Like many other African countries, colonial-era laws banning homosexuality remain on the books in Uganda. When the HIV/AIDS epidemic exploded there in the mid-1980s, the post-civil-war Ugandan Government launched its famous “ABC” programme, beloved by political conservatives the world over for eschewing traditional HIV prevention and treatment models—with their implicit support for gay rights—in favour of preaching abstinence, monogamy, and regular condom use to the masses instead. Untreated, HIV-infected Ugandans died in droves, but new infections fell too and the AIDS epidemic slid off the Ugandan national agenda.
The political atmosphere in Uganda has grown only more toxic against gays. My review of “Call Me Kuchu,” a moving documentary about the life and tragic death of David Kato, Uganda’s first openly gay man, appears in The Lancet. Check it out here.