Uganda’s Anti-LGBTQ Bill Threatens Tourism as Well as Lives
Legislation imposing jail time or death on queer individuals is creating a risky atmosphere of heightened vigilante justice. Even waiting to be passed, it’s already hurting the travel industry.
A queer activist pickets on April 4 outside the Uganda High Commission to protest the country’s anti-homosexuality bill.
Photographer: Phill Magakoe/AFP/Getty Images
Ugandan LGBTQ rights activist Clare Byarugaba was looking forward to showing her country off to her French partner’s parents. They were interested in visiting her hometown, and she planned to take them hiking into Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, in the country’s lush southwest, to track one of the more than 400 mountain gorillas. But the parents scrapped their plans because they disapproved of Uganda’s new, more extreme anti-LGBTQ legislation.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, which Uganda’s Parliament passed twice between March and May with few changes, imposes a harsh penalties on members of the LGBTQ community, including life imprisonment for sexual acts; the death penalty applies for “aggravated homosexuality,” defined in part as engaging in sex if one is HIV-positive.