Death Penalty for Gay Sex? As Uganda Passes Tough Anti-LGBTQ Law, a Look at Legislation Around World

Uganda’s parliament on Tuesday passed sweeping anti-gay legislation which proposes tough new penalties for same-sex relationships, following a highly charged and chaotic session. Legislators amended significant portions of the original draft law, with all but one speaking against the bill.

Homosexuality is already illegal in the conservative East African nation and it was not immediately clear what new penalties had been agreed upon, said an AFP report.

MP Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, who spoke against the bill and who belongs to President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement party, told AFP that under the final version of the legislation, offenders would face life imprisonment or even the death penalty for “aggravated” offences.

The bill will next go to President Museveni, who can choose to use his veto or sign it into law.

What Was Uganda’s Reaction?

The legislation enjoys broad public support in Uganda and reaction from civil society has been muted following years of erosion of civic space under Museveni’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

Nevertheless, the 78-year-old leader has consistently signalled he does not view the issue as a priority and would prefer to maintain good relations with Western donors and investors. Discussion about the bill in parliament was laced with homophobic rhetoric, with lawmakers conflating child sexual abuse with consensual same-sex activity between adults.

In recent months, conspiracy theories accusing shadowy international forces of promoting homosexuality have gained traction on social media in Uganda, said the AFP report.

Museveni last week referred to gay people as “these deviants.” “Homosexuals are deviations from normal. Why? Is it by nature or nurture? We need to answer these questions,” he told lawmakers.

“We need a medical opinion on that. We shall discuss it thoroughly,” he added, in a manoeuvre interpreted by analysts and foreign diplomats as a delaying tactic.

“Museveni has historically taken into account the damage of the bill to Uganda’s geopolitics, particularly in terms of relations with the West, and in terms of donor funding,” Kristof Titeca, an expert on East African affairs at the University of Antwerp, told AFP.

“His suggestion to ask for a medical opinion can be understood in this context: a way to put off what is a deeply contentious political issue,” Titeca told AFP. On Saturday, Uganda’s attorney general Kiryowa Kiwanuka told the parliamentary committee scrutinising the bill that existing colonial-era laws “adequately provided for an offence”.

Uganda is notorious for intolerance of homosexuality — which was criminalised under colonial-era laws. But since independence from Britain in 1962 there has never been a conviction for consensual same-sex activity.

In 2014, Ugandan lawmakers passed a bill that called for life in prison for people caught having gay sex. The legislation sparked international condemnation, with some Western nations freezing or redirecting millions of dollars of government aid in response, before a court later struck down the law on a technicality.

Which Other Countries Criminalise Homosexuality?

There are 69 countries with laws that criminalise homosexuality, with Africa accounting for over half of them, says a BBC report. However, there have been efforts in several nations to decriminalise same-sex unions. Angola’s President Joao Lourenco signed into law a revised penal code in February 2021 that allowed same-sex couples and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Gabon repealed a rule that criminalised homosexuality and made gay intercourse punishable by six months in prison and a heavy fine in June of last year. In 2019, Botswana’s High Court also ruled in favour of decriminalising homosexuality. In recent years, Mozambique and the Seychelles have also repealed anti-homosexuality legislation.

Yet, several countries, particularly Nigeria and Uganda, have reinforced existing anti-homosexuality laws.

Early in 2020, a Singapore court dismissed an attempt to repeal a statute that forbids gay intercourse. Kenya’s high court upheld legislation criminalising homosexual activities in May 2019.

Colonial Legacy

Beginning in 1860, the British empire implemented a specific set of legal codes and common law throughout its territories, including rules prohibiting male-to-male sexual intercourse, a report by Conversation said.

With a moral and religious goal in mind, the British Empire developed these penal codes. The goal was to protect local Christians from “corruption” while also correcting and Christianizing “native” customs. The colonial criminal codes of India and Queensland, for example, both specifically criminalised male-to-male sexual encounters — but both imposed a penalty of long-term imprisonment rather than execution.

In contrast to the British experience, the other major colonial powers did not leave such an institutional legacy of homosexual criminalization. This is why former British colonies are significantly more likely than former colonies of other European states or other governments in general to still have these rules in place, the report says. At least 38 of the 72 countries with such a statute on the books in 2018 were originally subject to some form of British colonial administration.

Where Else is Death Penalty Imposed on Homosexuality?

As per Statistica, worldwide, 68 countries criminalize homosexuality as of December 2022. Most of them are located in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. In 11 countries, the death penalty is imposed or at least a possibility for private, consensual same-sex sexual activity. These countries are Iran, Northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

With inputs from AFP

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