Every morning Pepe Julian Onziema wakes up not knowing if she will live to see another rising sun. Onziema is transgender and she lives in fear for her life because of a national campaign against gay people.

Pepe Onziema lives in fear for her life. Her only 'crime' is that she is transgender. Credit: Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi

Although she has done nothing wrong, Onziema lives like a fugitive – always on the lookout to avoid trouble.

Her days are spent in fear and as darkness descends she securely locks the doors to her flat in Ntinda, a Kampala suburb where she lives with her partner.

Onziema is a well-known activist and the national programmes coordinator of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an advocacy network of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organisations. She has appeared on television several times defending the rights of LGBTs. But it has not made her life any easier.

Just like other LGBTs in her country Onziema has been arrested; spat on; attacked; insulted and even stoned by neighbours.

She cannot comfortably sit in a restaurant for fear of being recognised and evicted, or even use public transport.

Her name has been listed in tabloids as one of the members of Uganda’s ‘immoral society’. And when a crime is committed against her, she cannot report it to the police because sex between two people of the same gender is against the law in Uganda and she will be discriminated against.

“It’s a crazy world we are living in as gays. We are really suffering,” Onziema says.

In recent months a campaign against LGBT people has intensified the discrimination.

Pentecostal pastor Martin Sempa, from the Makerere Community Church, leads a coalition of Christian churches against homosexuality. He also regularly organises anti-LGBT rallies and campaigns on radio and TV talk shows. In 2008 a local tabloid The Red Pepper listed alleged LGBTs in Uganda in a bid to ‘shame them’ and The Observer newspaper published an article on ‘How to spot a gay Ugandan’.

Consequently, suspected LGBTs have been evicted by landlords and some have had their homes set ablaze. Lesbians have been raped by men who say they are teaching them ‘how to be a woman’. But when these crimes are committed, many do not report it. Like Onziema they are scared of the police who arrest and detain them for being gay.

“When the day breaks, I pray. I pray that there is no gay person in trouble today. I do not even get adequate sleep. You can’t switch your phone off because someone might need help. You could save a life.”

Trauma

As an activist, Onziema has been arrested by police at least four times. After one of the arrests, police could not easily identify her gender so they gave her a forced physical examination.

“And some point, because they were having this ridiculous argument about my sex, two female officers came in to my room, while the third, a male one stood at the window. They asked me to undress. Because I was hesitant, one police woman decided to force off my pants and touched my private parts…”

It was a traumatising experience that happened after Onziema was detained for protesting at an international HIV/AIDS implementer’s meeting in Kampala in June 2008.

LGBT and HIV/AIDS activists were peacefully protesting statements made by the director general of Uganda’s AIDS Commission, Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, that no funds would be directed toward HIV programs targeting men who have sex with men.

“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,” he reportedly said. And it is a stance the government has stuck to.

Double stigma

While men who have sex with men are identified as a population at a high risk of contracting and transmitting HV, there are no deliberate programmes to include them in the country’s national HIV/AIDS response.

“I worked as an HIV peer counsellor before and I was actually thrown out (of) the place because I was helping couples who were of the same sex,” Onziema says.

Many LGBTs are also afraid of going for HIV testing or even counselling due to the double stigma of being sexual minorities and HIV-positive.

“We have had people who do know their status and those who have actually gone to access Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) under the pretext that they are straight…We need systems and a policy where gay people can honestly reveal their history so that you (doctors) are able to administer treatment to them accordingly,” Onziema said.

The Bill

Sex between two people of the same gender is a crime punishable by life imprisonment through provisions in the Penal Code and the 1995 Constitution.

In April 2009 minister of ethics and integrity, Nsaba Buturo, declared the current laws insufficient to fight homosexuality, which he described as ‘immoral and un-African’.

Shortly after, an Anti-Homosexual Bill (2009) which ‘aims at strengthening the nations capacity to deal with emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family’ – was tabled in parliament as a private members Bill by MP David Bahati.

“We want it (the Bill) to become law in that if someone is a homosexual, or confesses to being gay, then he/she is a criminal,” Buturo said.

Under the proposed law, it becomes a crime just to be an LGBT. The Bill also criminalises same sex marriages and same-sex sexual acts.

But most controversial of all is the death sentence imposed for the crime of ‘aggravated homosexuality’. This is where an HIV-positive LGBT person has sex with a person who is either under the age of 18 years or has disabilities. And if someone is caught repeatedly having non-heterosexual sex, they will be classified as a serial offender and also face the death sentence.

The proposed Bill also provides for forced HIV testing for those accused of aggravated homosexuality. But the Bill does not merely extend to LGBTs. It includes a sentence for all members of the public – including parents, landlords and health workers – who fail to report LGBTs.

“Those who have really read through it realise that it affects almost everybody. It is a Bill that the public has not been sensitised about and we as gays have also not been given the opportunity to sensitise the public about it,” said Onziema.

Buturo has accused international human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for supporting non-heterosexual sex by funding LGBT rights advocacy groups in the country. The Bill now declares criminal any non-governmental organisation that supports LGBT activity with a provision to revoke their licences.

It is a Bill that has received strong opposition from not only from the LGBT community and rights organisations in Uganda but from political leaders and rights organisations across the world.

Donor pressure

Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has always openly criticised homosexuality. He even strongly supported the proposed Bill during his speeches. However, at a recent meeting with his ruling National Resistance Movement party members at State House on Jan. 13, Museveni indicated he would not back a Bill that imposes a death sentence for the crime of ‘aggravated homosexuality’.

“This is a foreign policy issue and we have to discuss it in a manner that does not compromise our principles, but also takes care of our foreign interests,” Museveni told members, asking them ‘to go slow’ on the Bill. He did not elaborate further.

However, analysts say the Ugandan president could have bowed to international pressure after he revealed that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton had all urged him to reconsider the Bill. U.S. President Barack Obama also expressed concern, local media reported.

Early this year, British Labour MP Harry Cohen introduced a motion in parliament asking the British government to demand that Uganda scrap criminal penalties for homosexuality.

Human rights groups have also called on western nations to withhold aid from Uganda if the draconian Bill is passed. Half of the country’s national budget comes from international aid.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has also threatened to expel Uganda from the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) arrangement if the Bill is passed. AGOA is an economic arrangement that provides duty-free treatment to imports originating from beneficiary African countries.

However, Sempa who claims homosexuality is a foreign import, says Uganda must not succumb to donor pressure.

“We must be strong… Any country (like Uganda) that puts sodomy on the top of its foreign policy is making a big mistake…And if the selling of our cotton to America means that we receive sodomy in exchange, then that is a trade we cannot do.”

Uganda’s speaker of parliament, Edward Ssekandi. said consideration of the Bill would proceed despite the President’s ‘go slow’ appeal.

By Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi
ARUSHA, Dec 7 2009 (IPS)

The East African Community is currently developing a law to guide the region’s response to HIV/AIDS. The move comes ahead of the commencement of the East Africa common market protocol.

Susan Timberlake, UNAIDS senior advisor for human rights and law. Credit: Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi

The law will allow for a common stance on HIV/AIDS, which aims to be non-discriminatory. Based upon consultations with people in east Africa, the proposed law aims to provide joint treatment policies for people in the region while they move freely across the borders.

UNAIDS supports the removal of punitive policies, laws and practices that could block an effective response to HIV/AIDS.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

IPS: East Africa is in the process of drafting a regional HIV/AIDS law. How necessary is this law, and how do you think it will change the face of HIV/AIDS in the region? Susan Timberlake: From my understanding, the East African Legislative Assembly has asked that such a law be drafted. Because the East African Community is about to come closer and closer together in terms of collaboration, this law provides opportunity to ensure that the best practices are supported by law throughout the region. So I think in those terms, it could have a very positive effect on the HIV response in the region.

IPS: One of the contentious issues arising from consultations on the proposed law is the issue of criminalisation of HIV transmission. What is UNAIDS position on that? ST: Since the beginning of the epidemic, there have been two different approaches. One of them is trying to use the law to provide protection and support to those who are vulnerable to the infection and to those who are infected.

And the other is to use the law to identify and punish. But we basically found throughout the years that when there are punitive laws on the books, this is problematic for the HIV response. It means that people who are vulnerable to infection or are living with HIV are driven away from the health services and health care professionals that they need to be in touch with to reduce their vulnerability to infection and to be able to successfully take up HIV testing, treatment, disclosure.

So UNAIDS has made a corporate priority to remove punitive policies, laws, practices, stigma and discrimination that block effective responses to HIV and AIDS. We consider laws that are overly broad in criminalising HIV transmission and sex workers, drug users and men who have sex with men represent obstacles to effective responses and should be removed.

IPS: Which sections in society would be most affected by such a law? ST: If very broad laws to criminalise HIV transmission are passed, then it runs directly in conflict with our efforts to create universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support. You cannot do HIV prevention, treatment, care and support unless people are tested for HIV and know their status and change their behaviour. And if they fear that they will be prosecuted for HIV transmission, they are less likely to get tested, to use condoms, to disclose their status and to even get treatment. So we are worried that people living with HIV will keep hidden and that means that they may transmit HIV more.

With regards to most at risk populations – (which include) sex workers, people who used drugs and men who have sex with men are criminalised – they stay away from authorities, treatment, and even from prevention.

They are hidden in the margins of society. So they are more likely to get infected and to transmit the infection. So we are asking governments to try to find a pragmatic solution and avoid criminalisation.

That means avoid applying the criminal law to these populations that result in them getting a criminal record and going to jail. You can still – in the case of sex work and drug use – regulate these things and criminalise the harmful aspects of them. But we are worried that if you send anybody that possesses small amounts of drugs, anybody who sells or buys sex to jail, the jails (will) fill up with non-violent offenders. And in jail, they are more susceptible to HIV transmission, TB and even to drug use.

IPS: So if criminalisation of HIV transmission is not a solution to prevention, what alternatives do you suggest? ST: Some people have an idea that criminalising things deters behaviour and that may be true in some things. But it’s less obvious that it works when you are dealing with intimate relations, sexual relations between adults.

Sex, unfortunately, is about taking risks and doing things that are not rational, and so to expect the criminal law to actually work to deter sexual behaviour is unlikely to succeed. What we say as alternatives, is that in the case of criminalisation to transmission, you limit the application of criminal law to the people who intend to transmit HIV and do so. People who know they are infected, know how it’s transmitted and intend to transmit it should be prosecuted because justice is served.

IPS: What impact would criminalisation of HIV have on women? ST: With regard to criminalisation of transmission, a lot of people think that this is the way to protect women because their husbands and boyfriends are infecting them.

But we are worried that in fact, women will be the ones prosecuted. And we say this because women usually know their status before men do because they learn about it in antenatal clinics; they have less social and legal power, so the men are likely to have the resources to prosecute women.

Men already blame women for bringing the infection into the relationship. So we think that these laws, instead of protecting women, will actually lead to women being prosecuted.

With regard to sex work, it is a similar situation. Many women do not want to be sex workers; they sell sex because they are forced to, to get food, housing, be able to feed and educate their children. It’s a matter of necessity. If you prosecute them on top of the many difficulties they are already facing, then you make their lives even harder. So this has a very bad impact on women’s lives.

What we rather see is that governments spend resources of creating alternatives to sex work; training and education programmes, skills building programmes for women to have access to loans and credit would get people out of sex work than criminalising sex work.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi
ENTEBBE, Uganda, Oct 12 2009 (IPS)

A trident of gender legislation will be debated in Uganda’s parliament in November: the Marriage and Divorce Bill, the Domestic Violence Bill and the Female Genital Mutilation Bill.

One of the voices expected to be heard backing the bills is that of a man: Chris Baryomunsi is the vice chairperson of the parliamentary committee on social services and well-known in Uganda for his defence of women’s rights.

He argues that a paradigm shift is needed if gender equality and women’s empowerment is to be achieved. In his view, the term “gender” was largely understood to mean women, excluding men from a movement for women’s rights. Messages of gender equality, he says, must be packaged to convince men to become involved and participate in the changes.

Baryomunsi participated in a two-day workshop at the end of September intended to enlist men as partners to advocate for the proposed bills.

The workshop was organised by the Uganda Women’s Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) in partnership with Uganda’s ministry of gender, the United Nations Development Fund and the Norwegian government. Excerpts of his interview with IPS follow.

IPS: Why has there been so much male resistance to passing gender-related legislation in Uganda’s Parliament? CHRIS BARYOMUNSI: Our society, traditions and the environment have given a lot of powers to men compared to women, which to me is an injustice. And while these laws are trying to cure that injustice, men view it as part of their power going away.

As a natural reaction, they would oppose anything which is taking away their power.

I think what is important is to package the whole issue in a manner that will convince men that we are trying to empower them so that we can remove these gaps and enjoy our human rights as individuals; not that they are intended to disempower men and empower women to the disadvantage of men.

But definitely, it is a question of tradition, the environment and society in which we live, where it has become socially acceptable that the man is more powerful than the woman.

IPS: So why is male involvement important at this time? CB: Because we are basically tracing the power relations between a male and a female and it is true that in our society, the balance of power disfavours the female gender. So we are trying to address this balance by empowering the female so that she can enjoy her rights.

And of course this is now a bargain between the man and the woman. So it becomes very important for the males to be involved, fully on board and to appreciate the importance of this legislation.

And in any case, it is the men who make the decisions. Even the Parliament which will be the final authority over the legislation has more males than females. So if the men are not brought fully on board to appreciate what the purpose of this legislation is, then you cannot win.

Once male legislators are on board, it becomes easy for them to communicate to the rest of the men in the country. When we present this law (as one that is) good for us the leaders, then men in the community will definitely accept and know that it is good for them. But if we present that this is a very dangerous law to the men, then you will get resistance.

Male involvement should therefore be addressed as a priority.

IPS: How can we create effective and culturally-sensitive strategies which can get men on board? CB: Some of these things will not be easy to legislate upon because culture evolves and evolution sometimes is very slow. We have to critically look at these legislations.

And I think not everything must be put into a law. If we evaluate how far we have gone in terms of addressing these gender issues, we can see what to include in the laws and what to leave out.

But a law in itself is not the final solution. You can have a law, but also continue with interventions on the ground which will interrogate the culture, tradition and societal behaviour to ensure that people continue to be mobilised.

It therefore becomes important to design culturally-sensitive programmes and interventions that will challenge some of these harmful perceptions and behaviours.

And that calls for involvement of all the stakeholders. Cultural and religious leaders and opinion leaders within the communities must be brought on board.

Gradually and eventually, some of these stereotypes of the attitudinal beliefs will be discarded as everybody appreciates the need to empower both men and women and not really to disempower anybody.

IPS: How do men internalise the notions of what it means to be a man and how does that affect their ability to accept and appreciate gender-sensitive laws? CB: Society imparts a lot of powers on men.  So men see masculinity as giving them the power to domineer on others, especially women.

As a man, you want to make decisions in the home and be the one to support your family materially and financially thus seeing yourself as superior.

And then on the other side, women are seen as the weaker sex who should do the household activities as cooking, child bearing and laying beds.

These legislations are interrogating this kind of attitude and behaviour. Therefore, it becomes very crucial in empowering the man to understand that even a woman can do some of the things that men think are traditional male roles.

But it takes time. It should not be rushed. With increased exposure and mobilisation, the men will appreciate that their being powerful as a man should not be to the disadvantage of a woman.?  IPS: What is the way forward to ensure that this Marriage & Divorce Bill is passed in to law? CB: The women parliamentarians with support from their partners have done a good job to mobilise the male legislators before these laws are debated in Parliament. Part of the way forward is to mobilise both the men and women – because it is wrong to assume that it is only the men who are opposing the provisions in this Bill. We know that the failed Domestic Relations Bill was also resisted by some women.

So we must simplify these messages which are contained in the Bills and explain them to the public. The people behind these legislations could use the men who are already on board to explain to the public that the fears men could be having that these laws will undermine their power are far-fetched.

We shall make sure that we pass a law that is good for this country; a law that should not undermine the powers and responsibilities of men but also not undermine the powers and rights of women.

Excerpt: