An anti-LGBTQ+ law in Uganda is hurting the economy

Summary:

• The owner of Azas Safaris, Simon Azarwagye, faces a drastic decline in bookings and cancellations from potential clients, predominantly from Europe and the US, after Uganda’s passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, which triggered international condemnation and sanctions threats.

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SITTING on a sofa in his tiny office, Simon Azarwagye, the owner of a travel company called Azas Safaris, points to numbers on his laptop – visual aids for a story that still makes him miserable to tell.

“See that?” he asks, gesturing to a graph marked “quote requests”. It represents the 89 prospective customers he was communicating with earlier in the year. All of them had inquired about tours of Uganda’s lush forests; the expeditions cost about US$15,000 per couple for 13 days of hippo and gorilla spotting.

That was before the country’s parliament started debating one of the harshest anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) laws in the world. It included a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” – defined as same-sex relations with someone who is disabled, HIV-positive or elderly, among other categories – and criminalised defending gay men and lesbians in public.

News of the bill made international headlines. On the day it was signed in late May, US President Joe Biden and leaders around Europe threatened sanctions that Uganda – which has an economy that lags those of Libya and Sudan – can ill afford. Within weeks, 60 of Azarwagye’s 89 potential clients, most from either Europe or the US, had cancelled their plans or stopped returning messages.

“They ghosted me,” he said, noting that he typically secures paying customers out of two-thirds of all inquiries. “A few who spoke to me explained, ‘It’s not safe to come to Uganda because of that law.’”

Since the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, as the law is officially known, there have been arrests and hundreds of human rights violations involving LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, according to a report by Convening for Equality, a coalition of human rights groups.

Additional Source: The New York Times