The Obama administration has announced $10 million worth of cuts from aid to the Ugandan government in response to its enacting the controversial ‘Jail the Gays’ law.
According to Buzzfeed, the Obama administration is redirecting millions of dollars of funding in an effort to show solidarity to LGBT people and discourage other countries from passing similar legislation.
This includes a reduction of funding, which was previously $6.4 million, to the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, and organisation that works to fight HIV and AIDs and came out and strong support of the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The organisation will still receive $2.3 million to maintain treatment for approximately 50, 000 patients.
In addition, approximately $3 million that was originally set aside for Uganda’s tourism and biodiversity programs will be given to non-government organisations promoting those causes.
A Ugandan university study investigating populations at risk for HIV and AIDs that was intended to be carried out with funds from the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention has been indefinitely postponed, citing conerns for the safety of the study’s participants.
Several events scheduled in Uganda later this spring by the U.S. Department of Defense will reportedly be relocated, and certain Ugandan military and police officials who were invited to the U.S. will have those invitations suspended.
This is the most direct action the US has taken since Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S. would be launching an “internal review” of its relationship with the country in response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Kerry has reportedly spoken out against the law to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni over the telephone. He has also announced that he intends to send a team of American scientists to engage President Museveni in a discussion over whether sexual orientation is innate.
Museveni previously announced he would not pass the Anti-Homosexuality Act “unless [he] got confirmation from scientists that this condition is not genetic, but a behavior that is acquired.”
The Ugandan President passed the bill after receiving a two page report from a group of lawmakers with “medical backgrounds” backed by the Uganda’s ruling party, the National Resistance Movement. The report claimed to prove that homosexuality as “socially acquired”, and could be cured.
The U.S.A. are now part of a group of countries suspending or reducing aid to Uganda in response to the law, including Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Sophie Joske
