Global Equality Today: March 2024

As we write here in Washington, D.C., spring has arrived. Clocks have sprung forward, cherry blossoms have just peaked, and pollen allergies are back with a vengeance.

Temperatures aren’t the only thing heating up, though. While it’s only March, we’re effectively moving onto the general election season months before the summer conventions following barely contested primary races in both major parties.

Any election year offers distinct advocacy challenges, but never have we seen one so fraught as this year, where Congress is paralyzed by the extraordinary dysfunction within the House Republican majority. One example of the extremist-driven paralysis comes in the continuing failure to pass a five-year “clean” reauthorization of PEPFAR, despite the program’s extraordinary success and its twenty-year record of bipartisan support. Fortunately, Congress did just approve a clean, one-year extension of the program in its late-night budget deal. That’s not ideal for program management, but we did manage to keep some dangerous riders out of PEPFAR that would have undermined its effectiveness — and its ability to serve LGBTQI+ communities abroad. 

But we continue to work with our allies in the executive branch and on the Hill to promote LGBTQI+ human rights wherever possible. Just this month, CGE members successfully lobbied Congressional allies to strip more than 50 anti-LGBTQI+ riders from the Appropriations bill. The anti-LGBTQI+ forces in Congress did manage to attach one unfortunate provision that is intended to prevent embassies from flying Pride flags during Pride celebrations overseas. But CGE member Human Rights Campaign summed up the situation well, noting in a press release that it was one of the least-harmful of all of the anti-LGBTQI+ provisions and that it does not in any way prevent embassies from actually celebrating Pride.

Indeed, with this new limitation, we challenge the majority of U.S. embassies that do celebrate Pride around the world to rethink their celebrations to move beyond flag-waving events to gatherings designed to honor and support the community in creative new ways. For its part, a White House statement promised to work with Congress to repeal the policy. CGE and our members will remain vigilant, as no doubt, hard-right members of Congress will continue to try inserting anti-LGBTQI+ poison pills into other bills as this increasingly dysfunctional Congress wraps up its pre-election agenda.

PROJECT 2025, LGBTQI+ HUMAN RIGHTS, AND THE AUTHORITARIAN THREAT

It is no exaggeration to say that democracy is on the ballot in 2024, in the United States and around the world. Two billion people — about half of the world’s adult population — will go to the polls this year. Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist from the Philippines and author of How To Stand Up to a Dictator, has warned that in all likelihood, “2024 will be the year that democracy falls off the cliff.”

Very dramatic words to be sure, but in Indonesia, a former general once banned from the United States for alleged human rights abuses has already won the February presidential election. In Russia, Vladimir Putin used sham polls to further tighten his grasp on power. In India, Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, is widely expected to win a third term in this spring’s elections. Other key elections coming this year include those taking place in Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Belgium, Ghana, the European Union, and, potentially, the United Kingdom.

In an op-ed last month, Maria Sjödin, Executive Director of Outright, one of CGE’s member organizations, outlined the implications of these elections for LGBTQI+ people, noting the weaponization of homophobia and transphobia in the campaigns in Russia, Ghana, and South Africa, among other countries.

This weaponization is, of course, front and center in this year’s U.S. presidential, Congressional, and local elections. At CGE, we are working hard to draw attention to Project 2025.

If you haven’t yet heard, Project 2025 is what the Heritage Foundation and its partners are innocuously pitching as “the plan for the next conservative President” of the United States. But as our colleagues at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism explain far more accurately, “Project 2025 is an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all.”

We strongly encourage you to read our blog on Project 2025, and to share it, along with our fact sheet on the particular anti-LGBTQI+ planks of the plan. Additionally, check out Beirne Roose-Snyder, CGE’s Senior Policy Fellow, talking about Project 2025 on the rePROs Fight Back podcast.

Beyond demonizing LGBTQI+ people and looking to eliminate the fundamental human rights of the community, Project 2025 takes aim at numerous rights, populations, programs, and principles: sexual and reproductive health and rights, racial equity, climate justice and environmental policy, public education, so-called “wokeness” in the military, separation of church and state, and much more.

Let’s not mince words: Project 2025’s targeting of LGBTQI+ people and of sexual and reproductive health and rights is inseparable from its overarching goal of dismantling democracy and capturing the U.S. federal government. It is no exaggeration to describe Project 2025’s mandate as eliminationist, as it seeks to erase LGBTQI+ people from public life, from social protections, and from democratic citizenship altogether.

The Republican House majority has certainly demonstrated its willingness to pursue such an eliminationist agenda, as have anti-LGBTQI+ state legislators around the country. The one partial victory they achieved in the appropriations battle was enacting a ban on flying the rainbow flag on the exterior of U.S. embassies — though, as already noted, that measure does not limit embassies organizing Pride events or otherwise supporting in-country LGBTQI+ communities. But this provision also speaks to how authoritarians, at home and around the globe, have weaponized the rainbow flag in their war on democracy and the rule of law.

Over the months to come, we’ll have much, much more to say about Project 2025 and about the highly coordinated, very well-funded anti-rights movement that is targeting LGBTQI+ rights as a wedge for its broader assault on democracy, civil society, and human rights.

LGBTQI+ REFUGEES & ASYLUM SEEKERS

In February, House Republicans defeated the border security deal negotiated between the White House and a bipartisan group of Senators. While there were certainly some positive measures in the deal, from increased staffing to process asylum claims to urgently needed assistance for Ukraine, and while House Republicans rejected the deal for not being sufficiently anti-immigrant, we expressed our fundamental opposition to any changes to immigration policy that would undermine the basic human right to seek asylum and that certainly would be disastrous for LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers.

We want to flag two related pieces from CGE members. First, in an op-ed in The Advocate, Immigration Equality issued its own powerful rebuke to the deal, explaining why it would be lethal for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers. Second, Human Rights First reported on a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, sharing the stories of refugees directly harmed by U.S. policies, including that of an LGBTQ+ refugee from Ghana terrified of being forced to return — and this was even before the passage of the horrific anti-LGBTQI+ law by the Ghanaian Parliament in late February.

LGBTQI+ HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER THREAT AROUND THE WORLD

Ghana is one of all too many countries where homophobic and transphobic politicians, backed by anti-rights actors from the United States, are pushing discriminatory, hate-fueled legislation to deny even the most basic rights of citizenship to LGBTQI+ people. These laws, whether proposed or actually passed and enacted, all increase anti-LGBTQI+ stigma and violence.

CGE is coordinating closely with activists in Ghana urging President Akufo-Addo to veto the draconian bill passed by Parliament in February; with movement leaders in Uganda petitioning for the Supreme Court there to overturn last year’s Anti-Homosexuality Act; and with advocates in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa working hard to prevent passage of similar bills in their own country.

We also continue to lobby our partners in the U.S. government, at the World Bank, and in like-minded countries to keep up the pressure and not let homophobic and transphobic politicians think they can get away with restricting the fundamental human rights of a vulnerable community. CGE especially appreciates the termination of Uganda’s AGOA status and calls for Ghana’s status to be revoked as well should the new law go into effect. We were also very pleased to see the Treasury Department levy sanctions against the director of Uganda’s prison system:

“Members of vulnerable groups, including government critics and members of Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community, have been beaten and held without access to legal counsel; for example, in a 2020 case, the UPS [Uganda Prisons Systems] denied a group of LGBTQI+ persons access to their lawyers and members of the group reportedly endured physical abuse, including a forced anal examination and scalding.”

This is only the second-known use of Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against a perpetrator for committing human rights violations against LGBTQI+ people, a strategy CGE has long urged Treasury to deploy. We likewise applaud the denial of a visa to Ugandan MP Sarah Opendi (and apparently to many other Ugandan MPs), who called for the castration of gay men and who has been one of the leading supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

For a deeper dive into the homophobic and transphobic campaigns across the Continent, we encourage you to read our think piece, “Ubuntu for LGBTQI+ Africans,” which argues:

The proliferation of anti-LGBTQI+ laws in Africa constitutes a perilous trend that imperils the lives and freedoms of countless individuals, placing the continent at a disadvantage. These laws contravene fundamental human rights principles, while also undermining democracy and the rule of law. It is imperative that African governments take decisive action to repeal these harmful and discriminatory laws while actively promoting equality and human rights for all.

Meanwhile, Russia continues to push the template for authoritarian regimes using eliminationist tactics as a tool promote the broader suppression of dissent and independent civil society. Building upon the 2013 and 2022 so-called “propaganda” laws, the Russian Supreme Court declared “the international LGBT movement” to be “an extremist organization,” thus conflating any pro-LGBTQI+ statements with terrorism. Already, one woman has been jailed for wearing rainbow earrings under the new court ruling, and earlier in March, two employees of a gay bar were charged with “extremism” for organizing and hosting drag shows. CGE is continuing to partner with Russian LGBTQI+ activists to draw attention to the crisis facing the country’s queer community, and we are urging U.S. government partners to use all tools possible to prevent copycat legislation in other countries as was the case for the “propaganda” laws.

In Central Asia, the Biden Administration is seeking to develop closer security partnerships and economic relationships with the five former Soviet republics strategically located between Russia, China, and Afghanistan. As it does so, we continue to press our Administration partners to insist that improving the abysmal situation for LGBTQI+ people and for human rights and civil society more broadly in Central Asia must go hand-in-hand with closer trade ties.

THE WAR IN GAZA AND ISRAEL

More than five months since the catastrophic attacks of October 7^th, CGE continues to mourn the pain and suffering from those brutally victimized by Hamas, as well as the Palestinian civilians who have been harmed and killed in the Israeli response. We call out all attacks on civilian populations as grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law.  

We further call on the U.S. government to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, and to support sufficient and unhindered humanitarian corridors to Gaza to prevent greater harm to civilians. We urge the United States to ensure that U.S. military and financial support are not used for the collective, retaliatory punishment of Palestinians, including journalists, children, and other vulnerable groups. We also call on the U.S. government to work for a negotiated release of all the hostages currently in Gaza as an immediate priority. 

CGE Co-Chair Julie Dorf published her own personal reflections on the war, having grown up in a “staunchly Zionist environment,” visiting Israel and Palestine numerous times, and wrestling over the years with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, pinkwashing, war and oppression, and what justice can look like. We likewise encourage you to share her essay and offer your own observations.

EMBASSY GUIDE

In our fall 2023 newsletter, we spotlighted the updated and expanded edition of CGE’s Accessing U.S. Embassies: A Guide for LGBTQI+ Human Rights Defenders, our resource for helping international partners understand and access U.S. embassies and missions and build and maintain productive working relationships with U.S. diplomatic and development staff around the world. This guide, originally released in English in June, is now also available in Spanish, French, and Arabic as well.

CELEBRATING OUR PARTNERS

To wind down on a happy note: we’ve just celebrated some amazing LBTQ+ activists for International Women’s Day, and we’re preparing to recognize equally remarkable trans and nonbinary advocates for Transgender Day of Visibility later this week.

While the forces pitted against equality and human rights for LGBTQI+ communities are growing stronger and more connected in many regions of the world, we also saw two heartwarming victories for marriage equality in Japan earlier this month. And as CGE member organization Amnesty International noted, “[b]y recognizing that the government’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, these rulings make clear that such discrimination has no place in Japanese society.” Equality, too, is on the march and discrimination has no place in any society, we just have to remember to look for it and celebrate it, even as we fight back against the forces of hate and extremism.

U.S. Sanctions Ugandan Prison Official for LGBTQI+ Abuses

December 8, 2023 – The Treasury Department today announced an international package of human rights sanctions in recognition of the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Human Rights Day on December 10.  In a groundbreaking move, one of the specific sanctions designations included Johnson Byabashaija, the Commissioner General of the Uganda Prisons Service (UPS), for the abuse of LGBTQI+ prisoners under his supervision.

In designating Byabashaija, Treasury notes, “Prisoners have reported being tortured and beaten by UPS staff and by fellow prisoners at the direction of UPS staff. Members of vulnerable groups, including government critics and members of Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community, have been beaten and held without access to legal counsel; for example, in a 2020 case, the UPS denied a group of LGBTQI+ persons access to their lawyers and members of the group reportedly endured physical abuse, including a forced anal examination and scalding.”

The Council for Global Equality welcomes this announcement. Our coalition has long urged the Biden Administration to announce targeted sanctions under the authority of the Global Magnitsky Act for Ugandan officials who are complicit in the persecution of LGBTQI+ persons, including under the country’s draconian new Anti-Homosexuality Act. To our knowledge, this is only Treasury’s second named sanctions designation of foreign officials for LGBTQI+-specific human rights violations, following the 2017 designations of Chechnya’s dictator and director of prisons for the torture of LGBTQI+ prisoners there. Based on today’s sanctions announcement, any property owned by Byabashaija in the United States is subject to seizure, and he and his family will be denied visas to the United States.

Today’s announcement also has three additional features that are important. To begin, it is the first U.S. government sanctions designation that recognizes the use of forced anal exams as a serious human rights violation. The practice – widely discredited as both forensically useless and a form of torture — is used in Uganda and elsewhere to gather bogus “evidence” to prosecute people for criminal violations of anti-homosexuality laws. As such, this sets an important precedent in recognizing forced anal exams as human rights violations that are sanctionable under U.S. law.

Second, the designation was issued against Byabashaija for his “command responsibility” for human rights violations, including torture, committed in Ugandan prisons. The designation states that “Byabashaija is being designated for being a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of an entity, including any government entity, that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuse relating to the leader’s or official’s tenure.” This theory of command responsibility for the abuse of LGBTQI+ persons in prison, including for forced anal exams, should put prison officials and other government leaders across Uganda and in many other countries on notice. We trust that this will be just the first of many additional sanction designations for similar practices committed in Uganda and beyond.

Third, the announcement today “notes recent attempts by the Uganda Prisons Service to implement human rights-related measures, but these measures fall short. Should Byabashaija implement effective measures to eliminate torture and impunity, increase independent human rights monitoring, ban forced anal examinations and other forms of abuse used to target LGBTQI+ persons and others, ensure protections for vulnerable persons and groups, and improve overall prison conditions, the Department of the Treasury will consider those to be changes of behavior that would potentially result in his removal from the SDN List.” The inclusion of that additional prescriptive language sends a strong statement, setting out our sanctions regime as another U.S. foreign policy tool being leveraged to end the practice of forced anal exams. 

Today’s sanctions announcement follows a broader visa ban announced by the State Department earlier this week for officials who are involved in the repression of the LGBTQI+ community. Because those visa bans are being implemented under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act and not the Global Magnitsky Act, the State Department cannot name the specific targets, although many parliamentarians in Uganda reportedly assume that they are on that visa ban list as well. It also follows the recent decision to terminate Uganda’s preferential trade status in the United States because of its repression of the LGBTQI+ community.

As Ugandan advocates launch their constitutional challenge against the Anti-Homosexuality Act in court this month, and as we celebrate International Human Rights Day this weekend, we hope this sanctions designation sends an important message that LGBTQI+ rights are human rights — in Uganda, in the United States and everywhere else where LGBTQI+ people are being scapegoated and persecuted by officials in violation of the most basic principles adopted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 75 years ago.

Ubuntu for LGBTQI+ Africans

In recent years, several African nations have enacted legislation to expand the criminalization of homosexuality. These laws pose a grave threat to the lives and freedoms of LGBTQI+ individuals across the continent. These laws not only contravene fundamental human rights principles but also erode democratic values and the rule of law, perpetuating stigma and discrimination against marginalized communities. Notable cases of such anti-LGBTQI+ legislation include Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria, with far-reaching consequences for both LGBTQI+ individuals and the overall socio-political landscape of these nations.

Following the passage of one of the world’s most punitive anti-LGBTQI+ laws in Uganda, Kenyan Member of Parliament George Kaluma commended Uganda’s efforts, ominously signaling Kenya’s intent to embark on a similar path. Despite the existence of colonial-era penal codes already criminalizing homosexuality — codes that remain prevalent in post-colonial societies, especially among Commonwealth members — lawmakers in numerous African countries are unwavering in their pursuit of extending the criminalization of LGBTQI+ activities. This endeavor seeks to suppress any advancements made by the LGBTQI+ community and forestall the recognition of rights based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

For many LGBTQI+ individuals in these countries, who already endure hostile environments due to religious intolerance, disinformation about their identities, threats of violence from non-state actors, and state-sanctioned discriminatory legislation, the escalation of criminalization compounds an already precarious situation. In Uganda, the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Act was enacted in 2014, imposing life imprisonment for same-sex acts. Although subsequently overturned by the constitutional court on procedural grounds, the damage had been done. LGBTQI+ individuals were subjected to harassment, violence, and discrimination, with many fleeing the country in fear. Even after the law’s repeal, the government continued its crackdown on LGBTQI+ rights, leading to the arrest and intimidation of activists. Tragically, Uganda’s president signed an even more oppressive anti-LGBTQI+ law this year, exacerbating the plight of community members and prompting the still-unfolding mass exodus of LGBTQI+ individuals facing an uncertain future.

Regrettably, Uganda’s situation has had a ripple effect on neighboring East African nations. Despite the harsh conditions reported in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, it continues to shelter many LGBTQI+ individuals fleeing Uganda, hoping for a better life through resettlement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, Kenyan lawmakers are currently pushing for even more severe anti-LGBTQI+ legislation. Kenya has an extensive history of anti-LGBTQI+ laws, with the penal code prescribing penalties of up to 14 years in prison for same-sex activity. In 2019, the country’s high court upheld this law, citing cultural and religious beliefs. LGBTQI+ individuals in Kenya face daily discrimination and violence, with many living in secrecy. Kenyan lawmakers seeking to expand criminalization and enact new anti-LGBTQI+ legislation aim to emulate Uganda’s repression, further marginalizing LGBTQI+ refugees.

Ghana has also witnessed a surge in anti-LGBTQI+ sentiment, culminating in a new bill that criminalizes same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ advocacy; as of this writing, this bill has passed the first of three required readings. This legislation has garnered widespread condemnation from human rights groups and activists who assert that it flagrantly violates basic human rights and undermines Ghana’s democratic and legal foundations. Nevertheless, many proponents of this draconian law have received significant support in a country where LGBTQI+ individuals are socially isolated and often scapegoated for political gain. Ghana’s predicament is not isolated, as Africa grapples with a continent-wide trend of expanding criminalization spearheaded by both local policymakers and well-funded lobbies from the Global North.

Similarly, Nigerian lawmakers have successfully enacted the anti-same-sex marriage prohibition act (SSMPA), another one of the harshest anti-LGBTQI+ laws on the continent, imposing penalties of up to 14 years in prison for same-sex activities. Like Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya, Nigeria’s colonial-era penal code already criminalized same-sex marriage and other activities deemed “against the order of nature.” LGBTQI+ individuals in Nigeria face daily discrimination and violence, often living in fear or exile. However, since the implementation of SSMPA, violence and state-sanctioned arrests continue to escalate, leaving many LGBTQI+ people living in constant fear, hindering public health efforts to provide them with essential information, treatment, and care.

The ramifications of Nigeria’s situation have had adverse effects on neighboring countries where LGBTQI+ individuals already face criminalization. Reports of violence against LGBTQ+ people are on the rise in West Africa, with some incidents documented on social media to incite fear within the community. Cameroon has also witnessed a recent surge in violence against the LGBTQI+ community, rendering many transgender individuals in particular unable to seek refuge in Nigeria.

At a fundamental level, these laws not only contravene basic human rights principles but also subvert democracy and the rule of law, perpetuating stigma and discrimination against an already marginalized community. They fragment local communities, encourage vigilantism, leading to mob violence and injustice, and run counter to the principles of inclusive development necessary for fostering thriving and prosperous societies. Furthermore, these laws have a chilling effect on civil society and the media, which often face intimidation and harassment when speaking out against them.

The efforts to expand criminalization — and, indeed, the perpetuation of existing colonial-era penal codes throughout much of Africa — run counter to the essence of Ubuntu, the concept often championed by Nelson Mandela. At its core, Ubuntu signifies reciprocity, the common good, peaceful relations, the primacy of human dignity, and the sanctity of human life, along with tolerance, and mutual respect.

Last month, on August 8, the World Bank announced a suspension of new public financing for Uganda until the effectiveness of measures implemented in response to Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act has been evaluated. While existing projects and funding will continue, this measure signifies a temporary halt on new projects pending a satisfactory outcome. Critics, including the Ugandan government, have accused the Bank of imperialism, ignoring the Bank’s anti-discrimination rules adopted after its Safeguards review, encompassed within the Environmental & Social Framework for IPF Operations, particularly those pertaining to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI). The Bank’s stance is unequivocal: discriminatory laws and policies are at odds with its core values and impede efforts to enhance the lives of ordinary Ugandans.

The success of international development initiatives hinges on the inclusion of all, irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. This holds true not just for Uganda but for every nation dedicated to improving the well-being of its populace. Thus, these countries must urgently repeal their anti-homosexuality laws and refrain from further endeavors to expand criminalization to ensure the continued success of their public health programs and overall development.

The U.S. government has signaled its intent to respond in kind. Following Uganda’s enactment of the AHA, President Biden swiftly indicated a review of Uganda’s eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), along with potential sanctions and entry restrictions to the United States. Simultaneously, the Council for Global Equality (CGE) urged the Biden administration to halt funding for the homophobic government and other entities, impose individual sanctions on those responsible for the draconian law in Uganda, and provide direct support to endangered members of the Ugandan LGBTQI+ community. Similar appeals have been made by various domestic and international organizations, aligning with local Ugandan groups’ demands.

Furthermore, it is fallacious to argue that anti-LGBTQI+ laws are seldom enforced and therefore pose minimal risks and dangers. The laws are being actively enforced — as thoroughly documented by Ugandan activists. Moreover, the moral panic, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial violence, widespread fear, and chaos ensuing after the enactment of new anti-LGBTQI+ laws bear testament to their immediate adverse impact and the hostile environment they foster, a deliberate outcome sought by the proponents of such laws.

Additionally, the assertion that African countries face complex challenges like poverty, thus relegating LGBTQI+ issues as low priorities, is equally misguided. While it is true that Africa confronts multifaceted challenges, governments must avoid exacerbating the vulnerabilities of those most affected by these issues. According to the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), inequalities not only harm individuals but also hinder progress against AIDS, reducing the efficacy of HIV investments and jeopardizing millions of lives.

The phenomenon of “brain drain” resulting from these inequalities is particularly significant. Many LGBTQI+ youth are uprooting their lives, leaving their home countries in search of safety, acceptance, and opportunities to thrive as their authentic selves. Some have no other choice but to flee and seek refugee protection abroad if they hope to survive to adulthood. The specific economic and developmental ramifications of this brain drain on African nations remain uncertain due to the absence of comprehensive data. Nevertheless, some estimates suggest that Africa incurs approximately $2.0 billion in annual losses through brain drain in the health sector alone.

As more African youths depart the continent in droves for various reasons, including persecution based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, this trend undermines Africa’s development efforts and is unsustainable. As Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, aptly notes, “the future of Africa’s youth does not lie in migration to Europe; it should not be at the bottom of the Mediterranean; it lies in a prosperous Africa.” To achieve developmental goals despite the challenges, Africa must harness the potential of all its citizens and create a secure, inclusive society that welcomes everyone, including vulnerable groups like LGBTQI+ individuals.

To genuinely uphold democracy and the rule of law, African governments must repeal these harmful and discriminatory laws. They must also take concrete actions to protect the rights of all individuals, irrespective of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This entails addressing discrimination and violence against LGBTQI+ individuals, promoting education and awareness about LGBTQI+ issues, and ensuring the freedom of civil society and the media to advocate against discrimination while championing equality and human rights. Collaboration with international development partners is crucial to ensuring that no one is left behind, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

The proliferation of anti-LGBTQI+ laws in Africa constitutes a perilous trend that imperils the lives and freedoms of countless individuals, placing the continent at a disadvantage. These laws contravene fundamental human rights principles, while also undermining democracy and the rule of law. It is imperative that African governments take decisive action to repeal these harmful and discriminatory laws while actively promoting equality and human rights for all.

Global Equality Today (September 2023)

Happy Autumn! (Almost)

True, neither the calendar nor the temperatures in D.C. quite reflect that fall is upon us. But we’re already diving into what will certainly be a very busy season here in Washington. CGE and its 35 member organizations are hard at work engaging our partners in the Administration and on Capitol Hill to ensure that U.S. foreign policy consistently and comprehensively promotes LGBTQI+ human rights around the world.

There are plenty of challenges in front of us, from the possibility of a government shutdown, the PEPFAR reauthorization stalemate, and the distractions of the 2024 election cycle to a flood of viciously anti-LGBTQI+ legislative efforts, not only here in the United States but in dozens of other countries as well.

But we are not approaching our mission from a defensive posture, no matter how well-organized the movement to roll back the human rights of LGBTQI+ people — and democracy and civil society at large — might be. Instead, with sixteen months to go in this first Biden Administration, we are focused on institutionalizing our victories and expanding our pro-human rights agenda:

• Alongside HRC, we are working with our Hill allies calling for the President’s Budget request to include $40 million for the State Department’s Global Equality Fund (GEF) and $30 million for USAID’s Inclusive Development Hub’s Protection of LGBTQI+ Persons in the FY2025 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bills. We are also partnering with numerous allies in the HIV and SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) movements to pass a clean PEPFAR reauthorization, even in the face of unprecedented attacks from the anti-abortion movement.

• CGE — in collaboration with Rainbow Railroad, ORAM, Immigration Equality, and IRAP, all CGE members — is working with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration to ensure that the Biden Administration’s direct referral and private sponsorship mechanisms for refugees are both fully LGBTQI+-inclusive and fully operational. This includes promoting Rainbow Railroad’s referrals to  the new Welcome Corps program that will allow local groups to sponsor LGBTQI+ refugees to bring them to safety in the United States. (You can read more in our World Refugee Day blog.)

• We are excited by USAID’s release of its revised and expanded LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development Policy, and we are looking forward to collaborating with USAID’s Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator, Jay Gilliam, and his team to make sure that LGBTQI+ concerns are truly incorporated throughout the Agency’s work. To that end, we’ve added meetings with USAID’s regional and thematic bureaus to our annual meetings with State’s regional bureaus. And we are supporting the development of a new accountability mechanism at USAID to ensure that any violations of this groundbreaking new policy — or any other USAID policies ­— are reported and addressed at the local level.  

• We are working hard with Ugandan activists on the ground and with a global solidarity coalition organizing to overturn the horrific Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) assented to by President Museveni in May. The law has a genocidal intent and is already being implemented to disastrous effect. We are simultaneously working with regional colleagues to prevent the passage of similar anti-LGBTQI+ bills in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya. Likewise, we are monitoring the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, where anti-LGBTQI+ legislation is pending and attacks on the LGBTQI+ communities are escalating, notably in Lebanon and Iraq.

• As part of our work fighting the AHA in Uganda, CGE met with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to call for the suspension of Uganda from AGOA, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which provides preferential trade benefits for qualifying countries. The AHA — the most draconian anti-LGBTQI+ law in the world — clearly contravenes the human rights requirements of the program, as well as the goals and ideals that animate the AGOA trade framework. CGE also has submitted public comments on Uganda, Kenya, and Ghana — in the latter two cases, with the goal of building pressure to scrap proposed anti-LGBTQI+ laws there — and will continue to work with our partners in the Administration and on the Hill to use U.S. trade policy as a tool to promote human rights.

CGE Co-Chairs Julie Dorf and Mark Bromley with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, center.

• We will continue to work with U.S., European, and Central Asian partners to push Uzbekistan for full decriminalization of homosexuality and the immediate end to the pervasive human rights violations committed against Uzbekistan’s LGBTQI+ community by state and non-state actors. This spring and summer, CGE and its partners have been meeting regularly with Congressional partners to promote this priority and to oppose rewarding Tashkent with normal trade relations without improving its human rights record. As Senators Murphy and Young introduce legislation to repeal Jackson-Vanik trade restrictions on Uzbekistan and its neighbors, we call on Congress and the Administration to ensure that human rights standards — including the decriminalization of homosexuality — are part of the trade normalization process.

Looking over the last few months, our work has included…

• CGE released an updated and expanded edition of Accessing U.S. Embassies: A Guide for LGBTQI+ Human Rights Defenders, our resource for helping international partners understand and access U.S. embassies and missions and build and maintain productive working relationships with U.S. diplomatic and development staff in around the world. This guide, released in English in June, will soon be available in Spanish, French, and Arabic as well.

• In May, CGE Co-Chair Mark Bromley attended the inaugural meeting of the P7 (for “Pride7”) that brought together LGBTQI+ advocates from the world’s leading industrial democracies to lobby the G7 alliance to promote LGBTQI+ human rights. The P7 meeting, ahead of the full G7 summit in Hiroshima, helped win support for passage of Japan’s first-ever LGBTQI+ rights legislation (as incomplete as the law may be) as well as lay the groundwork for the P7 becoming an officially recognized civil society engagement group attached to the G7.

CGE Co-Chair Mark Bromley joins other advocates at the inaugural meeting of the P7 in Tokyo

• At a June reception, CGE honored former Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) with our Global Equality Award shortly after he left Congress to lead the Rhode Island Foundation. We had the opportunity to talk with Rep. Cicilline about his leadership with the Congressional Equality Caucus and the Foreign Affairs Committee, the progress we’ve made during his dozen years in Congress, and the opportunities we see and the challenges we’re facing. Additionally, Ambassador Ursu Viorel of Moldova spoke powerfully about being the first openly LGBTQI+ Ambassador from a former Soviet republic and his country’s fundamental commitment to democracy and human rights — even as Russia wages war next door in Ukraine.

Top: former Rep. David Cicilline accepts the Global Equality Award

Bottom: Amb. Ursu Viorel of Moldova speaks to the reception

• In May, we spoke with Alexander Voronov, Executive Director of Coming Out, an NGO that provides legal, psychological, and other direct services to Russia’s LGBTQI+ community. Alex spoke about Coming Out’s continuing work, even in the face of the worsening crackdown on dissent in Putin’s Russia following the invasion of Ukraine — a crackdown that forced him to leave the country and function from exile.

• For IDAHOBIT, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia, we welcomed the U.S. government’s rollout of its Interagency Action Plan dedicated to ending so-called “conversion therapy” (CTP) practices around the world. With this plan, the U.S. government has committed itself to the numerous partnerships necessary to stop these abusive practices. This includes working with LGBTQI+ community groups around the world; with like-minded allies and other partner governments; and with faith leaders, educators, professional associations, and other civil society networks. The U.S. government also plans to work to end CTPs at various multilateral fora, including the development banks and international institutions to which the United States is a party, to ensure that no financial or programmatic support, direct or otherwise, goes towards CTPs.

• For Pride in June — knowing how easy it is to focus on the backlash and the battles we’re fighting — we published a list of 23 recent victories in the movement for LGBTQI+ justice and human rights. We also reiterated how Pride marches are both expressions of fundamental rights to democratic participation and tools for promoting inclusivity, visibility, and acceptance. CGE staff also attended the annual State Department and USAID Pride receptions, meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Administrator Samantha Power, respectively.

Co-Chair Julie Dorf and CGE member leaders meet with Secretary of State Blinken, left

• Additionally, at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, CGE promotes accountability and investments that support LGBTQI+-inclusive development. CGE staff helped organize several World Bank meetings over the summer that ultimately led to the freezing of new investments in Uganda following the adoption of the AHA.

Revoke Uganda’s AGOA Benefits Now

June 22, 2023 – The Council for Global Equality met this month with Ambassador Katherine Tai, the U.S. Trade Representative, to call for the suspension of Uganda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which provides duty-free trade access to U.S. markets for qualifying African countries. The appeal is based on the severe and still-escalating persecution of the country’s LGBTQI+ community.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed into law in May the most draconian piece of legislation targeting LGBTQI+ individuals anywhere in the world, a law that requires reporting of suspected LGBTQI+ persons and creates the legal foundations for mass atrocities. The new law significantly increases already harsh criminal penalties to life in prison or death, and it now even criminalizes those who advocate for the rights of LGBTQI+ persons with 20 years in prison and even those who rent housing or local accommodations to them with 7 years in prison. Under the law, corporations now must report suspected LGBTQI+ employees and customers to the authorities for criminal investigation. This new legal framework is genocidal in its intent, and it clearly contravenes the ideals that animate the AGOA trade framework.

Initially enacted in 2000 to support economic growth and development in Africa, AGOA qualifying countries must demonstrate progress in developing market-based economic policies, securing the rule of law, combating corruption, and protecting human rights. Countries that qualify automatically receive preferential trade access to U.S. markets. But the qualifications are intended to be strict. President Biden terminated preferential benefits in December 2021 for Ethiopia and Mali on human rights grounds, and several other countries have previously been terminated on rule of law grounds. Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Eritrea also remain suspended over human rights concerns.

The Council welcomes President Biden’s statement after the Ugandan law was signed that the Administration will consider the impact of the law in its review of Uganda’s AGOA eligibility. Senator Ron Wyden, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has also called on President Biden “to immediately suspend Uganda’s AGOA benefits, and work with our allies to remove similar benefits until Uganda repeals its cruel anti-LGBTQI+ law and improves its record on human rights, corruption and rule of law.” In April, Senator Wyden also wrote to Ambassador Tai and Secretary Antony Blinken with a similar request.

The ban on duty-free imports from Uganda would likely have the most impact in the coffee sector. Coffee bean sales represent the country’s second-largest source of foreign exchange income. It will also send a clear signal to investors and international markets: the message that Uganda is not open for business. Indeed, to emphasize that point, Secretary Blinken has directed the State Department to update U.S. travel and investment warnings for American citizens and U.S. businesses in the context of the new law.

Now is the time for the Biden Administration to stand firmly for human rights and the LGBTQI+ community in Uganda by terminating all of the country’s benefits under AGOA.

World Refugee Day: Hope Away From Home

Refugees and immigrants looking for a new life. Column of migrants near the state borders. Fence and barbed wire. Surveillance, supervised. Abandon their lands for a better future. 3d render. Silhouette

Today, June 20, marks World Refugee Day when we celebrate the resilience and courage of those people forced to flee their home due to persecution, conflict, climate change, and other catastrophic crises.

While both the U.S. and global mechanisms of refuge, migration, and asylum are badly broken for all in flight, LGBTQI+ refugees escaping homophobia and transphobia along with these other threats face especially grave dangers — not only in their home countries but from some transit countries, from fellow refugees, and from international refugee systems often unable and sometimes unwilling to address the particular risks facing LGBTQI+ refugees.

Globally, there are more than 108 million forcibly displaced persons, according to the UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency. That’s up more than 250% in the last ten years. Put another way, if all those refugees made up a single country, that country would rank 13^th in population in the world, coming in just after Mexico, Japan, and the Philippines.

We don’t have reliable figures for how many LGBTQI+ refugees there are, as U.S. and international refugee agencies do not have systems in place to consistently track this data. In some cases, that speaks to officials not taking seriously the specific dangers facing LGBTQI+ refugees; in other cases, well-intentioned, legitimate concerns about the safety facing LGBTQI+ refugees become the grounds for not taking any action at all.

But we do know, for example, that one organization alone, Rainbow Railroad, received nearly 10,000 inquiries in 2022 regarding possible emergency resettlement and related services for LGBTQI+ refugees. Since the beginning of 2023, Rainbow Railroad has received yet another 4100+ such inquiries.

We know that hundreds of LGBTQI+ individuals in the Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya live in fear of being attacked or even killed, with many of them having survived physical and sexual violence, according to a report last month from Amnesty International and the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) of Kenya.

As Irungu Houghton, Amnesty International Kenya’s Executive Director, explained, “Despite a constitution that protects life and dignity for all, LGBTI asylum seekers suffer discrimination as well as homophobic and transphobic attitudes from government officials, the police and other service providers. This is often reflected in delays to the processing of their asylum claims, harassment, violent homophobic attacks, threats, and intimidation, and extremely limited opportunities for local integration or third-country resettlement.”

Speaking to the Washington Blade last week, Kieynan Gant described how “We are often forced to hide our true selves and live in isolation, unable to express ourselves or form meaningful relationships. Some have even been forced into marriages with people of the opposite sex against their will. … Our efforts [to raise awareness of these issues and demand better treatment for LGBTQI+ refugees] have been met with resistance and hostility from some of the other refugees in the camp who view our sexuality as a threat to their cultural and religious values.”

In recent years, some of the LGBTQI+ refugees in Kenya originally fled from Uganda. The recent passage of Uganda’s horrific Anti-Homosexuality Act has generated a sharp surge in LGBTQI+ refugees fleeing their country, with Rainbow Railroad receiving nearly 500 requests for help from Ugandans even before President Museveni signed the bill into law late last month.

The queer refugee crisis is hardly limited to East Africa. We continue to see a steady stream of LGBTQI+ people fleeing Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, the Caribbean, and other regions torn by war, extremist regimes, and pervasive homophobia and transphobia. LGBTQI+ Ukrainians fleeing the Russian war have encountered discrimination and harassment upon arriving in Poland and other neighboring countries, with same-sex couples and transgender refugees facing especially heightened risk for hostile treatment.

Likewise, Rainbow Railroad, Amnesty International, and other CGE members receive regular requests for emergency resettlement from LGBTQI+ Afghans sheltering in Pakistan, where their experiences illustrate the homophobia and transphobia that so many queer refugees face in transit countries.

In today’s World Refugee Day statement from the White House, President Biden reiterated his Administration’s promise to rebuild the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and to welcome 125,000 refugees next year. So far, however, the United States has only admitted just under 32,000 refugees this year, a pace well under the White House’s ambitious goals.

We call on Washington to follow in Ottawa’s lead and establish a direct referral program comparable to the landmark partnership just announced between Rainbow Railroad and the Canadian government. The United States needs to enable organizations like Rainbow Railroad that have full competency in LGBTQI+ refugee issues to refer such at-risk individuals for resettlement here.

We further applaud the U.S. government’s rollout of the Welcome Corps private sponsorship program, and we strongly encourage the various government agencies involved in resettlement work to ensure that at-risk LGBTQI+ refugees are indeed referred to approved private sponsorship organizations such as Rainbow Railroad.

This year’s theme for World Refugee Day is “Hope Away From Home: A World Where Refugees Are Always Included.” This must, of course, include all refugees, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. And we do see hope amidst this challenging work, as in the story of Ahmed, a bisexual refugee in Kenya. Ahmed, a bisexual refugee, has been working with ORAM — like Rainbow Railroad and Amnesty International, ORAM is a CGE member organization working to support LGBTQI+ refugees. After fleeing death threats in his native country and then experiencing discrimination in Jordan, his first transit country, Ahmed is now taking part in ORAM’s economic empowerment program in Kenya. With seed funding from ORAM, Ahmed launched a small business charging mobile devices, allowing him to get back on his feet and to support other LGBTQI+ refugees.

While U.S. and international refugee systems need comprehensive, LGBTQI+-inclusive reforms and funding, we do want to take a moment to celebrate Ahmed’s resilience and that of all queer refugees who have found safety and security, even as we work together to make sure that hope away from home is a reality, not just a dream, for so many more.

A Rainbow or a Shadow over the White House Summit for Democracy II?

by Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, Mark Bromley, Erin Hallenbeck, and Erin Maxwell

On March 29 and 30, more than 100 invited countries will convene in Washington for the second White House Summit for Democracy. Attending nations are expected to share democratic values and norms and embrace fundamental universal human rights principles. However, many have failed to do so, especially when it comes to protecting some of their most vulnerable citizens: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people.

In fact, 60% of invited countries have earned a failing grade on the 2022 LGBTQI+ Human Rights Report Cards (HRRCs).  The report cards, created by the F&M Global Barometers in partnership with  The Council for Global Equality, measure the extent to which countries provide legislative protection for their LGBTQI+ citizens. Countries are scored on three dimensions: Basic Rights, Protection from Violence, and Socio-Economic Rights. The 30 items of the report card grade countries from an A for “Excellent” (90-100%) to an F for “Failing” (0-59%).

Only four of the 100+ Summit attendees received an A score for “Excellent”: Malta, Greece, Canada, and Uruguay. Malaysia and Nigeria have the unenviable distinction of earning zero on their report cards, while Dominica, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Maldives, Senegal, Solomon Islands, and Tonga all follow closely behind at 3%. Overall, 47 Summit countries improved their LGBTQI+ score from 2020, while eleven countries experienced a decline in their HRRC scores. 52 countries experienced no change over the two-year period.

Angola and Barbados saw significant improvements, including a 30% increase in Angola’s score, which reflects both countries’ decriminalization of same-sex relationships and the related improvements in the security context. Chile saw a 20% increase and the United States a 17% rise because of Chile’s introduction of same-sex marriage and the improved legal landscape for trans, intersex, and non-binary citizens in both countries.

Recent attacks on LGBTQI+ people have cast an ominous shadow over the year of action and the invited democracies. Transgender rights are under attack across the United States. (Indeed, the improved U.S. score reflects improvements at the federal level even as state legislatures are debating and, far too often, passing hundreds of transphobic bills.) Ghana, which already criminalizes homosexuality, has a cross-party group of MPs advancing a bill that would criminalize gender identity and intersex corrective therapy and imprison any person or group seen as promoting LGBTQI+ identities. In Zambia, one of the five countries that will host regional meetings of the Summit for Democracy on March 30, four women were recently arrested for “holding a march against gender-based violence that police claim was used to ‘champion homosexuality.’” Zambia earned a grade of 7% from 2020 to 2022 on the HRRCs. Lawmakers in Kenya have proposed a dangerous anti-LGBTQI+ bill that is suspiciously similar to Ghana.  And Uganda didn’t earn an invitation to the Summit for Democracy, but its parliament just passed one of the most aggressive anti-LGBTQI+ bills anywhere, which awaits its president’s signature.  

Still, there are other notable advances. Nine countries instituted a ban on so-called gay conversion therapy, and eight countries strengthened their freedom from arbitrary arrest based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Gender identity and intersex rights have also improved in several places: Chile banned medically unnecessary, non-consensual surgical interventions and New Zealand removed barriers to legal gender recognition. While Kenya maintains its criminalization of homosexuality, it passed a landmark ruling in 2022 that granted equal rights and recognition to intersex people.

Legislation is not the sole indicator of how successful a country has been in protecting its most vulnerable citizens, but it is an important first step in guaranteeing that LGBTQI+ individuals have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. If countries believe in democracy, they cannot ignore legislative protections for their LGBTQI+ citizens, which are a baseline safety net to ensure that LGBTQI+ individuals have an opportunity to participate as equal citizens in their country’s democracy. When 25 participants in the Summit still criminalize homosexuality, and thus deny full rights to a vulnerable set of citizens, how can they be truly considered to be democratic?

However, democracy, citizenship, and human rights are not only about laws. What happens when we compare the lived LGBTQI+ human rights reality with the legislative reality?  Based on a six-question survey launched in the summer of 2022, the F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) is the first truly global study of the lived human rights reality of the LGBTQI+ community worldwide. The survey focuses on safety, acceptance, police harassment, violence, safety in gathering, and discrimination. The survey measures the global LGBTQI+ population and the magnitude of the responses (over 167,000), and in doing so, it reveals the lived realities of LGBTQI+ people as juxtaposed with the legislative reality.

For example, although both Ghana and the United States earned a grade of “F” on their Report Cards, Ghana scored 34% on the GBPI and the United States scored a 70%. Malta scored a 100% (A), but its GBPI score was a 79% (C).

In reverse, Japan scored higher on the GBPI (74%) than on the HRRCs – a failing grade of 30% – because Japan has no specific laws in place to protect LGBTQI+ people from violence or socio-economic discrimination. While 30% is not a particularly high mark, it shows that despite the lack of legislative protections, LGBTQI+ people in Japan perceive their realities to be better than the legal protections they are denied.

Comparing perception with the reality of legislation shows that the health of a democracy is closely linked to how a society protects its most vulnerable populations, including LGBTQI+ people. While no country scored an “A” on the GBPI, all of the highest scoring GBPI countries, with the exception of Czechia and Malta, are categorized as “full” democracies according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (2022).

The lowest-scoring nations are considered “flawed” or “hybrid” democracies, with the exception of those not scored by the EIU, and Iraq, which is classified as “authoritarian.” Our data tells us that the healthier the democracy, the better the lived human rights realities for LGBTQI+ individuals. The inverse is equally true: where LGBTQI+ citizens report a greater sense of safety and security, democracy itself is stronger and more inclusive.

We encourage you to watch the March 22 discussion, Advancing Inclusive LGBTQI+ Citizenship Globally, that we hosted with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, featuring Tamara Adrían, a lawyer, professor, and former lawmaker at the National Assembly of Venezuela (2016-2021); Mark Bromley, Co-Chair of the Council for Global Equality; Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. Independent Expert on Protection from Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity; Jessica Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons; and moderator Dan Baer, the Senior Vice President for Policy Research and Director of the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

To view the complete results of the LGBTQI+ Human Rights Report Cards and F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index, visit www.lgbtqiperceptionindex.org.

Giving Voice to LGBTQI+ Africans at the Upcoming U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit

Starting on December 13, the Biden Administration will host leaders from across Africa at a Washington, D.C. summit to promote diplomatic and economic cooperation. The framing of the summit recognizes that Africa is a continent long neglected but teeming with a large and vibrant youth population, where both opportunities and challenges are abundant.

In hosting the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the Biden Administration plainly states that “Africa will shape the future — not just the future of the African people, but of the world. Africa will make the difference in tackling the most urgent challenges and seizing the opportunities we all face.”

One of those challenges, both for the United States and for Africa’s 54 countries, is to recognize that governments are failing their LGBTQI+ citizens.

Legal protections for LGBTQI+ individuals are deficient in all corners of the world, as demonstrated by the Franklin & Marshall College Global Barometers (FMGB), which tracks human rights protections for LGBTQI+ persons in 204 countries and regions. Here in the United States, more than 200 bills were introduced at the state and local level just this year to deny rights to LGBTQI+ individuals. Many of these bills have sought to deny transgender youth access to gender-affirming healthcare or to prevent LGBTQI+ topics from being discussed in public schools. And now, just weeks after a violent attack that left five people dead and dozens injured at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, the Supreme Court will decide if anti-discrimination laws are at odds with the First Amendment.

Our efforts to protect our LGBTQI+ citizens must then be tied with the rest of the world’s and guided by humility. So, as the U.S. prepares to welcome African heads of state, we must remind all parties that the legal reality on the African continent is stark. Every country in North Africa and more than half of those in Sub-Saharan Africa criminalize LGBTQI+ relationships; Mauritania, along with several northern Nigeria states that use shariah law, proscribes the death penalty for same-sex relations. And now, ominously, several more countries are currently debating new laws that would add additional penalties or further deny LGBTQI+ citizens their basic rights to freedoms of association and expression.

There have been recent bright spots to be sure, including a successful court challenge that struck down Botswana’s sodomy law in 2019 as an unconstitutional relic of colonialism. But in many parts of Africa, intolerance is increasing, and new laws designed to further persecute LGBTQI+ individuals are proliferating.

Earlier this year, the Council for Global Equality and the Franklin & Marshall College Global Barometers teamed up to create the Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI)* and measure the lived realities of LGBTQI+ individuals around the world by asking six simple questions about how safe and secure they feel and whether they have experienced discrimination and violence. The results are calculated on a grading scale from 0-100%, with A being the highest and F the lowest.

These results were deeply concerning. No country received an A grade, with Iceland scoring the highest grade of B (86%). The United States scored a C (70%) on our scale. No African country scored above a D, and most African countries scored well within our F range. It must be noted that we were not able to reach enough members of the LGBTQI+ community in several African countries to make the data statistically meaningful, but what data we do have in those countries paints an equally bleak picture.

The GBPI data for Africa reinforce what we’ve long suspected. The African countries with the highest scores on the GBPI, meaning LGBTQI+ citizens in those countries report the highest levels of safety and inclusion, are countries that have decriminalized LGBTQI+ expression: Angola, Botswana, and South Africa. Mauritius comes next, and while homosexuality remains criminalized on the island nation, there is currently an active case challenging the sodomy law before the country’s supreme court. South Africa, which has Africa’s most protective legal landscape and even enshrines in its constitution rights based on sexual orientation, has the continent’s highest perception scores.

It is not a surprise, then, that the reverse also seems to be true. Countries with the worst perception scores — that is, those where LGBTQI+ citizens report the lowest levels of safety and inclusion — are also the countries with recently passed or currently pending laws that increase penalties and further limit the basic rights of LGBTQI+ individuals. These include:

• Ghana, which is debating a draconian new law to criminalize organizations and even average citizens who defend or in any way support LGBTQI+ persons;
• Nigeria, which passed a bill in 2013 that criminalizes LGBTQI+ associations and human rights advocacy as part of a sweeping assault on same-sex marriage; and
• Uganda, which adopted one of the continent’s harshest anti-LGBTQI+ bills in 2014, only to have it struck down by the constitutional court on a technicality. Ugandan authorities then adopted another harsh anti-LGBTQI+ law as part of the Sexual Offences Bill of 2019, and more recently, have banned one of the leading LGBTQI+ organizations in the country and are rumored to be considering a new version of the 2014 “anti-homosexuality” bill.

These recent anti-LGBTQI+ bills pile on new restrictions and harsher sentences in countries that already criminalized their LGBTQI+ citizens. They are, in a sense, recriminalizing already harshly penalized LGBTQI+ communities for domestic political theater.

The case of Ghana is particularly concerning. Ghana scores high marks on most democracy indicators, which usually correlates to a better legal framework for LGBTQI+ communities. But in the case of Ghana, we see the opposite. Anti-LGBTQI+ forces are exploiting a vibrant democratic system to introduce draconian laws that scapegoat LGBTQI+ minorities. If the LGBTQI+ community really is the canary in the coal mine, the future of human rights and democracy in Ghana must surely be questioned.

At next week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, it’s essential to talk about the rights of the continent’s LGBTQI+ citizens. We know how much the words of heads of state matter: whether explicit or implicit, such elite cues play a key role in framing a political culture that either protects or persecutes members of marginalized groups.

So, will LGBTQI+ Africans be embraced as full citizens, fully able to contribute to the social and economic life of their communities? Will their dignity, human potential, and economic contributions be recognized? Or will LGBTQI+ Africans continue to serve as political scapegoats, attacked as convenient cover for the broader assault on democracy and civil society? Will they remain criminalized — or even be recriminalized — under cruel laws grounded in the continent’s colonial past and in the modern-day anti-rights movement?

The answer to these questions will likely be a powerful indicator of the future of Africa — and of the world.

One future leads to a safer and more prosperous continent that is integrated into a global society. The other entrenches dangerous autocracies and democratic decline that will gradually but systematically undermine the rights and opportunities of all citizens, heterosexual and LGBTQI+ alike.

To embrace prosperity and equality, the United States and the 49 African governments that are participating in the Summit  all have a long way to go in providing full citizenship to their LGBTQI+ citizens. This begins by rescinding existing anti-LGBTQI+ laws and preventing the enactment of new ones. But just as importantly, we must listen to the voices of LGBTQI+ persons if we are to build inclusive societies where LGBTQI+ citizens are embraced and encouraged to contribute to vibrant and prosperous democracies.

*The full results of the Global Barometers Perception Index (GBPI) are forthcoming in early 2023 and will be available on www.lgbtqiperceptionindex.org. To view the Global Barometers of Gay Rights (GBGR) and the Global Barometer of Transgender Rights (GBTR), visit www.fandmglobalbarometers.org. For questions about the F&M Global Barometers, please contact gbgr@fandm.edu.

The above graph illustrates the LGBTQI+ lived realities based on Questions 1, 3, and 4 of the Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) survey. The survey was open for three months from June to September 2022. Specifically, the questions asked LGBTQI+ people how safe they felt living as an LGBTQI+ person in their country; how fearful they felt of being arrested, harassed, or blackmailed by security forces/police because of their LGBTQI+ status; and how likely they were to be a victim of violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

This graph displays the lowest and highest scoring African countries on the Global Barometers Perception Index (GBPI) in comparison with the scores from the Global Barometer of Gay Rights (GBGR) (2020), the Global Barometer of Transgender Rights (GBTR) (2020) and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index (2021). For the GBPI, countries with a response size under 30 were omitted from the data. To learn more about the EIU’s Democracy Index, visit https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021. 

©F&M Global Barometers

Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Tom Malinowski and Ugandan Activist Frank Mugisha Respond to New York Times article “U.S. Support of Gay Rights in Africa May Have Done More Harm Than Good”

To the Editor:

“American Support for Gay Rights May Leave Africans Vulnerable” (front page, Dec. 21) does a disservice to Africans and others around the world defending human rights, including those of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons.

Violence and legislation targeting L.G.B.T.I. persons long predates American engagement on this issue, and the article offers no real evidence that discriminatory laws adopted in recent years are a reaction to American government pressure.

It cites that we have spent more than $700 million to support “gay rights groups and causes” globally when that figure mostly encompasses public health programs that aid a broad range of individuals, including but not limited to L.G.B.T.I. persons.

American policy, which is supported by many countries, is simply to assert that people should not be subject to violence or discrimination simply because of who they are. “Do no harm” is the most important principle guiding our efforts, which are shaped in consultation with local communities.

And these local efforts have often been successful — including a campaign by Ugandans that culminated in the striking down of a repressive anti-L.G.B.T.I. law by their country’s Constitutional Court in 2014. We will continue to stand by those whose only crime is to demand the same human rights as everyone else.

TOM MALINOWSKI
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

_______________________________________________

To the Editor:

The underlying narrative of this article about anti-gay sentiment in Nigeria is that L.G.B.T.I. Africans are pawns of Western interests.

While Uganda is not Nigeria, I have found quite the opposite to be true in my country. The United States government by and large follows our lead before taking action on our behalf. And when security interests are on the line, it often takes significant pressure to get foreign governments to act on any human rights issue.

Here in Uganda, American donors paid attention only when American evangelicals like Scott Lively, Rick Warren and Lou Engle preached vitriol against gays, which prompted Ugandan legislators to propose the death penalty for gays in 2009.

In Uganda, as L.G.B.T.I. people, we sounded the global alarm because lives were at risk with such proposed legislation, and funders waited for instructions from us. We advised the American government on how to minimize harm, and it listened.

There will always be backlash to activism. That is not news.

Instead of elevating the significance of American influence, it would have been better if the article had focused on African politicians who employ any narrative at their disposal — including “neocolonial” ones — to maintain their power at the expense of scapegoated minorities like L.G.B.T.I. people, regardless of what the United States may, or may not, do.

Is there more violence now that L.G.B.T.I. people are more visible in Nigeria and elsewhere? Maybe, but it is homophobia, not funding, that is at fault.

FRANK MUGISHA
Executive Director, Sexual Minorities Uganda
Kampala, Uganda

President Kim’s Clarion Call

Repost from Huffington Post by Maria Burnett (Human Rights Watch)

In February, the World Bank delayed a $90 million loan for health care in Uganda out of concern over its new Anti-Homosexuality Act. Since then, the Constitutional Courtnullified the law for lack of a parliamentary quorum during the vote. But the government quickly filed a notice of appeal. Members of parliament are also pressing to bring the law back to the floor, swearing they can gather the constitutionally-required numbers.

Just as troubling, another law came into force in July that criminalizes even unintentional HIV transmission and requires HIV testing of pregnant women without their consent, and forced disclosure.

In a personal and thought-provoking Washington Post op-ed earlier this year, World Bank President Jim Kim said that discrimination is bad for economies, societies and individuals. It can prevent people from fully participating in the work force and discourage multinational companies from investing or locating activities in countries with discriminatory laws, he said.

Implicit in the message was that discrimination is bad for governments receiving development assistance too. It would appear that President Yoweri Museveni is alsostarting to understand the economic cost of anti-equality policies, but his rhetoric has been inconsistent. The World Bank/International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Washington this week give President Kim a critical opportunity to stand up for these concerns and push Uganda’s government to take meaningful steps to address discrimination in health services.

The frequently reported discrimination in Ugandan health centers against sex workers and gay men discourages people from seeking care. Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, the former health minister, in August admitted to two groups that discrimination exists and that the government is not equipped to monitor or respond to it.

Last week, in a letter to President Kim, 16 Ugandan and international organizations laid out enforceable steps the bank should take to see that discrimination in care for marginalized groups ends before releasing the loan. Steps include requiring the government to prohibit discrimination in healthcare delivery on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and all other grounds articulated under international law, and requiring government health care workers to respect patient confidentiality, privacy and informed consent to all treatment.

The World Bank should also fund activities to promote patients’ rights, including providing patient advocates and legal counsel for people who face discrimination, breach of confidentiality or other abuses in health settings and training for Ugandan health workers to respect these rights. The groups also pressed the bank to urge the government to guarantee that it wouldn’t interfere with independent monitoring of health services.

It is crucial for the World Bank to urge the Ugandan government, publicly and privately, to repeal all discriminatory laws and end discriminatory practices. The bank should emphasize the importance of non-discrimination for health and economic development.

After 28 years in power, President Museveni is gearing up to run again in 2016. Aid has continued to flow despite large-scale corruption scandals, but this time should be different. The bank’s decision on the loan will affect the bank’s credibility in Uganda and beyond.

President Kim’s statement about the deleterious economic impact of discrimination was a precedent-setting decision to stand up for human rights. Pushing for real safeguards could significantly contribute to mitigating discrimination against LGBTI patients, women and other marginalized populations who are at disproportionately high risk of negative health outcomes and poverty.

Releasing the loan without meaningful safeguards, while Uganda’s parliamentarians continue to pass discriminatory laws and urge more discriminatory measures, would show a profound disregard for President Kim’s clarion call.