Queer Ugandan refugee on the run from anti-homosexuality law speaks out
Ugandan refugee works remotely from Kenya to help the community he left behind
An ongoing stream of LGBTQ Ugandans and leaders of the nation’s LGBTQ community have fled to Kenya and beyond in order to escape prosecution under Uganda’s repressive Anti-Homosexuality Law, enacted last May. Courtesy of Pink News, this is the story of one of those Ugandan refugee leaders:
When he made the tough choice to flee Uganda, in the wake of the country’s draconian anti-LGBTQ+ law being passed, activist Henry Mukiibi thought: “What have I left behind?”
Mukiibi, the executive director of LGBTQ+ group Uganda’s Children of the Sun Foundation (COSF), has been on the run and living in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, since earlier this year, after receiving information that the authorities at home wanted to arrest him under the new anti-homosexuality legislation.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was enacted in May and carries the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, has unleashed a torrent of abuse against LGBTQ+ people in the country. Several queer individuals have been arrested. Others, including Mukiibi, managed to escape as their government enacted one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world.
Mukiibi tells PinkNews that the situation in Uganda is worse than it has ever been.
COSF’s services, which provide healthcare and legal assistance as well as shelter for vulnerable people, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, have been affected by the legislation.
Mukiibi says he witnessed people become “so homophobic” that they “started attacking” COSF committee members, “beating them because of who they are”.
He adds: “What we did was ask the people who are close to them to bring them to the clinic, and we are giving them healthcare services to see that they get treatment.
“Evictions have become too many because the bill had a phrase which said landlords should not give LGBT people shelter or houses to rent. Many people were evicted.
“Those whose landlords knew their identities, they were evicted because the landlords fear they will also be taken to prison.
“We welcomed those people into our shelter, but unfortunately, our shelter’s landlord wrote me an eviction letter since they know I’m a queer person.”
Under Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, queer people can face life imprisonment or even the death penalty in cases involving so-called “aggravated homosexuality”, which can include having sex with a minor or vulnerable person, having sex while HIV-positive or engaging in incest.
Someone simply advocating for LGBTQ+ rights could be jailed for 20 years, and individuals renting to LGBTQ+ people face up to a seven-year prison sentence.
Mukiibi says life is really hard in Nairobi as he waits to be resettled in another country. While fearing for his own safety, he still thinks about the LGBTQ+ community trying to survive in Uganda.
“If I’m evacuated, what am I leaving behind?” he asks. “They have this saying: ‘I cannot be a hero twice’.
“I’m also trying to see that we are working remotely so our community members get the services they need. The reason I came up with the idea of the clinic was that sometimes the LGBT community are discriminated against in facilities, and I recently witnessed it.
“People went [to] healthcare providers who are preaching to them to beat homosexuality out of children.”
The West fiddles while Uganda prepares a future of anti-LGBTQ horrors