Uganda will pay a high price for its anti-LGBTQ+ law, says MP

• Only two MPs voted against Uganda's anti-LGBTQ+ law
• Fox Odoi-Oywelowo says LGBTQ+ Ugandans are fleeing
• The law could cost Uganda $1.6 billion, study says

CAPE TOWN - Uganda will pay a high price for its strict anti-LGBTQ+ law passed last year, said one of only two lawmakers who voted against legislation in the country's parliament.

The World Bank halted all new lending to Uganda as a result of the law and the east African country has also suffered from lower foreign direct investment, international aid, trade and tourism.

Open for Business, a coalition of multinational corporations making the economic case for global LGBTQ+ inclusion, said in a report the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) had cost Uganda between $470 million and $1.6 billion in its first year.

"The economic consequences of that ill-advised action will be huge in the long run," the parliamentarian Fox Odoi-Oywelowo told Context. He was one of only two out of 557 Ugandan lawmakers to vote against the AHA.

While Uganda has long criminalised gay sex, the new law also imposed the death penalty for what it called serial offenders and a 20-year prison sentence for the "promotion of homosexuality".

Odoi-Oywelowo said he knew of at least two people potentially facing the death penalty after being prosecuted for "aggravated homosexuality", and said the legislation was being used to extort money from LGBTQ+ individuals.

The United Nations said in April that nearly 600 people had faced rights violations and abuses in the year following the passage of the law due to their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

As a result, many LGBTQ+ Ugandans have fled abroad. Refugee charities in neighbouring countries and beyond have reported an increase in Ugandans seeking help after the AHA came into force.

"I know many members of the LGBTQ+ community that are running out of the country, but these are productive citizens who wake up every day to work, every day to contribute their fair share to the economy," said Odoi-Oywelowo.

The law initially made it illegal to rent property to LGBTQ+ people. Activists said that led to a wave of forced evictions, but the Constitutional Court struck down that clause in April.

The AHA has also made healthcare providers, particularly those providing HIV/AIDS care, fearful of being prosecuted for "promoting homosexuality".

"There are members of the LGBTQ+ community who have lost their accommodation, who have been kicked out by their landlords," said Odoi-Oywelowo. "There are those who cannot access health services for fear of being exposed and perhaps being prosecuted."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni denounced the World Bank decision to suspend new funding and has vowed to find new sources of credit.

It was unfortunate, he said "that the World Bank and other actors dare to want to coerce us into abandoning our faith, culture, principles and sovereignty, using money. They really underestimate all Africans".

Several Ugandan politicians have accused Western countries of imposing LGBTQ+ rights on African countries and compared it to a new form of colonialism.

But Odoi-Oywelowo accused his fellow policymakers of scapegoating minorities and spreading misinformation for political gain.

"The Anti-Homosexuality Act was premised on a series of lies," he said. "What is furthest from the truth is the accusation that the LGBTQ community is a creature from the West. Every human society has always had, from the time of Creation, members of the LGBTQ community."

Uganda would lose out in the long run, he said.

"A society that excludes even the smallest fraction of its population from economic activities can never employ its full potential."

This story is part of a series supported by Hivos's Free To Be Me programme.

(Reporting by Enrique Anarte; Editing by Jonathan Hemming)