Two years after Uganda enacted its brutal Anti-Homosexuality Act, LGBT Ugandans are enduring a tidal wave of state-sponsored discrimination, violence and harassment, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has revealed in a damning new report.
Titled They’re Putting Our Lives at Risk: How Uganda’s Anti-LGBT Climate Unleashes Abuse, the 69-page report documents how the Ugandan government’s draconian 2023 law has emboldened authorities to crack down on LGBT individuals, their families, and the organisations that support them.
“For the last two years, LGBT Ugandans have suffered a range of abuses because of the government’s wilful decision to legislate hate against them,” said Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Ugandan authorities need to urgently improve this environment, which enables a wide range of human rights violations and puts countless Ugandans at serious risk of abuse.”
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, signing into law in May 2023, introduced extreme criminal penalties for consensual same-sex relationships and granted authorities broad powers to target anyone perceived to be supporting LGBT rights. Among its provisions were measures allowing surveillance and policing of private life, which critics say effectively gave legal cover to persecution.
Human Rights Watch found that in the lead-up to and since the law’s enactment, Ugandan officials—including members of parliament and government ministers—deliberately spread misinformation and incited hatred against LGBT people through media channels. This campaign of state-sanctioned bigotry has been linked to a rise in mob attacks, online abuse, arbitrary arrests, and police extortion.
The research, based on 59 in-depth interviews with LGBT individuals, activists, journalists, and civil society members, paints a chilling picture. LGBT people reported being entrapped via dating apps, physically attacked, and detained without cause. In some cases, police officers demanded bribes in exchange for release.
Emmanuel a 25-year-old gay man from Kampala revealed that he was blackmailed by a policeman who lured him to a meeting through the Grindr dating app. He was threatened with being jailed unless he paid a bribe. He said he paid the money “because being in a cell for being gay is the worst for a gay man in Uganda. I was just happy I was released.”
One LGBT rights activist described the climate of fear that has taken hold since the law was introduced:
“Before the bill was tabled [in February 2023], you would receive calls once in a while, where someone would say: ‘We know what you are doing.’… But when they started tabling the bill, that is when these calls started becoming a lot. Where people would keep on calling you [saying]: ‘We know where you stay. We know what you do.’”
In addition to targeting individuals, authorities have cracked down on LGBT rights organisations, often shutting them down, arresting staff, and seizing equipment. The National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organisations and the police have led efforts to dismantle support networks that provide legal aid, healthcare, and psychosocial support to the community.
The situation has been compounded by a 2024 Constitutional Court ruling that upheld most provisions of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, despite acknowledging some violations. While the court struck down clauses that restricted healthcare for LGBT people and penalised landlords who rented to them, the majority of the law remains intact.
Human Rights Watch says its requests for comment and information from several Ugandan government bodies, including the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Minister of Health, were ignored.
The organisation is calling on the Ugandan government to end its clampdown on LGBT rights, cease inciting hate, and hold perpetrators of abuse accountable. Crucially, HRW urges Uganda to repeal both the 2023 law and Penal Code provisions criminalising consensual same-sex conduct, and to introduce robust protections against discrimination.
“The state-sanctioned bigotry and discrimination that has only become more entrenched in Uganda over the past two years has no place in a society that upholds human rights and the rule of law,” Nyeko said. “Uganda should end its assault on LGBT people and choose a future of dignity, equality, and freedom for all those who live there.”
The report stands as a powerful indictment of a law that has brought fear and suffering to countless Ugandans, and a call to action for both the international community and local actors to press for justice and reform.
