Ms Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera:

I have had a chance to speak to parliamentarians in Sweden and Italy and in January this year we had a meeting in Amsterdam where the Intergroup supporting LGBT rights of the European Parliament organised a discussion of the LGBT toolkit and how it can be used in our countries and how we can use it to force our governments to implement changes. We also have workers in Uganda who are LGBT. This meeting went well. We have also been advising politicians, members of parliament, the international community and governments that during the universal periodic review, Uganda accepted three recommendations to protect LGBT persons and to investigate violence and abuse of LGBT persons. However, this has not been implemented since March last year. Therefore, we are working through our diplomatic missions to lobby and try to see how aid can be tied to the policies that were accepted by Uganda. We are using these small avenues to get our international diplomatic missions to try to push the country towards upholding the commitments made during the universal periodic review.

I have not had the opportunity to speak with many parliaments around the world.

It is something that we are working on to say that we can get allies from the international community to really try to put pressure on our government. So far the pressure has worked internationally. People are speaking out openly. The Prime Ministers of Canada and the UK, and President Obama, have spoken out well and the government at home feels that it is being pressurised and forced to take something that is a Western import but it also helped us because it realised that the world is watching and that it is a foreign policy issue. The President came out openly and advised the Members of Parliament to go slowly on the homosexuality Bill. The only problem we have now is that Members of Parliament are pushing for the Bill to go through. They say the President is being bribed and pressurised and that they will go ahead and pass the Bill because they do not need the donor aid. They have found oil and can work with that. That is why the Bill is moving up and down on the order paper. It is popular with the people of Uganda but there is also a lot of international pressure on the government and that is why they are trying to find a way to get rid of the Bill but also save face.

Deportation is another issue. All the people who face deportation in the UK are exposed in the media and that means at home they are being watched and exposed as well as outed in the media, which puts their lives at risk when they come home. Last month upon my arrival at the airport my passport and my laptop were confiscated for a week by immigration officers to prevent me from travelling out again. That is how I missed my previous appointment to meet Amnesty International in the US because we use these avenues to build solidarity and networks for support. It is dangerous for those who are exposed in the newspapers to come home. There was a case in which a lesbian was deported last month and two weeks later she was found dead in Uganda.