After being wrongly portrayed in the press on the issue of the Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009, I feel compelled to speak out. My doubts about the Bill stem from the fact that this Bill is selective in the sense that it suggests that some people are undeserving to enjoy the inherent human rights which are supposed to be for everyone.
I passionately believe that human rights are indivisible and for everyone, irrespective of whether they are women or men, children or the elderly, heterosexual or homosexual or bi-sexual, black or white.

Therefore, my participation in a march to advocate for a Bill (as was incorrectly reported in the press) that grossly abuses human rights would be like shooting myself in the foot.

The Bill, if enacted into law, would punish citizens for not reporting to the authorities their gay and lesbian friends, neighbours, children, clients, everyone. It would cultivate a culture of spying and witch-hunting.; it has started haunting us even before it is passed.

Just imagine yourself giving a hug to a friend of the same sex; someone could take a picture of you as evidence of your homosexual orientation!  The climate fostered by the Anti-homosexuality Bill brings to memory Arthur Millers play, ‘The Crucible’ (1953) which is a dramatisation of the Salem witchcraft trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693 where individuals suspected of practicing witchcraft were tried and hanged.

The play climaxes with little girls found playing and dancing in the forest being used to falsely accuse a woman for having put a spell on them. Out of fear the woman accuses a well known respected man in town of sending his spirit upon her, consequently the man is hanged.

We would not like to take our nation back to the medieval era by signing such a Bill into law.

What I notice in discussions about the Bill is the argument that homosexuals have used children in a manipulative way. Of course everyone agrees that sex with minors, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is wrong, and the penalty for this crime is catered for in the Penal Code Act. A 2005 study on violence against children by Raising Voices shows that 75% of children in Uganda have experienced sexual violence such as being touched sexually, being exposed to adult sexual behaviour, or being forced to have sex.

20% of the girls talked to (1 in every 5) during the study reported being forced to have sex. And most testimonies recorded involved people they know, such as uncles forcing their nieces to kiss them on the mouth; 16-year-old girls being forced to marry much older men after they had raped the girls; male teachers defiling school girls and making them pregnant; men pinching girls’ buttocks and breasts as they walk on the streets; and parents accepting bribes from men who have defiled their daughters instead of taking them to court.

Boys too reported a considerable level of sexual violence during the study. Over 13% of boys talked to reported being forced to have sex. Boys give testimonies such as women giving them money to let them touch their private parts and ‘make them do things to them;’ and others will tell you that “when my mother asks my father to be quiet at night in bed, he says, ‘let him hear! He will have to learn what he has to do with a woman’”

Sexual violence against children is a major problem in Uganda that has serious physiological, reproductive health and developmental implications for children. The problem with our society is that we have been seeing these injustices happening to our children but have not done much about them.

I wish all the energy that is currently being invested in vilifying homosexuals was put into hunting down adults who defile children on a daily basis. Seeking to crucify consenting adults for what they do in their privacy is diversionary and ultimately an impractical enterprise!

We have better things to do with our limited resources instead of policing bedrooms of consenting adults regardless of what you feel about the issue. 

Going back to the event alluded to earlier, I am still wondering how journalists who are supposed to be credible and experienced could misrepresent an event and even go as far as putting words in my mouth. Where did the ethics of getting facts right, commitment to accuracy, getting permission from guardians before interviewing children, and other ethical reporting standards go?   

The author is a children rights activist.
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