A season of terror for gays in Uganda

Dear reader, it’s that season in the decade when Uganda’s major problem are homosexuals. For the clergy, politicians and all that are worth a microphone in public fora. Uganda needs exorcising of this malignant tumour right on its face or, so we are told. 
So strong is the moral panic that it’s hard to go a day without a headline on the same. The story goes that queer people are preying on children and they are carrying sacks of cash to schools distributing it to children with reckless abandon. 
The myth is repeated over and over that it has gain a sort of irrefutable air in the public sphere. 
The myth has gained so much that ground Members of Parliament are desirous of legislating it. 

Data, however, does not make that case. For example, in the Annual Police Crime Report for 2022 they were only 83 crimes that fell within the purview of unnatural offences, which offence seemingly targets queer people. 
Defilement cases (instances in which an adult had carnal knowledge with minor) were 12,780 and of these 12,470 victims were female i.e., that they had been forced into sex with an adult male and 310 males that were forced into sex with adult females. 
This means, therefore, that the average police officer hasn’t interacted with a homosexual rape or defilement and, therefore, irony is dead that this warrants legislation.

The question, therefore, before we crack queer skulls open, is whether the intention of this homophobic crusade is to protect children or there’s something more sinister. 
The axiom “the devil is always in the detail” is instructive. 
The plot crescendo started last year in August when homophobic outcries started taking shape and, as Charles Onyango Obbo observed in his column last week, there was no gay pride or the sort of things that would irritate our moral puritans. 
So, what belies these cries? Dear reader, you should be mindful that the debate began in Ghana, moved to Kenya and now Uganda. It’s no coincidence. 
There are forces behind this move trying to shape public opinion around the same. It is also befuddling why this panic comes at a time when there is so much public accountability crises. 

The world is split between those for the East and those for the West. The only possible way the East could re-assert its hegemony is by co-opting the South to a moral awakening against liberalism and that’s why I am suspicious that this call and narrative is meant to blow rights discourse by asserting the position of the conservative heterosexual family.
Dear reader, the haste with which the anti-gay Bill and its modalities are treated in our hitherto lethargic bureaucracies also bares hallmarks of a force behind. Police and other intelligence agencies are on the lookout for anyone that is queer. 
This is not only cannon fodder, but also a cash cow for some of our resource starved law enforcement. Every day I see tens of cases and hundreds by extension. 
For some of our law enforcement this Bill is already law. The lives of queer Ugandans are against the wall. We must keep looking over our shoulders despite constitutional guarantees of our rights and freedoms. 

Derogatory forced anal examinations of victims remain some of the most morbid actions by those in law enforcement. 
This is despite a legal guarantee of freedom from torture. Some members and allies of our community are maimed as sort of punishment for defying the order of nature. 
Many women face corrective rape and assault by even family members to “remind them of what they are missing out on”. It’s simply outrageous. Uganda is a beautiful country with friendly and welcoming people, we are better than conspiracy theories.

The author, Dr Frank Mugisha is a human rights and peace advocate.