Just two days after the Ugandan Parliament passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act in March, Sam received a call. Her landlord asked her to leave the house she had been renting for almost two years in Kyebando-Kanyanya village, about 4 miles from Kampala.
According to reports published in April and May by the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, a local nongovernmental organization that provides legal aid, there was increased violence, including evictions of LGBTQ persons in Uganda, after Parliament passed the bill but before the president signed it.
How Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act affects landlords and tenantsSam believes the bill has ruined the relationship between landlords -- many of whom were previously tolerant of members of the LGBTQ community -- and tenants. The lawmaker, who voted for the Anti-Homosexuality Act, adds,"The law is very clear. It doesn't discriminate or punish someone for being gay or a lesbian because we know that in our African communities, we have always had these people.
Global Press Journal attempted to reach Ofwono Opondo, the government spokesperson, and Norbert Mao, minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, but they did not respond to requests for comment. Kaggwa, who is a pastor, says when the bill was passed, posters of his church and his face started circulating on social media, accusing his church of promoting and recruiting young people into homosexuality.
Pius Kennedy Kigundu, a youth pastor and an office administrator at the Africa Queer Network, an advocacy group, says his landlord gave him seven days to vacate his premises soon after the president signed the bill. He had been living with his partner for two years and says that previously no one was concerned about his sexual orientation,"but they are now suspecting that I am gay."