By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

UGANDAN Parliamentary Speaker Rebecca Kadaga yesterday said the World Bank’s decision to suspend funding for healthcare in response to strengthened anti-gay laws has set a dangerous precedent for the sovereignty and self-determination of developing countries.

Mrs Kadaga labelled the move to postpone a $90m loan package by the United Nation’s international financial institution as “irrational”.

She added that the country will “survive” without the funding, said to represent 20 per cent of Uganda’s 2013-2014 health budget.

The first case under the country’s new Anti-Homosexuality Bill began this month, with two LGBT Ugandans – Jackson Mukasa, a 19-year-old trans woman, and Kim Mukisa, a 24-year-old gay man – facing charges for engaging in sexual activity. 

The pair were arrested earlier this year for violating Uganda’s Penal Code Act of 1950, which criminalises sexual acts “against the order of nature”, according to Vox.com, which provided a timeline of the criminal proceedings.

According to reports, Mukisa was subjected to an anal examination in an attempt to find empirical evidence that he had engaged in sex with another man.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has condemned anal examinations as a form of torture under such conditions.

In the Vox.com report, LGBT researcher on Uganda for Human Rights Watch Neela Ghoshal alleged that the exam is also illegal under article 24 of Uganda’s constitution.

Mrs Kadaga spoke briefly with The Tribune about the fallout from Western donors, some of whom have opted to redirect funding through civil society, at the first day of a special workshop for Commonwealth women parliamentarians.

“Obviously the reasons for suspension have nothing to do with healthcare so you can say that it’s an irrational decision,” said Mrs Kadaga, “but we will survive.”

Responding to questions over whether or not the bank’s decision set a dangerous precedent for developing countries, she said: “Yes, what we are emphasising is our sovereignty and our right to self-determination. I think everybody should respect the right of citizens to determine what they want to do.”

A recent study by the Pew Research Centre indicated that 89 per cent of Ugandans considered homosexuality to be morally unacceptable.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Uganda’s economic growth is projected to accelerate to 6.1 per cent for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

In an interview with Reuters, Uganda’s finance minister Maria Kiwanuka said that the anti-gay law has had little impact on the country’s ability to attract Western investors.

In Africa, 38 countries have laws prohibiting same-sex relationships. 

Nigeria passed its Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act last year May, but it was not signed until January 7 by president Goodluck Jonathan.

Similar to Ugandan law, it is illegal to engage in an intimate relationship with a member of the same sex, or associate with gay organisations, including private clubs.

However, according to the Associated Press, the legislation does not include an earlier proposal that also criminalised persons who did not report their knowledge of a same-sex relationship.

According to reports, Nigerian gay men are being targeted by police and tortured as suspects. 

In January, police were said to have hundreds of suspects, and had made dozens of arrests in a move that activists fear will endanger programmes fighting HIV-AIDS in the gay community.

In response to Tribune questions over the suspension, and its impact on Ugandan relations, a World Bank spokesperson yesterday said: “We have postponed the project for further review to ensure that its development objectives would not be adversely affected by the enactment of a new law in Uganda.”

In an opinion piece published shortly after Uganda’s anti-gay bill was enacted, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim considers the economic impact of institutional discrimination. 

Mr Kim wrote: “These recent anti-gay laws, and many others that have been on the books for years, are acutely ironic. Just 15 years ago, a small band of gay men and women - largely in the United States but also in Europe and parts of Africa - fought with all their intellect, energy and creativity to expand access to treatment for all people with HIV/AIDS. In 2000, just 50,000 people in the developing world received AIDS treatment. Today, largely thanks to the work of these gay activists and others, more than 10 million people are being treated with AIDS drugs - most of them African.”

He continued: “At the World Bank Group, we will have a full internal discussion over the coming months about discrimination more broadly and how it would affect our projects and our gay and lesbian staff members. My view is that the fight to eliminate all institutionalised discrimination is an urgent task.

“Eliminating discrimination is not only the right thing to do; it’s also critical to ensure that we have sustained, balanced and inclusive economic growth in all societies – whether in developed or developing nations, the North or the South, America or Africa.”