Cape Town, South Africa – March 31 2023: Protesters take to the streets over Uganda’s anti-gay legislation after Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law. Photo: Shutterstock
Uganda’s brutal Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) reportedly cost the country as much as $1.6 billion in the year since it became law.
The law, signed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in May 2023, makes what it describes as “aggravated homosexuality” — including same-sex acts that transmit HIV — punishable by the death penalty, imposes a life sentence for “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities,” and even bans identifying as LGBTQ+ in Uganda. It has been roundly condemned by human rights organizations, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, President Joe Biden, and even Pope Francis.
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Last week, Open for Business, a coalition of global companies dedicated to LGBTQ+ inclusion, released a report on the law’s impact on the East African nation’s economy. “It is estimated that in the twelve months following the AHA’s passage, Uganda has made an economic loss of between $470 million and $1.6 billion,” according to the report, a sum that comprises between 0.9–3.2% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
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The anti-LGBTQ+ law “marks a critical juncture for Uganda which may alter the trajectory of the country’s economy for years to come,” the report continues. “Combined losses over a five-year period are estimated to be between $2.3 and $8.3 billion [US dollars].”
Open for Business identified eight key areas in which the AHA has impacted Uganda’s economy, including international aid, foreign direct investment, tourism and national reputation, public health, national productivity, policing and legal costs, human capital and talent flight, and trade relations.
In January, the U.S. removed Uganda from the list of nations eligible to benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows eligible sub-Saharan African nations to export over 1,800 products to the U.S. duty-free. Last August, the World Bank Group suspended new loans to the East African nation, saying that the law contradicts the group’s values. According to the report, the suspension of Uganda’s eligibility for preferential trade under the AGOA could cost the country $0.5 million in future tariff payments, and the suspension of foreign aid could result in a loss of $276 to $1,024 million annually.
As one Ugandan healthcare worker detailed for The Guardian earlier this year, the AHA is already having a devastating impact on the country’s public health, making it nearly impossible for clinics that specialize in LGBTQ+ healthcare issues to function while also discouraging LGBTQ+ people from seeking care. According to the Open for Business report, this is leading to higher rates of untreated HIV and depression, which is likely to be an estimated $70 to $312 million economic burden on the country.
Uganda is also looking at an estimated $9 to $99 million loss in tourism annually resulting from the country’s tarnished reputation on the world stage and an annual productivity loss of $23 to $58 million resulting from LGBTQ+ workers’ mental health issues, absenteeism, and diminished productivity. The report also estimated that 5,000 to 15,000 LGBTQ+ individuals will flee the country, a “talent flight” that will cost Uganda $3 to $24 million in lost productivity.
“The evidence is now clear,” the report states, “The Anti-Homosexuality Act makes it harder for Uganda to foster a dynamic and diversified modern economy that is attractive to investors, tourists and skilled workers.”
In April, nearly a year after it went into effect, Uganda’s Constitutional Court ruled against parts of the AHA — including a provision that made it a crime to fail to report homosexual acts to authorities — but upheld its draconian punishments for LGBTQ+ people. In July, Ugandan LGBTQ+ activists appealed the court’s ruling to the country’s Supreme Court.
Late last month, Uganda’s state-funded Human Rights Commission asked the government to decriminalize homosexuality.
Responding to the Open for Business report this week, John Grace, coordinator at Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium, told the Washington Blade that the Ugandan government should “take immediate action to repeal the AHA in its entirety.”
“The economic cost of this discriminatory law is too high and the human rights violations it perpetuates are unacceptable,” Grace said.
“The anxiety within the investment and general business community as a result of the AHA cannot be underestimated,” Alex Musiime of Let’s Walk Uganda Legal told the Blade. “The ridiculous law should be dropped.” Musiime added that the country’s Supreme Court “ought to do the right thing and annul this apartheid law.”
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