On 15th August 2025, four of their colleagues attacked them accusing them of promoting homosexuality tendencies amongst the student community. School administration was quick to react, and the four boys weren’t harmed in any way. Since then, some human rights defenders have castigated government making all manner of accusations. The saddest accusation was that Uganda is beginning to weaponize the Anti Homosexuality Act 2023.
On May 2, 2023, the Parliament of Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, which had been returned to parliament for more improvement. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni accented to the bill.
Hell broke loose largely from the Global North, which was calling the leadership in Uganda all manner of names. World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced the withdrawal of their support, and more sanctions were being planned until President Donald Trump assumed office as President of the USA and things changed dramatically.
To them, curtailing the promotion and funding of LGTBQ campaigns within our communities is to commit gross human rights abuses like committing genocide.
For the record, Uganda and Ugandans are not homophobic. For clarity’s sake, Ugandans have never killed their few homosexuals that exist within their communities. In fact, they treat them as unfortunate people with deviant behavior and then manage them with care and sympathy.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 is intended to manage homosexuals in a way that can lead to rehabilitation and restoration. The Act, more importantly, curtails the deliberate campaign of spreading homosexuality among our children. For some time now, some entities from the Western world were funding the promotion of this vice among our poor and vulnerable communities using many uncouth approaches.
They take advantage of our poor and needy communities, where they will throw some money, but with clear conditions that the recipients must promote LGBTQ campaigns among our people especially children. Of course, this behavior is not in our norms, and those assigned to promote it on behalf of the global community tend to land into problems that are at times fatal.
The values of a society are significant because they determine the contents of its norms, which help maintain social order. Each value has a corresponding norm, or put differently, all norms express social values. Every individual, every family, and indeed, every society has principles and standards that are appreciated and held in high regard, as well as those that are abhorred.
In fact, the main social challenges Uganda is facing are drug abuse by the youth and not homosexuality, i.e., alcoholism and drug consumption. However, Uganda has put in place laws and regulations to handle such challenges. Our Penal Code offers effective punitive measures to curtail such challenges. Besides, there are institutions and organizations that are professionally and technically equipped to counsel and guide such victims.
Rehabilitation centers have been put in place. There are some that are run by the government and others by private organizations. They tackle such victims of abuse. Butabika National Referral Hospital has been expanded and equipped to handle victims of drug abuse.
Therefore, it is not right for human right defenders to keep throwing themselves around with condemnations every time we take decisions that are meant to protect our social values.
As a country, we took firm resolutions to refuse the idea of promoting the Gay Agenda to be part of our human development. To those that thought that by freezing us out of their development loans, we would bend on our knees and repeal the Anti homosexuality Act, must have now realized that that was a wrong idea. It is years now down the road and we are going strong economically.
Finally, it is a wrong belief among our Western friends to think that to be civilized and humane is to swallow the Western way of life; to be barbaric and cruel is to be non-western. There is a racist tinge in this cultural rhetoric that presents the particular as universal. It echoes the spread of Christianity during the colonial encounter: African religions were called satanic. To have faith was to be Christian.
As Africans, we have no identity except as carbon copies of "Western men." The Western effort to shape African nations and societies in their own image is written all over the place for everybody to see. While many Western actors in these endeavors genuinely believe they have our best interests at heart, and while they have many local allies who share their vision, they are not any different from their colonial ancestors who came here claiming to spread the three Cs: Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization. These efforts to shape us according to their fancies show contempt for our uniqueness. Africa needs to be given space to shape its future.
The writer is the Acting Executive Director
Uganda Media Centre