay people with pedophiles and call on the LGBTI population to stop “promoting homosexuality.”


The original version of the legislation even called for applying the death penalty to gay couples, and although it may be revoked from the final bill, even the more “palatable” version seeks to silence our voices, criminalize anyone who speaks on our behalf and encourage the wrongheaded stigmas that increase our nation’s rising HIV prevalence.
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[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Ugandan Gay Rights Activists Take Action

via New York Times, by Laurie Goodstein

A Ugandan gay rights group filed suit against an American evangelist, Scott Lively, in federal court in Massachusetts on Wednesday, accusing him of violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.

The lawsuit maintains that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture.

The Ugandan legislature considered a bill in 2009, proposed by one of Mr. Lively’s Ugandan contacts, that would have imposed the death sentence for the “offense of homosexuality.” That bill languished after an outcry from the United States and European nations that are among major aid donors to Uganda, but was reintroduced last month.

Mr. Lively is being sued by the organization Sexual Minorities Uganda under the alien tort statute, which allows foreigners to sue in American courts in situations asserting the violation of international law. The suit says that Mr. Lively’s actions resulted in the persecution, arrest, torture and murder of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.

Reached by telephone in Springfield, Mass., where he runs Holy Grounds Coffee House, a storefront mission and shop, Mr. Lively said he did not know about the lawsuit. Nevertheless, he said: “That’s about as ridiculous as it gets. I’ve never done anything in Uganda except preach the Gospel and speak my opinion about the homosexual issue.”

Mr. Lively is the founder and president of Abiding Truth Ministries. He is also the author of “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party,” which says that Nazism was a movement inspired by homosexuals, and “Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child,” a guide to prevent what he calls “pro-homosexual indoctrination.”

He has traveled to Uganda, Latvia and Moldova to warn Christian clergy members to defend their countries against what he says is an onslaught by gay rights advocates based in the West.

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[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

An interview with South African Constitutional Court Judge Edwin Cameron discussing homophobia in Africa

via BBC HARDtalk, Interview with Edwin Cameron

Living as an openly gay man in socially conservative Africa is hard enough, but Edwin Cameron went even further. He was the first public official in South Africa to reveal his HIV positive status. Nelson Mandela appointed him a judge and he now serves on South Africa's Constitutional Court. There remains high levels of homophobia on the continent - why are gay activists like Cameron losing the argument?



Watch Part 2 of the video here.


[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Critical to fight stigma and discrimination faced by MSM

via Inside Story, by Gregory Trotter

The dream of the AIDS-free generation will never be realized as long as there remain countries in the world that kill and imprison people for being gay.

Same goes for countries that won’t even acknowledge homosexuality exists within their national boundaries and therefore fail to provide targeted HIV prevention and treatment services. Such are the realities underscored by a new report, “Achieving an AIDS-free Generation for Gay Men and Other MSM,” released by amfAR and Johns Hopkins University on Wednesday.

The report studied the funding and implementation of HIV services targeted for MSM (men who have sex with men) in eight countries where same-sex intercourse is criminalized or heavily stigmatized: China, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Guyana, Mozambique, India, Nigeria and Ukraine. Among other findings, the study concluded that MSM are “deprioritized and marginalized by national HIV programs.”

In the report’s own words: “It will be impossible to achieve an ‘AIDS-Free Generation’ if MSM are left behind.”

(For those who may not know, the phrase “AIDS-free generation” has been a sort of battle cry for people and organizations involved in the ongoing efforts to stop the 30-year-old AIDS epidemic, gaining momentum since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used it in her historic November 2011 speech.)

The report rings true for Jim Pickett, director of prevention advocacy and gay men’s health for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC). Pickett is also chair of the International Rectal Microbicides Advocates, a group that does what its name suggests. His work takes him all over the world to advocate for microbicide research and other HIV prevention strategies.

“Sadly, it’s not new. It’s what we know. But … it’s really important for us to continue to put that message out there. It’s another way to have this discussion, to shine a light on these disparities and to move forward in the right direction,” Pickett said. “(This report) is a really important document.”
Pickett was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, just last month for a meeting with advocates for the launch of Project ARM (stands for Africa for Rectal Microbicides). Project ARM is an IRMA initiative. The conference coincided with the 2011 International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa.

It was wrought with tension from the get-go, as anti-gay religious groups caught wind of an African gay men’s health pre-conference satellite and began mounting a protest. Eventually, they were silenced by the Ethiopian government, Pickett said. But it was an uncomfortable learning experience: IRMA and Project ARM kept their own agendas low-profile and encountered no problems.

At the Project ARM meeting, advocates from Malawi, Uganda and other countries talked about the fear of being discovered gay after receiving threats of bodily harm and death.

“We acknowledge that in our quest for developing these new HIV prevention strategies like rectal microbicides, they are for naught if people aren’t safe, if they can’t be who they are wherever they are,” Pickett said. “If you are so deeply stigmatized or demonized that you have to be hidden, you’re not going to come up and go to the counter and get a rectal microbicide. You’re not going to get any services.”

As an example, Pickett pointed to the arrests of nine gay men in Senegal following the 2008 ICASA. Word quickly rippled through the gay community in Senegal.

Read the rest.



[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

The Effects of Criminalizing Same Sex Practices in Senegal

via PLoS ONE, by Tonia Poteat, Daouda Diouf, Fatou Maria Drame, Marieme Ndaw, Cheikh Traore, Mandeep Dhaliwal, Chris Beyrer, Stefan Baral

Abstract

 

Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at high risk for HIV in Senegal, with a prevalence of 21.5%. In December 2008, nine male HIV prevention workers were imprisoned for “acts against nature” prohibited by Senegalese law. This qualitative study assessed the impact of these arrests on HIV prevention efforts. A purposive sample of MSM in six regions of Senegal was recruited by network referral. 26 in-depth interviews (IDIs) and 6 focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted in July–August 2009. 14 key informants were also interviewed. All participants reported pervasive fear and hiding among MSM as a result of the December 2008 arrests and publicity. Service providers suspended HIV prevention work with MSM out of fear for their own safety. Those who continued to provide services noticed a sharp decline in MSM participation. An effective response to the HIV epidemic in Senegal should include active work to decrease enforcement of this law.

Read the full study here.


[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Anal Intercourse in Nigeria

via Nigerian Tribune, by Muda Oyeniran

Not less than 12 percent of public secondary school students in Nigeria practise anal sex while 12.1 per cent of university students and 15.2 per cent adolescents in northern Nigeria engage in the act.

Morenike Ukpong, the coordinator of the New Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation, who disclosed this to the Nigerian Tribune said the role of anal sex in driving the HIV epidemic away from Nigeria could no longer be ignored.

She further said there were evidences to show that about 10 per cent of women and 14 per cent of men in the general populace practised anal sex, adding that the use of condom during this sexual act was low because of the erroneous belief that anal sex was safer than vagina sex.

“Request for anal sex by clients of female sex workers is high with men paying higher to have anal sex for many reasons,” she stated.

According to Ukpong, anal sex is known to be the highest risk form of sexual transmission of HIV infection with approximately 14 times higher risk of HIV transmission when compared to penile-vagina sex.

Read the rest.


[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Why Uganda’s Anti-Gay Legislation Is the World’s Business

via Bloomberg News, by the editors

Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill just won’t go away.

Last spring, an egregious proposal by a member of the ruling party to impose harsh penalties, including death, for homosexual acts was shelved for a second time when Uganda’s parliament recessed without debating it. This week, parliament moved to revive the measure.

Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda. The law would increase the maximum penalties, providing up to life imprisonment for homosexual acts and execution for so-called aggravated homosexuality -- repeated homosexual behavior, homosexual acts with a minor or a disabled person, and homosexual acts by anyone who is HIV-positive.

The original bill also made it punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment to fail to report homosexual behavior to authorities within 24 hours. In the last parliamentary session, a committee recommended scratching that provision, which would compromise health workers involved in AIDS control efforts. It’s not clear this time around whether the bill will go through the committee process anew; in any case, committee views are not binding.

The bill enjoys considerable support in Uganda, where homosexuality is widely abhorred, and may well pass if it comes to a parliamentary vote. President Yoweri Museveni would probably veto it, knowing that passage would alienate Uganda’s Western allies, on whom the country relies for development assistance.

For now, the circus around the draft law suits Museveni, who has been in power for 25 years. Domestically, it whips up support for his party, the National Resistance Movement. Internationally, it attracts opprobrium but also distracts critics from other Ugandan scandals for which Museveni bears more direct responsibility: the arrest of opposition figures, police brutality, corruption.

Read the rest.


[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Former Ex-Gay Ugandan Man Now Regrets Past Homophobic Comments

Via Behind the Mask.

A man who in 2009 renounced homosexuality at a public forum in Kampala has now told Behind the Mask that he regrets his previous actions and would like to be forgiven by the LGBTI community.

Saying that he felt “there is a fire in the belly saying gay is really who you are,” Mr George Oundo, known amongst Uganda’s LGBTI community as “Ms Georgina,” said that although he had renounced homosexuality on national media, at an opportune time he would ask the Kuchu community (Ugandan slang for LGBTI) to take him back.

Speaking on Wednesday July 27, 2011 to Behind the Mask outside the magistrate’s court in Kampala where three Christian evangelist preachers have been charged with making homophobic smears against a rival preacher, the now former ex-gay Oundo said he once again believed, “being gay is natural and inborn.”

The accused preachers, their lawyers, Henry Ddungu and David Kaggwa, together with David Mukalazi and Deborah Kyomuhendo (agents of the accused) face charges of conspiring to injure Pastor Robert Kayanja’s reputation by claiming that Kayanja sodomised boys in his church. The two lawyers are charged with allegedly commissioning false affidavits.

In March 2009 Oundo spoke at a Christian seminar and said he previously supported homophobic preacher Martin Sempa and legislator Mr David Bahati in their claims that homosexuals recruit children in schools and deserve the death penalty.

Speaking on Wednesday however, the now former ex-gay man said that he regrets the comments.

Looking sad, Mr Oundo, who once helped to establish an LGBTI human rights advocacy group in Kampala, said that although the preachers had given him some money and built him a house in Muyenga-Bukasa, a posh suburb of Kampala, he still had gay feelings. “I have never even become born again. I just do not want to be born again.”

Read the rest here.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

UGANDA NOW TO INCLUDE HOMOSEXUALS IN HIV PROGRAMMES

Via Behind the Mask.

In an incredible change of heart, the Uganda government has listed homosexuals as a target for HIV/Aids programming in a new five year National HIV Prevention Strategy for Uganda 2011-2015.

The policy document which Behind the Mask has seen will run under the theme: “Expanding and Doing HIV Prevention better.” The policy development process is spearheaded by the Uganda Aids Commission (UAC), with consultations of various stakeholders including Civil Society.

Until recently, the UAC had publicly stated that they had no funds for targeting homosexuals in HIV programming. “Gays are one of the drivers of HIV in Uganda, but because of meagre resources we cannot direct our programmes at them at this time,” Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, (pictured) the Director General of UAC was quoted saying in 2008.

However, some have suggested that the UAC was being influenced by Christian born again movements who were lobbying Uganda’s First Lady, Janet Museveni, a born again Christian herself, not to recognize gays in any policy document. The UAC was established by an act of Parliament, and is directly under President’s Office.

The National HIV Prevention Strategy sets forth opportunities and guidance for intensified efforts to significantly stem new HIV infections. Its vision builds on that of the National HIV/Aids Strategic Plan(NSP), of a Uganda where new HIV infections are rare, and where everyone, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or socio‐economic status has uninterrupted access to high quality and effective HIV prevention.

“The overall goal of the strategy is to reduce new HIV infections by 30percent based on the baseline of 2009 which would result in 40percent reduction of the projected number of new HIV infections in 2015,” the policy text reads in part.

Ms Hasifa Nakiganda, an LGBTI lobbyist with Uhspa Uganda welcomed the contents of the draft policy. She said Uganda’s burying its head in the sand over homosexuals was setting a bad example, because Uganda was a reference country when it came to the best management of HIV/Aids. “So by denying homosexuals universal access to HIV programming, Uganda is sending a bad signal to other countries struggling with the HIV pandemic,” Ms Hasifa said. Uhspa Uganda petitioned the Ugandan Parliament pleading for homosexuals Right to Health and HIV programming inclusion.

Uganda has only one policy that recognizes homosexuals as a target for health service delivery- the National Policy Guidelines and Service Standards for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. But homophobia prevents gays from accessing public health services.

The new NPS policy aligns with the National Development Plan for Uganda and the, the Second National Health Policy, and the Health Sector Strategic and Investment Plan (HSSIP) (2010-2015). It will contribute to attainment of Universal Access, as per the UNGASS- United Nations General Special Session Country Progress Declaration of Commitment on HIV/Aids and MDG (Millennium Development Goals) 5, 6, and 7 targets; calling  for increased focus, coordination and collaboration to comprehensively scale‐up HIV prevention efforts and align them to the drivers of the epidemic.

Read the rest here.

Read another Behind the Mask article discussing this news here.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

UPDATE ON UGANDA GAY-DEATH BILL

Via Mamba Online.

A member of parliament in Uganda says that the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill is likely to be made law within two months.

MP Otto Odonga, a member of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in the country’s new parliament, told US professor and blogger Warren Throckmorton via Skype that the bill's author, David Bahati, will re-introduce the legislation as soon as possible.

"It will be expedited this time around and passed within one, maybe two months time,” Odonga said.

He added that the current committee would be able to make use of the report supporting the bill issued by the previous committee during the last parliament.

In May, legislators failed to debate and vote on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill after that parliamentary session ran out of time and was dissolved.

Originally introduced in October 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill allows for the death penalty in cases of “aggravated homosexuality” and includes various criminal penalties for anyone who fails to turn over gay people to the police or who "promotes" homosexuality.

An international petition opposing the bill was signed by over 1.6 million people. It has been condemned by numerous governments around the world, some threatening to suspend aid to Uganda if it is passed.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]