Uganda’s recently-adopted anti-LGBTQ+ law could have cost the country as much as $1.6 billion (£1.23 billion) in the year since it was approved by parliament.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which carries the death sentence for “aggravated homosexuality”, was signed into law by president Yoweri Museveni in May 2023. Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda, but the new legislation strengthened the law, including by criminalising the “promotion” of homosexuality.
In the year since it came into effect, queer Ugandans have faced a major increase in abuse, including beatings, attacks and arrests.
Now, in a new study, Open for Business has estimated that the law has cost the country between £470 million (£360 million) and $1.6 billion. That’s between 0.9 and 3.2 per cent of its gross domestic product, the standard measure of the value created through the production of goods and services in a country during a certain period.
The losses include foreign direct investment, international aid, trade and tourism.
Queer Ugandans have faced increased hostility since the new law took effect. (Getty)
Open for Business, which researches the economic effects of anti-LGBTQ+ policies, said the combined losses over a five-year period could rise higher still – possibly to a staggering $8.3 billion (£6.4 billion).
“This represents an inflection point for the country’s economy. The potential loss of talent and productivity, coupled with heightened stigma and discrimination, further deepens Uganda’s economic vulnerabilities and undermines efforts to diversify the economy and strengthen public health services,” the coalition of global companies said.
The new legislation fuelled a spike in abuse towards LGBTQ+ people within months of being passed. Last year, the Convening for Equality coalition reported 306 rights violations based on the victims’ sexual orientation and gender identity, between January and August last year.
Queer Ugandan human rights activist Arthur Kayima branded the law “vile”, adding: “Rather than focusing on the real issues Uganda is facing, Museveni [causes] distraction by attacking our fundamental right to exist.”
Few older Africans participate openly in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement. But Francisca Ferraz, 53, known as “Yaa Sissi,” aims to change that.
Yaa Sissi, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, is a pioneering voice in her community. Born in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, to a Portuguese father and a Congolese mother, Yaa Sissi moved to Geneva in 2008, where she raised her two daughters, now 25 and 21.
There, early in 2023, she founded Afro LGBT, Geneva’s first LGBT rights association focused on those of African descent.
Today, Afro LGBT creates a safe space for people, many of whom experience fear and discrimination based on their race and their sexuality. Even though she’s seen people like herself come out and live openly in Europe, she notes that many older people, especially those of African descent, still struggle to embrace their identities fully. “People my age hide a lot, and yet there are so many of them,” she says. “But among ourselves we know very well, who is who.”
She speaks of the importance of coming out, of freeing oneself from the heavy burden of secrecy: “I had the courage to do it because I’d been through so much. It wasn’t easy to accept myself.”
Yaa Sissi told her story to Human Rights Watch for the International Day of Older Persons, October 1, sharing her journey through love, identity, and community that has spanned decades, continents, and challenges.
Discovering Love, Confronting Silence
Yaa Sissi discovered her sexuality as a teenager while living in Brazzaville. At age 17, she fell deeply in love with G., a girl four years her junior. Their relationship was intense but short-lived. After high school graduation, Yaa Sissi moved to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo for professional training, and they lost touch.
Fourteen years ago – more than 20 years after she was together with G. – a rumor that G. had died led Yaa Sissi to track her down. They rekindled their bond, though they still live in separate countries.
I met Yaa Sissi in her apartment, alongside G, who was visiting.
“There Are So Many People My Age Hiding”
Yaa Sissi speaks fondly of “Carine,” a cultural term from Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo that was used to describe intimate friendships between girls and women. “Our great-grandmothers had ‘Carines,’” she says. “G. was my ‘Carine.’” These relationships, forged in school and village life, were sources of deep companionship and affection. “With your ‘Carine,’ you could exchange gifts, kiss, and make little love gestures,” she says.
Over the years, Yaa Sissi’s relationships have included many women older than her??, including married women. “In my country, many of my lovers were married women,” she recalls. Some held high positions where they worked. She met them through her late husband, who was a prominent government official in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Creating Afro LGBT – “To Put an End to Fear and Isolation”
Though initially involved in other local LGBT organizations, Yaa Sissi felt unseen and unheard as an Afro-descendant. “We Afros were always a bit in our corner. Nobody came up to us to find out what brought us there, how we felt,” she says. “We wanted to be listened to. We’re all in very different situations, even though we’re all LGBT.”
Yaa Sissi became a trusted figure in her community, with many LGBT youth turning to her for support. “It hurt so much to see such injustice,” she says, recalling a child who came to her after being kicked out of their home for identifying as transgender. “Young Afro LGBT people need to be listened to and protected.”
“I’ve Stopped Crying”
Yaa Sissi’s journey has not been easy. In a country like Switzerland, opportunities to make one’s voice heard are more available, but the journey of self-acceptance can be lifelong. “I knew I’d been attracted to women for a very long time, but I fought it with all my might,” she says. The social norms of the Congo, coupled with the teachings of the church, kept her struggling against her own desires. “I sought deliverance in the churches. They prayed over me. I sincerely thought it was a demon.”
Her marriage was also a struggle; she tried to preserve it despite knowing her truth. Her late husband, who held her in high regard in the beginning of their marriage, when she started openly struggling with her sexuality. He went with her to churches and traditional healers to cast homosexuality out of her. But when that didn’t “work,” he became abusive, eventually abandoning her and their two children in Geneva. “It took me over 30 years to come out with myself,” she says tearfully. “Before I said stop, I don’t want to suffer anymore. I used to be Francisca. Reserved, shy in my corner. Today I’m international. The one talking to you now is Sissi. I’ve stopped crying.”
Facing Discrimination as an Older Afro Lesbian
The intersection of age, race, and sexuality poses unique challenges for Yaa Sissi. “When you’re an Afro lesbian, it’s hard enough. I got married because I didn’t want that life,” she explains, adding that she has known many women who felt compelled to marry men and have children to avoid the stigma of being openly lesbian. “I’ve seen people beaten up, insulted, raped, and sometimes forcibly married.”
Despite living openly in Switzerland, Sissi sometimes faces ageist insults. “People call me an ‘old lesbian.’ They say I want to warp their children away.” Yet, she has also experienced support from unexpected places. One day, a man tried to attack her in a bar because he learned she was a lesbian. Also, she was sitting at a table with a woman who said no to his advances several times. But customers stood up for her and demanded he calm down.
“Despite everything my late husband said about me, there’s respect in my family, too. I’m a generous, unifying person.”
A Message for International Day of Older Persons
On this day, Yaa Sissi wants to highlight the experiences of older African LGBT people. “We mustn’t forget Afro LGBT seniors. They’re out there. They also have a lot of problems,” she says. Many seek support but struggle with the idea of mixing with younger generations. “When we talk about Afro LGBT, we mustn’t just look at the people on social media. You also have to think about older people who are often very isolated and live in hiding.”
As I left Yaa Sissi’s apartment, the heart-shaped furniture in her living room caught my eye. “Love is the color of power,” she says with a smile.
The new French government has been formed, with Michel Barnier to serve as prime minister – but what does it mean for LGBTQ+ rights in the country?
Although a left-wing alliance of parties won the most seats, right-wing politician Michel Barnier was appointed prime minister, after a summer marked by political uncertainty in the wake of large election loses by president Emmanuel Macron’s party.
Barnier, 73, has been a member of the Republican Party since 2015 but is best-known for leading the EU’s Brexit negotiations with the UK.
As far back as 1981, he voted against a bill that eventually set the same age of consent for gay and straight people. Up until 1982, it was 15 for heterosexuals but 21 for homosexuals. This bill is widely considered the last step to homosexuality being decriminalisation in France.
In 1999, Barnier voted against same-sex civil partnerships. France’s oldest prime minister, he replaced centre-right Gabriel Attal, the country’s youngest prime minister and first out gay PM.
Shortly after the new government was announced, Attal asked his successor “to state clearly in his general policy statement that there will be no going back on IVF [In vitro fertilisation], abortion rights and LGBT rights”.
Barnier responded on national TV that he intends to be a “a bulwark for the preservation of all these rights acquired by the men and women of France in terms of freedom and social progress”.
His answer seems to indicate that has changed his mind on the subject, Régis Schlagdenhauffen, an associate professor at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, in Paris, told the Associated Press news agency that Barnier might have “become wise”.
The Russian parliament on Wednesday gave its initial backing to legislation that would ban nationals from countries that allow people to change their gender from adopting Russian children, a move it said was essential to uphold “traditional values.”
Russia itself last year introduced a ban on people legally or medically changing their gender, part of a widening crackdown on LGBTQ rights that has seen “LGBT propaganda” outlawed at a time when President Vladimir Putin is casting his country as a bastion of “traditional values” locked in an existential struggle with a morally decadent West.
Members of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted by 397-1 in favor of the new adoption ban in the first of three readings suggesting that the legislation, which has already been conceptually approved by the government, will become law.
“This decision is aimed at protecting childhood and traditional values,” Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Duma and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin said after it had been voted on.
“It is necessary to protect our children from the dangers they may face when they are adopted or fostered by citizens of foreign countries where gender reassignment is allowed.”
Volodin said dozens of Western countries allowed people to change their gender.
Vasily Piskarev, a senior lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party and another co-author of the legislation, has alleged that adoptees risk being forced to change their gender or falling victim to sexual exploitation in the West.
Russia in 2012 banned adoptions by U.S. citizens and its war in Ukraine has seen the number of adoptions by foreign nationals dwindle to just six children in 2023 according to data from the RBK news outlet.
Taiwan officials have announced same-sex marriages between citizens of Taiwan and China will now be recognized in the breakaway republic.
Taiwan was the first Asian country to recognize same-sex marriages in 2019.
The move means that cross-strait same-sex couples can get married and their unions will be recognized in Taiwan. But like most things in the fraught relationship between the two countries, it’s complicated.
Like their cross-strait straight peers, gay couples will have to get married in a third country that recognizes both China and Taiwan and where there’s also marriage equality. Once back in the island nation, they’ll then be able to legally register their marriage.
But in addition to relevant documentation like a marriage certificate, the couple will undergo an extensive interview process at their point of entry into the country.
Liang Wen-chieh, the deputy head of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, said the tough standards for cross-strait couples are in place “to prevent cross-border fake marriages and avoid problems of national security and social order.”
“Only after passing the interview on the border (at the airport and ports) can they enter the country to register their marriages. This is our current principle for cross-strait marriages,” he said, according to AFP.
After the interview, “the couple can proceed with marriage registration at a household registration office,” he added.
Despite the expansion of equal marriage rights, Chinese spouses in same-sex couples will have difficulty obtaining official Taiwan identity documents.
Chinese nationals have long had to relinquish their “household registration” in China in order to obtain permanent residency in Taiwan. But China doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, so they’re unlikely to approve a partner’s deregistration.
Without that, the Chinese partner can’t obtain a Taiwanese ID, let alone one that indicates they’re married — at least for now.
The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, along with other equality organizations, said in a group statement that the changes for cross-strait couples were “a long-awaited, difficult but navigable path home.”
They also remarked that the requirement to get married abroad meant that gay couples “still have higher economic and class barriers to marriage.”
Taiwan recognized same-sex marriage in 2019 when the country’s high court ruled that the definition of marriage between a man and a woman was unconstitutional.
Two Canada Post workers in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have been suspended after refusing to deliver flyers from Campaign Life Coalition calling for a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
The flyers, which describe gender-affirming medical procedures as “chemical and surgical mutilation” and declare that “God doesn’t make mistakes,” were distributed ahead of the province’s October 21 election.
Shannon Aitchison, a Canada Post carrier and union representative, was suspended for five days without pay. Aitchison, who has atransgender child, said she couldn’t deliver the materials. “The third flyer was straight-up nonsense,” she told the Brantford Expositer. “‘God doesn’t make mistakes,’ so you’re telling me my child is a mistake?”
According to the news outlet, five postal workers in the Saint John area refused to deliver the flyers. Two were suspended, and others used personal days to avoid delivering the controversial material.
Canada Post defended its decision, stating that the flyers did not meet the legal definition of “non-mailable matter” and thus had to be delivered. “Our important and longstanding role to deliver the country’s mail should not be seen as tolerance or support for the contents of any mailing,” Canada Post spokesperson Valérie Chartrand said. “We are a neutral third party regardless of our views.”
CBC reported on August 26 that Campaign Life Coalition has been distributing similar flyers across New Brunswick, supporting Premier Blaine Higgs’ “parental rights” policies. Similarly to far-right measures in some areas of the United States, these policies require teachers to get parental consent before using a student’s chosen name or pronouns if the student is under 16.
The Thai king has signed same-sex marriage into law, the official Royal Gazette said Tuesday, making Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to recognise marriage equality.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn gave royal assent to the new law, passed by parliament in June, which will take effect in 120 days – meaning the first gay weddings are expected to take place in January.
Activists hailed a “monumental step” as Thailand becomes only the third place in Asia where same-sex couples can tie the knot, after Taiwan and Nepal. The law on marriage now uses gender-neutral terms in place of “men”, “women”, “husbands” and “wives”, and also grants adoption and inheritance rights to same-sex couples.
South Korea’s commitment to equal rights has suffered a dangerous setback with the appointment of Ahn Chang-ho as chairperson of the government’s National Human Rights Commission of Korea.
A former Constitutional Court justice, Ahn has drawn widespread criticism for his opposition to antidiscrimination protections, particularly for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Ahn has taken several deeply troubling positions over the years, including opposing comprehensive sexuality education in public schools, claiming antidiscrimination protections spread HIV/AIDS and anal cancer, and suggesting that homosexuality could lead to a communist revolution.
At his confirmation hearing, Ahn reiterated many of these views, casting minority rights as a threat to the viewpoints of the majority.
President Yoon Suk-yeol appointed Ahn despite strong opposition from civil society groups and his concerning confirmation hearing, bypassing the National Assembly’s approval process. Ahn’s confirmation is part of a worrying trend under Yoon’s administration, which has now appointed 29 officials without the National Assembly’s approval.
This appointment is particularly disappointing given South Korea’s already weak record on minority rights. South Korea and Japan are the only two countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) without a comprehensive nondiscrimination law. In 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Committee urged South Korea to pass such a law and expressed concern about ongoing discrimination against various minority groups.
As Human Rights Watch and civil society partners have documented, antidiscrimination protections are urgently needed in South Korea to address unfair treatment based on race, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other characteristics.
For over two decades, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea has been a crucial defender of minority rights, investigating discrimination, developing research, and advocating for an antidiscrimination law. Yet despite widespread public support for antidiscrimination legislation, the National Assembly has repeatedly failed to enact such a law.
As Ahn assumes his new role, it is critical that the commission resist any erosion of its mission and uphold South Korea’s human rights obligations. Any retreat from its commitment to nondiscrimination would be a devastating setback for the country’s progress on equality.
LGBTQ+ Ukrainians have stood in defiance at Kharkiv Pride just 18 miles (30km) from the Russian border as the war between the two countries rages on.
The sixth annual Kharkiv Pride parade took place on Sunday (15 September) with scores of queer people taking part in an “auto Pride”, where cars were driven through the town centre, with Ukrainian and LGBTQ+ Pride flags flying from their windows.
A similar event took place in Kharkiv during the pandemic in 2020 as a way to uphold social-distancing regulations.
Organisers estimated that 13 cars filled with about 60 passengers drove across the city’s main avenues, promoting the need to uphold human rights, as onlookers celebrated. Auto Pride was chosen to “ensure maximum safety” of participants considering the challenges faced by Russia’s invasion more than two-and-a-half years ago.
Each car carried messages urging the Ukrainian parliament to pass legislation criminalising hate crimes, including Bill 5488, which recognises different sentences for crimes committed on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Cars drove through the city as part of Kharkiv Pride. (Supplied/KharkivPride)
While LGBTQ+ rights in Ukraine are improving, same-sex marriage is still banned under Article 51 of the constitution, passed in 1996, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Animosity toward homosexuality remains high, with more than 62 per cent of Ukrainians believing it is “not justifiable”, according to a World Values Survey in 2022.
Others in the parade urged European countries to help protect Kharkiv and support Ukraine in the war.
“We remember every day how important Ukraine’s victory is,” Kharkiv Pride co-organiser Anna Sharygina said. “Just as important to us is the fight for equal rights and the protection of the LGBTQ+ community. People who are fighting, risking their lives, cannot be denied their rights. It is both unjust and undignified, and the war has only highlighted these challenges.”
Several LGBTQ+ participants have served in the Ukrainian armed forces, or still are.
One of them, who uses the call sign “Sapsan,” urged the Ukrainian forces to acknowledge the presence of queer people in the army.
“Those who attend the march represent the voices of those on the front lines and, sadly, those who are no longer with us,” he said, before urging the government to pass Bill 5488.
The new ride-share was launched over the weekend in the country’s cultural capital of Lahore. It’s called SheDrives and will service only trans people and women, according to Ammaz Farooqi, the company’s chief executive.
For now, it will service only Lahore, but expansion is possible, Farooqi said.
There are an estimated 30,000 trans people in Lahore, and organizations working for their welfare estimate that across Pakistan, the transgender community numbers about 500,000 out of the total population of 240 million.
Trans people are considered outcasts by many, especially in conservative areas of Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country. They are often sexually abused, assaulted and even murdered. They hesitate to enroll in regular schools to avoid discrimination, and when they travel on public buses or trains many are exposed to ridicule, hurtful jokes and other forms of harassment.
Pakistani women also face similar harassment when daring to travel alone in bus or train coaches with other, male passengers.
“A unique aspect of this app and ride service is that the drivers and passengers will be women and transgender persons,” Farooqi said.
Pink logos painted on the vehicles would allow women and trans people to recognize them.
Farooqi, who is not trans, said he feels optimistic the future will be more inclusive for everyone.
“I have taken a small step and we may expand this service to other cities,” he said.
Pakistan in 2022 established a hotline for trans people connected to police offices and the Ministry of Human Rights, and the year before, authorities opened the country’s first government-run school for transgender students in the central city of Multan.
The country’s parliament also drafted a transgender rights bill to allow trans people choose their gender identity for previously issued government documents, educational certificates and national identity cards.
But the proposed amendments have caused controversy, with hard-line clerics opposing them. Human rights experts say a lot is still to be done to ensure recognition of trans people on a social level.
