The New Vision
Wednesday, 14th October, 2009
By Mary Karugaba and Catherine Bekunda
Aggravated homosexuality will be punished by death, according to a new bill tabled in Parliament yesterday.
The private member's bill was tabled by Ndorwa West MP David Bahati (NRM).
A person commits aggravated homosexuality when the victim is a person with disability or below the age of 18, or when the offender is HIV-positive.
The bill thus equates aggravated homosexuality to aggravated defilement among people of different sexes, which also carries the death sentence.
The Bill, entitled the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, also states that anyone who commits the offence of homosexuality will be liable to life imprisonment.
This was already the case under the current Penal Code Act.
However, it gives a broader definition of the offence of homosexuality.
A person charged with the offence will have to undergo a mandatory medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.
The bill further states that anybody who "attempts to commit the offence" is liable to imprisonment for seven years.
"The same applies to anybody who "aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality" or anybody who keeps a house or room for the purpose of homosexuality.
The bill also proposes stiff sentences for people promoting homosexuality.
They risk a fine of sh100m or prison sentences of five to seven years.
This applies to people who produce, publish or distribute pornographic material for purposes of promoting homosexuality, fund or sponsor homosexuality.
Where the offender is a business or NGO, its certificate of registration will be cancelled and the director will be liable to seven years in prison.
Failure to disclose the offence within 24 hours of knowledge makes somebody liable to a maximum sh5m fine or imprisonment of up to three years.
The provisions, according to the bill, are meant to "protect the traditional family by prohibiting any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex."
They are also meant to prohibit the "promotion or recognition of such sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any government entity or NGO."
The bill further aims at protecting children and youth who are "made vulnerable to sexual abuse and deviation as a result of cultural changes, uncensored information technologies and increasing attempts by homosexuals to raise children in homosexual relationships through adoption or foster care."
Bahati said the legislation is intended to complement the provisions of the Constitution and the Penal Code Act.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Homosexuals face death penalty in Uganda according to news article
The New Vision, Uganda's Leading Website, Wednesday, 14th October, 2009
"I fear for Uganda, or any state, when the church, by how it acts, might as well be parliament, and parliament, by how it acts, might as well be the church." - Rev. Stephen R. Parelli
Dear Other Sheep Friend,
This news article was sent to me today by email from a more recent contact in Uganda. He wrote that because of this bill he is finally seeking to leave his country.
I ask: Where is the voice of the churches in Uganda, that voice that should be raising moral objections to this bill? I believe, sadly, you are hearing the voice of the churches in Uganda as you read this bill. Mary Nyangweso Wangila in her book Female Circumcision: The Interplay of Religion, Culture, and Gender in Kenya quotes John Mbiti as describing Africans as "notoriously religious" by explaining "Wherever the African is, there is his religion: he carries it to the fields where he is sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop; he takes it with him to the beer party or to attend a funeral ceremony; and if he is educated, he takes religion with him to the examination room at school or in the university; if he is a politician, he takes it to the house of parliament."
Some in the church need to arise and say to the church, "Wait! The Bible is not at all that clear on the topic of homosexuality. We have drawn our conclusions without doing our homework on the Biblical passages and we have, therefore, judged our brother perhaps without cause." Some in parliament need to arise and say to parliament, "Wait! We are in danger of marking our laws on the basis of religious teaching rather than civil rights for all. Do we enact laws that copy ecclesiastical codes, or do we enact laws that protect the equality and justice of all?"
I fear for Uganda, or any state, when the church, by how it acts, might as well be parliament, and parliament, by how it acts, might as well be the church.
May God save the parliament of Uganda from this bill of civil injustice and social inequality.
Rev. Steve Parelli
Other Sheep Executive Director
MCC Clergy
"I fear for Uganda, or any state, when the church, by how it acts, might as well be parliament, and parliament, by how it acts, might as well be the church." - Rev. Stephen R. Parelli
Dear Other Sheep Friend,
This news article was sent to me today by email from a more recent contact in Uganda. He wrote that because of this bill he is finally seeking to leave his country.
I ask: Where is the voice of the churches in Uganda, that voice that should be raising moral objections to this bill? I believe, sadly, you are hearing the voice of the churches in Uganda as you read this bill. Mary Nyangweso Wangila in her book Female Circumcision: The Interplay of Religion, Culture, and Gender in Kenya quotes John Mbiti as describing Africans as "notoriously religious" by explaining "Wherever the African is, there is his religion: he carries it to the fields where he is sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop; he takes it with him to the beer party or to attend a funeral ceremony; and if he is educated, he takes religion with him to the examination room at school or in the university; if he is a politician, he takes it to the house of parliament."
Some in the church need to arise and say to the church, "Wait! The Bible is not at all that clear on the topic of homosexuality. We have drawn our conclusions without doing our homework on the Biblical passages and we have, therefore, judged our brother perhaps without cause." Some in parliament need to arise and say to parliament, "Wait! We are in danger of marking our laws on the basis of religious teaching rather than civil rights for all. Do we enact laws that copy ecclesiastical codes, or do we enact laws that protect the equality and justice of all?"
I fear for Uganda, or any state, when the church, by how it acts, might as well be parliament, and parliament, by how it acts, might as well be the church.
May God save the parliament of Uganda from this bill of civil injustice and social inequality.
Rev. Steve Parelli
Other Sheep Executive Director
MCC Clergy
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Gay Kenyan Gives Account of Attack
by Jose Ortiz and Steve Parelli October 5, 2009 Bronx, NY
The Victim
The victim, an active member of Other Sheep Kenya, is a gay Christian Kenyan adult male living in Kenya. The victim is a long standing member of a large and prominent mainline church in Kenya. He takes an active role in the weekly services of his church. The victim grew up in the parsonage. His father, now deceased, was a clergyman.
(According to one Kenyan minister who commented, it is very unlikely that the victim's present church will take notice of this attack if the members learn that he is gay.)
Here is what the victim reported:
The Attack - as reported by the victim in a phone conversation
A new "friend" who is not to be trusted
Not too long ago, a certain neighbor of mine - a fellow Kenyan - came to my home and introduced himself. He was very friendly and so we had talks together about life in general. With time, he told me he had a job working for an organization (which he named) that has health programs for the gay community. He said he wanted to understand "what is this thing about gays, and how does it work, and if there are any gays in Kenya." He told me that he was just beginning to hear about gay people and so he needed to understand more about it. I decided to open up to him and tell him I was gay. When I did, we had a long conversation. He asked me questions in a very nice manner.
Blackmail
Then things changed. He said he was trying to gather information to confirm that I was gay because there should not be any gays in society. He said he was going to take action. Then he started asking me if I had any money. He said he would tell someone in the neighborhood that I am gay - someone who would not take the information very kindly. If I wanted him to keep quiet about my orientation then I was to give him money. I thought, at first, he was joking. He said he studied criminology and could do what he said he would do.
Manipulated, threatened and forced to the home of a good friend who said he wanted to kill him
On the night of the beating, this same neighbor who had blackmailed me, came to my home and grabbed me and told me to come with him. He said he was taking me to see a certain friend of mine which he also knew. He named the friend and he was, indeed, a very good friend of mine. He said if I would not go with him he would start screaming to everyone nearby that I am gay and that I had tried to molest him. I said, "OK, if you want my friend to know, let's go." I didn't know if they had planned this out together, but I decided it would make things easier for me if I were to go. I felt that my good friend would take the time needed to understand me and accept me still as his friend. However, I was shocked by his reaction. He didn't want to listen to anything I had to say. He just said, "I knew he was gay. He should be killed. He should be destroyed. Don't let him say another word. Let's just hit him and let's make sure he is destroyed."
The neighbor who had grabbed me and forced me to my good friend's home said, "You accept that you are gay and that you should not be gay?" I tried to explain to them both that there is nothing wrong in being gay; that gay people are normal human beings; that gay people do no wrong to any one; that they need to be given the opportunity to explain what they go through, that is, the kind of stigmatization they experience in society.
But they would not listen to any of this.
There, at his home, my very good friend said, "I have a gun. We have to destroy him. I don't care if he is my best friend. He isn't anymore."
The victim attempts to verbally defend himself
I think my very good friend was homophobic all along, but he had no evidence that I was gay until this night when I admittedly told him I was gay. I told them they needed to understand. I told them that I have accepted myself as a gay man and that if I have done anything criminal then, instead of hitting me, they needed to call the police and write up a report against me. But they said, "No, we just have to hit you."
Other people join in to hit and beat the victim without mercy
It was my very good friend that started to excite to action the others who were there. They started hitting me and saying they should call the brother who plays rugby - that he would deal with me properly; that he would hit me at the end of each day until I become normal. And that I should no longer live in the neighborhood.
As they hit me they shouted, "You can change, you can change." They were hitting me so I would change and would understand that I needed to be heterosexual. A crowd was being drawn in by the commotion and my good friend was telling them to hit me and beat me and not to listen to anyone [who said otherwise].
The beating resulted in swelling to the head and chest with bleeding. My mouth and lips are swollen because they stepped on me and jumped on me. They actually did call the rugby guy and a second guy in town. They lifted me up and threw me on the ground and then stepped on my head.
On lookers aid the victim; the perpetrators follow the victim to his home
Ladies near by started screaming, "They are going to kill this man." Some people starting saying, "Let him live." These people saved my life. Two men held back the guys who were attacking me, saying, "You have to stop this!" At that point I had a chance to get away and went to my home, locked the door, and went to my room. But they still came after me. They attempted to break the door in. Instead, they broke all the windows in the house. They told me they would return in the morning to destroy me.
A kind woman told me I should leave.
After the attack: hospital; lawyer; victim comments
The victim went to the hospital. At some point he contacted his Other Sheep East Africa Coordinator, Rev Michael Kimindu, formerly an Anglican priest, now ordained an MCC minister. At the hospital the victim was given a medical report which was presented to the police.
The victim expressed willingness to go public on any level at some time in the future in order to prevent further bashings of gays. "I won't fear coming out," he said, "because I don't want someone else to go through what I have gone through."
For his safety, the victim is staying in the home of a friend. A lawyer who has worked with Other Sheep in the past has been contacted.
Rev. Kimindu: "The church will not speak up for the gay person" - not even in the face of something like this
Rev. Michael Kimindu, in a phone conversation with Jose Ortiz on October 4, said, "The attackers were people that know the victim. They were from his home area. The attackers were not armed; they used their bear hands. The victim cannot open his mouth to take in food. He drinks with a straw."
Kimindu July 6 2007 at Makokha's ChurchRev. Kimindu (photo at left), commenting on the need for change in Kenya, said, "I'm telling you, the Kenyan church in general will not do anything for the safety of gay people. They will only bash them. According to the churches in Kenyan, when you are gay and getting beaten you are getting your reward - what you deserve. They look at us [gays and those who support gay rights] as sinners and when something goes wrong with us, they conclude that God must be punishing us. The church is against the gay person, so it will not speak up for them. Kenya must change so that there is safety and security for everyone."
The Victim
The victim, an active member of Other Sheep Kenya, is a gay Christian Kenyan adult male living in Kenya. The victim is a long standing member of a large and prominent mainline church in Kenya. He takes an active role in the weekly services of his church. The victim grew up in the parsonage. His father, now deceased, was a clergyman.
(According to one Kenyan minister who commented, it is very unlikely that the victim's present church will take notice of this attack if the members learn that he is gay.)
Here is what the victim reported:
The Attack - as reported by the victim in a phone conversation
A new "friend" who is not to be trusted
Not too long ago, a certain neighbor of mine - a fellow Kenyan - came to my home and introduced himself. He was very friendly and so we had talks together about life in general. With time, he told me he had a job working for an organization (which he named) that has health programs for the gay community. He said he wanted to understand "what is this thing about gays, and how does it work, and if there are any gays in Kenya." He told me that he was just beginning to hear about gay people and so he needed to understand more about it. I decided to open up to him and tell him I was gay. When I did, we had a long conversation. He asked me questions in a very nice manner.
Blackmail
Then things changed. He said he was trying to gather information to confirm that I was gay because there should not be any gays in society. He said he was going to take action. Then he started asking me if I had any money. He said he would tell someone in the neighborhood that I am gay - someone who would not take the information very kindly. If I wanted him to keep quiet about my orientation then I was to give him money. I thought, at first, he was joking. He said he studied criminology and could do what he said he would do.
Manipulated, threatened and forced to the home of a good friend who said he wanted to kill him
On the night of the beating, this same neighbor who had blackmailed me, came to my home and grabbed me and told me to come with him. He said he was taking me to see a certain friend of mine which he also knew. He named the friend and he was, indeed, a very good friend of mine. He said if I would not go with him he would start screaming to everyone nearby that I am gay and that I had tried to molest him. I said, "OK, if you want my friend to know, let's go." I didn't know if they had planned this out together, but I decided it would make things easier for me if I were to go. I felt that my good friend would take the time needed to understand me and accept me still as his friend. However, I was shocked by his reaction. He didn't want to listen to anything I had to say. He just said, "I knew he was gay. He should be killed. He should be destroyed. Don't let him say another word. Let's just hit him and let's make sure he is destroyed."
The neighbor who had grabbed me and forced me to my good friend's home said, "You accept that you are gay and that you should not be gay?" I tried to explain to them both that there is nothing wrong in being gay; that gay people are normal human beings; that gay people do no wrong to any one; that they need to be given the opportunity to explain what they go through, that is, the kind of stigmatization they experience in society.
But they would not listen to any of this.
There, at his home, my very good friend said, "I have a gun. We have to destroy him. I don't care if he is my best friend. He isn't anymore."
The victim attempts to verbally defend himself
I think my very good friend was homophobic all along, but he had no evidence that I was gay until this night when I admittedly told him I was gay. I told them they needed to understand. I told them that I have accepted myself as a gay man and that if I have done anything criminal then, instead of hitting me, they needed to call the police and write up a report against me. But they said, "No, we just have to hit you."
Other people join in to hit and beat the victim without mercy
It was my very good friend that started to excite to action the others who were there. They started hitting me and saying they should call the brother who plays rugby - that he would deal with me properly; that he would hit me at the end of each day until I become normal. And that I should no longer live in the neighborhood.
As they hit me they shouted, "You can change, you can change." They were hitting me so I would change and would understand that I needed to be heterosexual. A crowd was being drawn in by the commotion and my good friend was telling them to hit me and beat me and not to listen to anyone [who said otherwise].
The beating resulted in swelling to the head and chest with bleeding. My mouth and lips are swollen because they stepped on me and jumped on me. They actually did call the rugby guy and a second guy in town. They lifted me up and threw me on the ground and then stepped on my head.
On lookers aid the victim; the perpetrators follow the victim to his home
Ladies near by started screaming, "They are going to kill this man." Some people starting saying, "Let him live." These people saved my life. Two men held back the guys who were attacking me, saying, "You have to stop this!" At that point I had a chance to get away and went to my home, locked the door, and went to my room. But they still came after me. They attempted to break the door in. Instead, they broke all the windows in the house. They told me they would return in the morning to destroy me.
A kind woman told me I should leave.
After the attack: hospital; lawyer; victim comments
The victim went to the hospital. At some point he contacted his Other Sheep East Africa Coordinator, Rev Michael Kimindu, formerly an Anglican priest, now ordained an MCC minister. At the hospital the victim was given a medical report which was presented to the police.
The victim expressed willingness to go public on any level at some time in the future in order to prevent further bashings of gays. "I won't fear coming out," he said, "because I don't want someone else to go through what I have gone through."
For his safety, the victim is staying in the home of a friend. A lawyer who has worked with Other Sheep in the past has been contacted.
Rev. Kimindu: "The church will not speak up for the gay person" - not even in the face of something like this
Rev. Michael Kimindu, in a phone conversation with Jose Ortiz on October 4, said, "The attackers were people that know the victim. They were from his home area. The attackers were not armed; they used their bear hands. The victim cannot open his mouth to take in food. He drinks with a straw."
Kimindu July 6 2007 at Makokha's ChurchRev. Kimindu (photo at left), commenting on the need for change in Kenya, said, "I'm telling you, the Kenyan church in general will not do anything for the safety of gay people. They will only bash them. According to the churches in Kenyan, when you are gay and getting beaten you are getting your reward - what you deserve. They look at us [gays and those who support gay rights] as sinners and when something goes wrong with us, they conclude that God must be punishing us. The church is against the gay person, so it will not speak up for them. Kenya must change so that there is safety and security for everyone."
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
New United Nations General Assembly President calls homosexuality 'unacceptable'
by Jessica Geen · September 24, 2009
The newly installed president of the United Nations General Assembly, Ali Abdussalam Treki, has said that homosexuality is "not really acceptable."
Treki, who is the Libyan secretary of African Union Affairs, opened the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly with a press conference. One question concerned the UN resolution which calls for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality.
In reply, Treki said: "That matter is very sensitive, very touchy. As a Muslim, I am not in favour of it . . . it is not accepted by the majority of countries. My opinion is not in favour of this matter at all. I think it's not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition.
"It is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy . . . I think it is not," he added.
The newly installed president of the United Nations General Assembly, Ali Abdussalam Treki, has said that homosexuality is "not really acceptable."
Treki, who is the Libyan secretary of African Union Affairs, opened the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly with a press conference. One question concerned the UN resolution which calls for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality.
In reply, Treki said: "That matter is very sensitive, very touchy. As a Muslim, I am not in favour of it . . . it is not accepted by the majority of countries. My opinion is not in favour of this matter at all. I think it's not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition.
"It is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy . . . I think it is not," he added.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
I lived as a woman for 17 years
Eunice Rukundo
He kept it a secret, until he could not keep quiet any more. Eunice Rukundo writes about a man who was brought up as a woman until he stood his ground
He is not your ultimate tight abs guy with a firm behind and muscular arms, but Julius Kaggwa is in all essence, a man. A notch too chubby maybe, slightly below average height and a bit too rounded but he is still not the least masculine man you have come across.
For the first 17 years of his life however, Kaggwa, 39, lived as a female and is in fact referred to as Gayaza High School’s only ‘Old Boy’. Registered there as Juliet Kaggwa, he did his O’ Levels between 1984 and 1987, sleeping in Hutchinson House.
“When I first came out with the truth about my gender, some of my OGs admitted they’d at one time found me weird. One even said she’d suspected I could have been male but banished the thought instantly,” he reveals.
At the time, he was 17 at Makerere High school, a mixed school where he had relocated for his A levels. “We’d been praying with one OG of mine who was still at Gayaza when I’d blurted out ‘You know I’m not exactly a girl’. That was the first time I’d ever said it out loud and it felt good, light on my shoulders, to have let out the secret without fearing I was going to die,” recounts Kaggwa.
Julius3.jpg
Julius Kaggwa
Kaggwa had first noticed ‘she’ was different from the other girls in Primary Six in Natale Primary School in Kyaggwe, when she followed them up the hill to perform girl rituals commonly known as ‘visiting the bush’ among the Baganda. “It was when the girls took off their panties that I realised they didn’t look like me.”
Where she had a vagina with a penis protruding at its base through which she urinated, the other girls only had a vagina.
“I had only been in boarding school that year. I think mum had taken me there to protect me from possible gossip from the slummy neighbourhood in Ndeeba where we lived,” he says. At home, the fourth born with two brothers and three sisters, Juliet had been brought up to be secretive about her nakedness, never visiting relatives or playing about naked like other children for fear of being found out and stigmatised. Now for the first time, she thought she knew why, but it seemed too complicated for a 10 year old to comprehend. She became more guarded and withdrawn, awaiting her mother’s next weekly visit to inquire about why she was different.
“First she told me we were all different but I insisted I had been the only one among all the other girls like me.” Left with no choice, Aida Kaggwa must have realised then that she couldn’t protect her child from the truth much longer. Then would be when she admited to her daughter that indeed she was different, per the circumstances of her birth.
Born both a girl and a boy
When her baby was born and Ms Kaggwa inquired after its sex, the midwives looked at each other and said nothing. They just whispered in bewilderment. When she saw her baby, she understood why. The baby was neither boy nor girl. It was both. Ms Kaggwa was both religious and a traditionalist. Her first instinct however was that this was witchcraft. At the shrine, she was told it was no mistake that her baby was born ambiguous, she was in fact a special child chosen to serve the spirits when the time was right. In the meantime, they were to concentrate on bringing her up as a girl or it would die since the responsible spirit was female, the great grandmother’s.
While his father, loving and gentle with his strange daughter, was a fleeting image in his life because of his business that took him far from home most of the time, his mother was around and seemed to have dedicated her life to keeping him comfortable, alive and as normal as possible.
“She got me herbs which were to keep me feminine, talked to nurses in school who helped keep my secret from other people when I joined boarding school in P.6 and changed my schools too often for anyone to realise I was different.”
Until the incident at the hill, the burden of his identity crisis had only been incurred by his mother. As puberty hormones set in though and ‘she’ started to experience the effects of this difference. He started to understand that his difference wasn’t as minor as his mother tried to make him believe.
“I believed her when she said everything would be fine but I started to struggle with more differences internally especially when I joined Gayaza. The usual girl chirping for instance irritated me. I always felt like doing more vigorous non-feminine things like escaping from school and I felt myself involuntarily responding to girls’ nakedness in a confusing way,” he says.
He developed breasts but along with them hair on his legs. “I felt more male than female inside. Puberty was a very confusing and difficult phase for me,” he says. To keep his confusion in check, Kaggwa started to add hormonal pills to a much bigger collection of herbal medicine by now, which he bathed, steamed herself in and drunk, under the school nurses’ protection. Bathing was a challenge; when he didn’t bathe long after bathing hours, he missed it altogether and got in trouble for it sometimes.
He would have wanted to let go and be whatever he felt but for the warning that he would die if not brought up as a girl. He took refuge in the school chapel instead, preaching, singing and praying that he would one day wake up a normal girl. When he found himself developing funny feelings for his choir mates too, Kaggwa knew he wouldn’t survive much longer in Gayaza and therefore went to a mixed day school for A’ Level.
There he meditated on his life seriously for the first time and knew he didn’t want to live in fear and hiding forever. “I wanted to be whatever but freely like everyone else. Blurting out my secret was like testing the waters. It worked wonders.”
Kaggwa never looked back after that first confession. In no time he had sought counsellors who explained what was happening and linked him to medical personnel. He discovered his problem was more biological than spiritual and could have in fact been treated much earlier. It took a lot of psychological and physical treatment but by 2000, Juliet was Julius, with proper male genitalia and no breasts.
His parents had both passed on by then. On her death bed, his mother begged him to stay far away from this land. “There’s a belief, spirits don’t follow one beyond the oceans. She believed I would be safer away now that she wasn’t around to protect me,” he explains.
Julius was scared for a while too and kept away in South Africa, Nairobi and other countries but later decided enough was enough. God must have preserved him for a purpose, most likely to help others like him be free. Today, married with two children, Julius’ life story is published in a book he wrote in 1997, Juliet to Julius. He has started up the Support Initiative for People with Atypical Sex Development (SIPD), and even appeared on Betty Tibaleka’s The Unstold Story show on UBC, to encourage others like him out there to speak out and be helped.
It’s many years since he was a young man trapped in a girl’s image but no one shades 17 years of their life that easily. Julius still has to consciously hold himself back from responding whenever anyone calls out Juliet in his hearing and he admits the no bathing habit also stuck to a significant extent.
Kaggwa was born with an intersex condition
What most parents, like Julius Kaggwa’s, would instinctively blame on witchcraft is medically referred to as an intersex condition, biologically explained as the unusual development of physical sex characteristics.
Kaggwa’s condition was evident at birth due to the abnormality in the external genitals. There are incidences however where the abnormality is with the internal reproductive organs, sex chromosomes, or sex-related hormones. Dr E.B. Mwesiga, a gynecologist consultant at City Hospital says that in this case, the condition becomes apparent later in life around puberty when one lacks or has something extra.
“I sit in a taxi sometimes and see someone I’m almost sure is an intersex case even if they may not know. Muscular bearded women with deep male voices, men with breasts and hips and the like,” says Kaggwa.
Many intersex conditions discovered late in life are associated with infertility and sexuality issues. www.apa.org, an American Psychological Association website explains that delayed or absent signs of puberty may be the first indication that an intersex condition exists; a hairy girl who doesn’t menstruate for instance, and develops more masculine than feminine features around puberty, or a boy who among others develops breasts.
“There are drugs, disease and environment conditions that could result in development of these features though so it is not necessarily always an intersex condition when a man develops breasts or a woman beards. Their genetic constitution has to be determined first to confirm,” warns Dr Mwesiga.
Intersex cases are otherwise also most likely to display gender-atypical behaviours or interests; for instance some forms of intersexuality in the females will result into girls being tomboys.
Sexually, www.apa.org says, although most intersex persons grow up to be heterosexual, some specific intersex conditions seem to have an increased likelihood of growing up to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual adults.
Kaggwa says unsuspected incidences like infertility, intolerance of sex by a female because it hurts among women could be due to existence of an intersex condition. “If her reproductive system inside is male, it means she has no vaginal canal or functioning ovaries hence infertility and obviously painful sex because the penis has no where to penetrate to,” reasons Kaggwa.
According to Dr Mwesiga, the basis for allocating gender, while it may be due to raring or physical composition, should be according to the chromosome composition. He explains that gender determining genes are XY and if one’s composition contains a Y, they are male and if they lack it, then they are female.
“These could however get distorted during development in the womb resulting into gender ambiguity,” he says. Kaggwa for instance had XXY composition, which means although he was male the extra X resulted into female hormonal production and feature formation.
Unfortunately, the lack of information about intersex conditions makes it more unbearable in a country like Uganda.
“The standard solution among the most women is that a child that is born like I was is killed or dumped because it is attributed to witch craft or bad omen,” says Kaggwa. He tells of a woman with a three month old daughter with ambiguous genitalia whose mother has looked for ways of disposing her off but only been held back by motherly love.
“It is a bad omen I know and I have tried to leave her on the road or bush but I can’t take the thought of her being eaten by a wild animal or car crashing her,” lamented the mother as she begged Kaggwa to take the baby because she was a bad omen for her family and would be killed.
Intersex conditions are correctable
With surgery, the physical abnormalities are corrected, even as early as at birth. The hormonal imbalances that will make a man bear breasts for instance can also be corrected with hormonal therapy.
From experience however, Kaggwa says in cases when this correction comes later in life, it also takes a lot of psychological treatment to heal the trauma of leaving with the confusion and stigma of being intersex.
He tells another story of a boy here in Uganda who was dumped at his uncle’s place by the mother as a baby because he was born intersex and was only discovered recently, now undergoing treatment. “He will be a normal boy now but the trauma he has gone through will leave its mark,” regrets Kaggwa. When his uncle couldn’t look after him anymore because of poverty, he published his condition in the media hoping to make money out of his condition. 16 years old now, he had dropped out of school in P.6 to escape his school mates’ taunts about his condition.
“He got help through the same publicity but it was late; he had become a sort of attraction for the locals who paid to see him and we don’t know how to get him back to school now,” explains Kaggwa.
What if the condition is not corrected?
With the inadequacy of the information on intersexuality, there are definitely many people that don’t get treatment especially those with the subtler forms.
Even when one can take the discomfort of the effects like infertility and identity ambiguity after puberty, lack of treatment poses health issues. “The tests had found that I had an ovary much as I had testes. It was first left inside because the doctors thought it would be harmless. I had to have it removed recently however because it had started to become infected and could have gotten cancerous,” says Kaggwa.
Where to get help in Uganda
Support Initiative for People with atypical sex Development (SIPD) located in Rubaga-Wakaliga provides support for intersex people with counselling, information, and referrals for medical and other social support. SIPD has established support networks with doctors at International Hospital in Kampala, at Kampala Family Clinic and at CoRSU rehabilitation hospital in Entebbe. “We are working to widen medical and psychosocial support all over the country,” says Kaggwa, Director, SIPD.
Contact SIPD on aissgeastafrica@gmail.com. P.O Box 16618 Wandegeya. Uganda
He kept it a secret, until he could not keep quiet any more. Eunice Rukundo writes about a man who was brought up as a woman until he stood his ground
He is not your ultimate tight abs guy with a firm behind and muscular arms, but Julius Kaggwa is in all essence, a man. A notch too chubby maybe, slightly below average height and a bit too rounded but he is still not the least masculine man you have come across.
For the first 17 years of his life however, Kaggwa, 39, lived as a female and is in fact referred to as Gayaza High School’s only ‘Old Boy’. Registered there as Juliet Kaggwa, he did his O’ Levels between 1984 and 1987, sleeping in Hutchinson House.
“When I first came out with the truth about my gender, some of my OGs admitted they’d at one time found me weird. One even said she’d suspected I could have been male but banished the thought instantly,” he reveals.
At the time, he was 17 at Makerere High school, a mixed school where he had relocated for his A levels. “We’d been praying with one OG of mine who was still at Gayaza when I’d blurted out ‘You know I’m not exactly a girl’. That was the first time I’d ever said it out loud and it felt good, light on my shoulders, to have let out the secret without fearing I was going to die,” recounts Kaggwa.
Julius3.jpg
Julius Kaggwa
Kaggwa had first noticed ‘she’ was different from the other girls in Primary Six in Natale Primary School in Kyaggwe, when she followed them up the hill to perform girl rituals commonly known as ‘visiting the bush’ among the Baganda. “It was when the girls took off their panties that I realised they didn’t look like me.”
Where she had a vagina with a penis protruding at its base through which she urinated, the other girls only had a vagina.
“I had only been in boarding school that year. I think mum had taken me there to protect me from possible gossip from the slummy neighbourhood in Ndeeba where we lived,” he says. At home, the fourth born with two brothers and three sisters, Juliet had been brought up to be secretive about her nakedness, never visiting relatives or playing about naked like other children for fear of being found out and stigmatised. Now for the first time, she thought she knew why, but it seemed too complicated for a 10 year old to comprehend. She became more guarded and withdrawn, awaiting her mother’s next weekly visit to inquire about why she was different.
“First she told me we were all different but I insisted I had been the only one among all the other girls like me.” Left with no choice, Aida Kaggwa must have realised then that she couldn’t protect her child from the truth much longer. Then would be when she admited to her daughter that indeed she was different, per the circumstances of her birth.
Born both a girl and a boy
When her baby was born and Ms Kaggwa inquired after its sex, the midwives looked at each other and said nothing. They just whispered in bewilderment. When she saw her baby, she understood why. The baby was neither boy nor girl. It was both. Ms Kaggwa was both religious and a traditionalist. Her first instinct however was that this was witchcraft. At the shrine, she was told it was no mistake that her baby was born ambiguous, she was in fact a special child chosen to serve the spirits when the time was right. In the meantime, they were to concentrate on bringing her up as a girl or it would die since the responsible spirit was female, the great grandmother’s.
While his father, loving and gentle with his strange daughter, was a fleeting image in his life because of his business that took him far from home most of the time, his mother was around and seemed to have dedicated her life to keeping him comfortable, alive and as normal as possible.
“She got me herbs which were to keep me feminine, talked to nurses in school who helped keep my secret from other people when I joined boarding school in P.6 and changed my schools too often for anyone to realise I was different.”
Until the incident at the hill, the burden of his identity crisis had only been incurred by his mother. As puberty hormones set in though and ‘she’ started to experience the effects of this difference. He started to understand that his difference wasn’t as minor as his mother tried to make him believe.
“I believed her when she said everything would be fine but I started to struggle with more differences internally especially when I joined Gayaza. The usual girl chirping for instance irritated me. I always felt like doing more vigorous non-feminine things like escaping from school and I felt myself involuntarily responding to girls’ nakedness in a confusing way,” he says.
He developed breasts but along with them hair on his legs. “I felt more male than female inside. Puberty was a very confusing and difficult phase for me,” he says. To keep his confusion in check, Kaggwa started to add hormonal pills to a much bigger collection of herbal medicine by now, which he bathed, steamed herself in and drunk, under the school nurses’ protection. Bathing was a challenge; when he didn’t bathe long after bathing hours, he missed it altogether and got in trouble for it sometimes.
He would have wanted to let go and be whatever he felt but for the warning that he would die if not brought up as a girl. He took refuge in the school chapel instead, preaching, singing and praying that he would one day wake up a normal girl. When he found himself developing funny feelings for his choir mates too, Kaggwa knew he wouldn’t survive much longer in Gayaza and therefore went to a mixed day school for A’ Level.
There he meditated on his life seriously for the first time and knew he didn’t want to live in fear and hiding forever. “I wanted to be whatever but freely like everyone else. Blurting out my secret was like testing the waters. It worked wonders.”
Kaggwa never looked back after that first confession. In no time he had sought counsellors who explained what was happening and linked him to medical personnel. He discovered his problem was more biological than spiritual and could have in fact been treated much earlier. It took a lot of psychological and physical treatment but by 2000, Juliet was Julius, with proper male genitalia and no breasts.
His parents had both passed on by then. On her death bed, his mother begged him to stay far away from this land. “There’s a belief, spirits don’t follow one beyond the oceans. She believed I would be safer away now that she wasn’t around to protect me,” he explains.
Julius was scared for a while too and kept away in South Africa, Nairobi and other countries but later decided enough was enough. God must have preserved him for a purpose, most likely to help others like him be free. Today, married with two children, Julius’ life story is published in a book he wrote in 1997, Juliet to Julius. He has started up the Support Initiative for People with Atypical Sex Development (SIPD), and even appeared on Betty Tibaleka’s The Unstold Story show on UBC, to encourage others like him out there to speak out and be helped.
It’s many years since he was a young man trapped in a girl’s image but no one shades 17 years of their life that easily. Julius still has to consciously hold himself back from responding whenever anyone calls out Juliet in his hearing and he admits the no bathing habit also stuck to a significant extent.
Kaggwa was born with an intersex condition
What most parents, like Julius Kaggwa’s, would instinctively blame on witchcraft is medically referred to as an intersex condition, biologically explained as the unusual development of physical sex characteristics.
Kaggwa’s condition was evident at birth due to the abnormality in the external genitals. There are incidences however where the abnormality is with the internal reproductive organs, sex chromosomes, or sex-related hormones. Dr E.B. Mwesiga, a gynecologist consultant at City Hospital says that in this case, the condition becomes apparent later in life around puberty when one lacks or has something extra.
“I sit in a taxi sometimes and see someone I’m almost sure is an intersex case even if they may not know. Muscular bearded women with deep male voices, men with breasts and hips and the like,” says Kaggwa.
Many intersex conditions discovered late in life are associated with infertility and sexuality issues. www.apa.org, an American Psychological Association website explains that delayed or absent signs of puberty may be the first indication that an intersex condition exists; a hairy girl who doesn’t menstruate for instance, and develops more masculine than feminine features around puberty, or a boy who among others develops breasts.
“There are drugs, disease and environment conditions that could result in development of these features though so it is not necessarily always an intersex condition when a man develops breasts or a woman beards. Their genetic constitution has to be determined first to confirm,” warns Dr Mwesiga.
Intersex cases are otherwise also most likely to display gender-atypical behaviours or interests; for instance some forms of intersexuality in the females will result into girls being tomboys.
Sexually, www.apa.org says, although most intersex persons grow up to be heterosexual, some specific intersex conditions seem to have an increased likelihood of growing up to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual adults.
Kaggwa says unsuspected incidences like infertility, intolerance of sex by a female because it hurts among women could be due to existence of an intersex condition. “If her reproductive system inside is male, it means she has no vaginal canal or functioning ovaries hence infertility and obviously painful sex because the penis has no where to penetrate to,” reasons Kaggwa.
According to Dr Mwesiga, the basis for allocating gender, while it may be due to raring or physical composition, should be according to the chromosome composition. He explains that gender determining genes are XY and if one’s composition contains a Y, they are male and if they lack it, then they are female.
“These could however get distorted during development in the womb resulting into gender ambiguity,” he says. Kaggwa for instance had XXY composition, which means although he was male the extra X resulted into female hormonal production and feature formation.
Unfortunately, the lack of information about intersex conditions makes it more unbearable in a country like Uganda.
“The standard solution among the most women is that a child that is born like I was is killed or dumped because it is attributed to witch craft or bad omen,” says Kaggwa. He tells of a woman with a three month old daughter with ambiguous genitalia whose mother has looked for ways of disposing her off but only been held back by motherly love.
“It is a bad omen I know and I have tried to leave her on the road or bush but I can’t take the thought of her being eaten by a wild animal or car crashing her,” lamented the mother as she begged Kaggwa to take the baby because she was a bad omen for her family and would be killed.
Intersex conditions are correctable
With surgery, the physical abnormalities are corrected, even as early as at birth. The hormonal imbalances that will make a man bear breasts for instance can also be corrected with hormonal therapy.
From experience however, Kaggwa says in cases when this correction comes later in life, it also takes a lot of psychological treatment to heal the trauma of leaving with the confusion and stigma of being intersex.
He tells another story of a boy here in Uganda who was dumped at his uncle’s place by the mother as a baby because he was born intersex and was only discovered recently, now undergoing treatment. “He will be a normal boy now but the trauma he has gone through will leave its mark,” regrets Kaggwa. When his uncle couldn’t look after him anymore because of poverty, he published his condition in the media hoping to make money out of his condition. 16 years old now, he had dropped out of school in P.6 to escape his school mates’ taunts about his condition.
“He got help through the same publicity but it was late; he had become a sort of attraction for the locals who paid to see him and we don’t know how to get him back to school now,” explains Kaggwa.
What if the condition is not corrected?
With the inadequacy of the information on intersexuality, there are definitely many people that don’t get treatment especially those with the subtler forms.
Even when one can take the discomfort of the effects like infertility and identity ambiguity after puberty, lack of treatment poses health issues. “The tests had found that I had an ovary much as I had testes. It was first left inside because the doctors thought it would be harmless. I had to have it removed recently however because it had started to become infected and could have gotten cancerous,” says Kaggwa.
Where to get help in Uganda
Support Initiative for People with atypical sex Development (SIPD) located in Rubaga-Wakaliga provides support for intersex people with counselling, information, and referrals for medical and other social support. SIPD has established support networks with doctors at International Hospital in Kampala, at Kampala Family Clinic and at CoRSU rehabilitation hospital in Entebbe. “We are working to widen medical and psychosocial support all over the country,” says Kaggwa, Director, SIPD.
Contact SIPD on aissgeastafrica@gmail.com. P.O Box 16618 Wandegeya. Uganda
Monday, August 10, 2009
Police find pastor accused of sodomy innocent but to charge his accusers
Police get Kayanja off the hook; charge pastors
Chris Obore
Kampala
Police have cleared Pastor Robert Kayanja of Miracle Centre Cathedral of sodomy allegations. Instead, the Police have written to the Director of Public Prosecutions urging him to brings charges against four pastors who reportedly assisted some people to allege that Pastor Kayanja had sodomised them.
According to the report entitled Sodomy cases against Pastor Kayanja, a copy of which Sunday Monitor has obtained, there is no evidence to pin Pastor Kayanja.
The police investigators concluded thus: “In each of the complaints of sodomy against Pastor Robert Kayanja, the investigations did not reveal any evidence of such offence(s) committed. Further, following medical examination of the complainants, the Police surgeon did not find any evidence of sodomy.”
The report furthers states that pastors Martin Sempa, Moses Solomon Male, Michael Kyazze, Felix Semujju and Bo Kayiira reportedly influenced Pastor Kayanja’s accusers.
The Police say one of the complainants Samson Mukisa used pseudo names.
“The complainant’s real name is not Samson Mukisa as alleged in the affidavit, he is Musasizi Robert Kaliba. He has never been a member of Miracle Centre and a leader of Music Group ‘A’ and there is no Music Group ‘A’ at Miracle Centre Rubaga,” reads the police report.
The police say all the complainants retracted their earlier statements against Pastor Kayanja saying that they had been incited by the four pastors to wrongly accuse Kayanja.
“In a statement dated 15th and 20th May 2009 Mukisa retracted the allegation indicating he had not been sodomised by Pastor Kayanja but was influenced by Pastors Male, Kayira, Kyazze, Sempa and Semujju as to make the allegations,” reads the report.
“I, therefore, recommend that the persons who conspired and mobilised the complainants to make false allegations against Pastor Robert Kayanja be charged with the offence of conspiracy to injure the reputation of Pastor Kayanja, contrary to Section 392(b) of the Penal Code Act,” reads the report prepared by D/SP Grace Akullo.
Ms Akullo who is the Acting Commissioner for General Crimes also wrote: “I further recommend that the persons who were so mobilised be retained as witnesses in this case.”
The police also say Pastor Kayira and Pastor Kyazze had “planned to trespass in the Rubaga based Miracle Centre Cathedral with intent to steal property of the Miracle Centre Rubaga.”
They say Pastor Kayira was arrested from within Miracle Centre Rubaga area in company of a motorcycle rider one Seremba Gadafi whom he had hired from Namasuba.
However, the accused pastors sounded unbothered yesterday. “I have not yet seen the report but it was expected. The investigative machinery of Police is controlled by people who shield criminals,” said Pastor Male.
“The police have actually worked for Kayanja but we will be happy to be in the dock and prove that Police and Kayanja are the same,” he added.
Early this year, Pastor Kayanja paid for the sprucing up of Old Kampala Police Station in a move some people believe was to soften the ground for himself ahead of the homo scandal.
And another pastor, Martin Sempa said yesterday that “we have had low hope in the capacity of Police to be unbiased.”
“This is a travesty of justice. Even before they examined the statement of Kayanja, they had declared him innocent,” said Pastor Sempa.
He said they were shocked that police would stoop so low as to protect a powerful individual and not the victims.
“This case had drama, there were fake kidnaps and the boys were taken through a tortuous process,” he said. Pastor Ssempa however revealed that they had several other sodomy victims whom they will present to court as witnesses. He said they feared to present the victims to police because they had taken sides with Pastor Kayanja.
“Police itself is under investigation; its Police on trial,” he said adding that: “Police buildings were renovated by Robert Kayanja.” The pastors are furious that the police were hindering the fight against sexual abuse in the Church.
They said Good Samaritans were now being prosecuted for helping victims and have also called upon parents and other Church leaders to stand firm in the fight against sodomy which is a criminal offence under Uganda’s laws.
Chris Obore
Kampala
Police have cleared Pastor Robert Kayanja of Miracle Centre Cathedral of sodomy allegations. Instead, the Police have written to the Director of Public Prosecutions urging him to brings charges against four pastors who reportedly assisted some people to allege that Pastor Kayanja had sodomised them.
According to the report entitled Sodomy cases against Pastor Kayanja, a copy of which Sunday Monitor has obtained, there is no evidence to pin Pastor Kayanja.
The police investigators concluded thus: “In each of the complaints of sodomy against Pastor Robert Kayanja, the investigations did not reveal any evidence of such offence(s) committed. Further, following medical examination of the complainants, the Police surgeon did not find any evidence of sodomy.”
The report furthers states that pastors Martin Sempa, Moses Solomon Male, Michael Kyazze, Felix Semujju and Bo Kayiira reportedly influenced Pastor Kayanja’s accusers.
The Police say one of the complainants Samson Mukisa used pseudo names.
“The complainant’s real name is not Samson Mukisa as alleged in the affidavit, he is Musasizi Robert Kaliba. He has never been a member of Miracle Centre and a leader of Music Group ‘A’ and there is no Music Group ‘A’ at Miracle Centre Rubaga,” reads the police report.
The police say all the complainants retracted their earlier statements against Pastor Kayanja saying that they had been incited by the four pastors to wrongly accuse Kayanja.
“In a statement dated 15th and 20th May 2009 Mukisa retracted the allegation indicating he had not been sodomised by Pastor Kayanja but was influenced by Pastors Male, Kayira, Kyazze, Sempa and Semujju as to make the allegations,” reads the report.
“I, therefore, recommend that the persons who conspired and mobilised the complainants to make false allegations against Pastor Robert Kayanja be charged with the offence of conspiracy to injure the reputation of Pastor Kayanja, contrary to Section 392(b) of the Penal Code Act,” reads the report prepared by D/SP Grace Akullo.
Ms Akullo who is the Acting Commissioner for General Crimes also wrote: “I further recommend that the persons who were so mobilised be retained as witnesses in this case.”
The police also say Pastor Kayira and Pastor Kyazze had “planned to trespass in the Rubaga based Miracle Centre Cathedral with intent to steal property of the Miracle Centre Rubaga.”
They say Pastor Kayira was arrested from within Miracle Centre Rubaga area in company of a motorcycle rider one Seremba Gadafi whom he had hired from Namasuba.
However, the accused pastors sounded unbothered yesterday. “I have not yet seen the report but it was expected. The investigative machinery of Police is controlled by people who shield criminals,” said Pastor Male.
“The police have actually worked for Kayanja but we will be happy to be in the dock and prove that Police and Kayanja are the same,” he added.
Early this year, Pastor Kayanja paid for the sprucing up of Old Kampala Police Station in a move some people believe was to soften the ground for himself ahead of the homo scandal.
And another pastor, Martin Sempa said yesterday that “we have had low hope in the capacity of Police to be unbiased.”
“This is a travesty of justice. Even before they examined the statement of Kayanja, they had declared him innocent,” said Pastor Sempa.
He said they were shocked that police would stoop so low as to protect a powerful individual and not the victims.
“This case had drama, there were fake kidnaps and the boys were taken through a tortuous process,” he said. Pastor Ssempa however revealed that they had several other sodomy victims whom they will present to court as witnesses. He said they feared to present the victims to police because they had taken sides with Pastor Kayanja.
“Police itself is under investigation; its Police on trial,” he said adding that: “Police buildings were renovated by Robert Kayanja.” The pastors are furious that the police were hindering the fight against sexual abuse in the Church.
They said Good Samaritans were now being prosecuted for helping victims and have also called upon parents and other Church leaders to stand firm in the fight against sodomy which is a criminal offence under Uganda’s laws.
Monday, August 3, 2009
PASTORS’ SODOMY REPORT READY-UHRC
By HENRY MULINDWA
The Uganda Human Rights Commission is soon releasing its report into allegations that some pastors practice sodomy.According to commissioner Agaba Maguru, the body had already completed the biggest percentage of its investigations against bum shafting individuals mostly pastors, and that soon its report is going to be handed over to parliament.Appearing before the parliamentary legal committee chaired by Stephen Tashobya last night, Agaba said that sodomy had dominated almost the entire desk of the commission as one of the major cases registered against children’s rights.
“We have received several cases of child rights abuses. Sodomy is taking a centre stage. We have already interviewed the victims and the alleged culprits. We have interviewed the police and many pastors. Soon we are going to release our report,” he said.Agaba was however, cagey on revealing particular culprits that had been interrogated, but said many pastors were interrogated.This comes at a time when Miracle Cathedral Pastor Robert Kayanja is currently facing intense investigations after allegations of surfing bums of his flock, while another pastor Kiweweesi was also accused of the same vice.
Meanwhile, the commission is facing closure of all its regional offices unless government moves swiftly to allocate dime to finance the office rent of the commission’s regional offices across the country.UHRC secretary Gordon Mwesigye informed the committee that all donors have frozen their accounts that were being used to fund the regional office’s rental fees. He said that despite such a development, government has not allocated even a single penny for this activity. “We conduct our business through regional offices and we want to open up new ones. The donors have already warned us that they are not going to pay rent for our regional offices as they have been doing. The donors have been funding the tribunals, investigations and rental fees and if they pull out, there is going to be a real crisis,” Mwesigye said.The committee now wants government to consider this as a matter of top priority by allocating Shs1.7bn for this project.
In another development the Uganda Muslim Women Association on D’awa and development last night petitioned the deputy speaker Rebecca Kadaga calling for a tough law on sodomachists, lesbians and ritual murderers. The group’s head Hajati Kakaire Faridah said the group had also launched a 6-months country-wide campaign against bum shafters and ritual murderers.
The Uganda Human Rights Commission is soon releasing its report into allegations that some pastors practice sodomy.According to commissioner Agaba Maguru, the body had already completed the biggest percentage of its investigations against bum shafting individuals mostly pastors, and that soon its report is going to be handed over to parliament.Appearing before the parliamentary legal committee chaired by Stephen Tashobya last night, Agaba said that sodomy had dominated almost the entire desk of the commission as one of the major cases registered against children’s rights.
“We have received several cases of child rights abuses. Sodomy is taking a centre stage. We have already interviewed the victims and the alleged culprits. We have interviewed the police and many pastors. Soon we are going to release our report,” he said.Agaba was however, cagey on revealing particular culprits that had been interrogated, but said many pastors were interrogated.This comes at a time when Miracle Cathedral Pastor Robert Kayanja is currently facing intense investigations after allegations of surfing bums of his flock, while another pastor Kiweweesi was also accused of the same vice.
Meanwhile, the commission is facing closure of all its regional offices unless government moves swiftly to allocate dime to finance the office rent of the commission’s regional offices across the country.UHRC secretary Gordon Mwesigye informed the committee that all donors have frozen their accounts that were being used to fund the regional office’s rental fees. He said that despite such a development, government has not allocated even a single penny for this activity. “We conduct our business through regional offices and we want to open up new ones. The donors have already warned us that they are not going to pay rent for our regional offices as they have been doing. The donors have been funding the tribunals, investigations and rental fees and if they pull out, there is going to be a real crisis,” Mwesigye said.The committee now wants government to consider this as a matter of top priority by allocating Shs1.7bn for this project.
In another development the Uganda Muslim Women Association on D’awa and development last night petitioned the deputy speaker Rebecca Kadaga calling for a tough law on sodomachists, lesbians and ritual murderers. The group’s head Hajati Kakaire Faridah said the group had also launched a 6-months country-wide campaign against bum shafters and ritual murderers.
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