COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

ONE MONTH AFTER: INCREASING CASES OF VIOLENCE AND VIOLATIONS BASED ON REAL OR PRESUMED SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY IN THE FIRST MONTH OF THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY ACT

The Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 (AHA) became law on 30th May 2023, and 30th June 2023 marked the 31st day of the law’s coming into force. HRAPF’s legal aid clinic has been handling cases involving LGBTIQ persons during this period and documenting them. This report summarises the cases that involve violence and violations against real or suspected LGBTIQ persons based wholly or partly on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity within the first 31 days of the law’s being in force.

This report builds upon the report that which focused on cases of violence and violations that specifically targeted persons on the basis of their real or presumed sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGIE) in the first 21 days of the law’s enforcement.

The current report covers all the 31 days from 30th May 2023 to 30th June 2023. 1 2. Methodology The data for this report has been collected and verified in the same manner as the previous report: this report contains only information reported to us through our legal aid network of community paralegals, the central legal aid clinic in Kampala and specialised legal aid desks and regional legal aid centres.

The data was collected through a physical review of case files and monitoring registers to ascertain the number of cases handled, the nature and number of violations and incidents of violence reported and the number of persons affected. An in-depth review of documents on the case files was also undertaken for purposes of ascertaining the circumstances under which these cases took place, thus ensuring that only cases in which individuals were specifically targeted on the basis of their SOGIE are included in this report. It is important to note that this report does not present a comprehensive view of the situation for LGBTIQ people across the country as it contains only the cases that were reported to HRAPF through our legal aid network, and excludes cases reported to other legal aid service providers/ handled through other channels and those not reported at all.

The report focuses on cases, which are defined as a separate set of facts involving the violation of laws or rights which are included in one file. Each case can therefore contain more than one violation against more than one individual. 3. Nature and number of cases reported In the period from 30th May 2023 to 30th June, 2023 we has handled a total of 65 cases across the legal aid network. Of these 65 cases, 46 (70.8%) involved actions that specifically targeted people because of their real or presumed sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and affected a total of 54 individuals.

These cases are: 23 cases involving violence or threats of violence affecting 23 individuals; 19 cases of evictions from rented property affecting 20 individuals; and 4 cases of arrests on sexuality-related cases, affecting 7 persons; a) Cases of violence we recorded a total of 23 cases involving violence or threats to violence and affecting 23 persons. There were no new cases of violence in the last 10 days of the 31-day period. Of the 23 cases, 6 cases involved actual violence affecting 8 persons and 17 involved threats of violence affecting 17 persons. Most of these cases were not reported to the police for fear of arrest/harm as soon as the victims’ sexual orientation and/or gender identity were revealed.