Uganda and all but three African countries voted against UN’s sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) mandate safeguard.
According to the UN’s website, the vote took place late yesterday, with 84 countries, voting in favour of keeping the Independent Expert and 17 abstaining. Cape Verde and Seychelles were the only other two members of the African Group that voted in favour.
77 countries voted against the amendment and Uganda is one of them. (A few African countries didn’t vote at all.)
Neighbours Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo also voted against and in an unusual move, Rwanda abstained from the vote.
Uganda says it will not recognize the mandate of the gay rights investigator Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand and would not cooperate. Muntarbhorn now has a three-year mandate to investigate abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.
Earlier this month the African Group, of which Uganda is a member, delivered a statement to the UN General Assembly opposing the appointment.
Dr. Richard Nduhuura is the Permanent Representative of Uganda to the United Nations based in New York.
Uganda continues to face international outrage over its Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was signed into law in 2014 but was later annulled by the Constitutional Court because the bill was passed by MPs without the requisite quorum and was therefore illegal.
Homosexual acts were already illegal, but the new law allowed for life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality” and banned the “promotion of homosexuality”.
Statistics say that 96% of Ugandans believe homosexuality is not an acceptable way of life.
By Stephen Muneza Kagabo, Managing Editor
