Oldham Pride, the organisation which hosts the borough’s yearly pride parade, has launched a fundraiser to help LGBT+ Ugandans.
The fundraiser aims to support LGBT+ refugees fleeing homophobic persecution in Uganda and Kenya by providing ‘Safe Houses’ for people forced into hiding.
The crowdfunder has already raised more than £400 of its £10,000 target.
The Ugandan parliament passed a Bill setting out jail terms of up to 10 years for offences related to same-sex relationships on March 21.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023, builds on 2014’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, which had been nullified by a court on procedural grounds.
A memorandum to the bill says the legislation aims to ‘protect the traditional family’ by prohibiting any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex, and the promotion or recognition of sexual relations between persons of the same sex.
Oldham Pride stepping up
Oldham Pride Chair Father David Austin didn’t take the news lightly, setting up a fundraiser to help those affected.
The cause is especially important to David. His former partner was Ghanaian, another African country where homosexual acts are illegal.
Ghana currently has a draft bill which would criminalise anyone even identifying as LGBT+ in the west African nation.
David said: “It was all started originally through my contacts as I’ve been working a lot with LGBT people who are refugees or are being persecuted in Africa.
“It seems like the pendulum is swinging very much to the wrong side, becoming more regressive in a lot of countries, including Kenya and now Uganda.”
The legislation has been condemned by international bodies including the Untied Nations.
Human Rights Watch has described the law as “a more egregious version” of the 2014 law, which drew widespread international concern and was struck down amid pressure from Uganda’s development partners.
David continued: “People have just gone into hiding, living in the forests, one guy was afraid to go back to his flat because he’d been told there were three guys who are looking for him.
“With the clothes on his back, he just left everything, slept a night on the street and then had to get the bus into Kenya where he’s facing homelessness unless he finds a safehouse, because it’s illegal even in Kenya.”
Oldham Pride’s fundraiser, which is a separate pot of money to its funding for LGBT+ causes in Oldham, aims to help provide safe houses for those fleeing the homophobic laws.
David continued: “What I’m trying to do is link them in with safehouses where they’ve got some shelter and protection, where they can find mutual support, seek registration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where they can find food and medical assistance, and get themselves re-established.
“You look for the basic needs first: safety and shelter. Once we’ve paid for the monthly rental of the house we can start looking at food, fuel, and possibly looking at vocations and trying to find jobs so they can become independent.
“As Pride, we are connected to all our sisters and brothers across the world, we’re not just a local pride, we want to have a global impact, and we are there seeking equality and justice for everyone, recognising there are Kenyans, Ugandans, Nigerians in our own community who have fled persecution as asylum-seekers and refugees.
“We will try to support them here in Oldham and Greater Manchester, but also thinking how we sort the situation out where they’ve come from, working in solidarity with them.”
Future of LGBT+ rights in Uganda
The legislation now will go to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who can veto or sign it into law. He suggested in a recent speech that he supported the Bill, accusing unnamed western nations of “trying to impose their practices on other people”.
It creates the offence of “aggravated homosexuality”, which applies in cases of sex relations involving those infected with HIV as well as with those under 18 and other categories, punishable with the death penalty.
The Bill also creates the offence of “attempted homosexuality”, punishable with up to 10 years in jail.
Same-sex activity is already punishable with life imprisonment under a British colonial-era law targeting “carnal knowledge against the order of nature”, partly the basis of a report by dissenters on the parliamentary committee that vetted the Bill before Tuesday’s vote.
The Bill was passed with 387 lawmakers voting for and just two voting against.
Homosexuality is criminalised in more than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries.
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