An Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Law in Uganda Is Hurting the Economy
nytimes.comSitting on a sofa in his tiny office, Simon Azarwagye, the owner of a travel company called Azas Safaris, points to numbers on his laptop — visual aids for a story that still makes him miserable to tell. “See that?” he says, gesturing to a graph marked “quote requests.” It represents the 89 prospective customers he was communicating with earlier in the year.
All of them had inquired about tours of Uganda’s lush forests; the expeditions cost about $15,000 per couple for 13 days of hippo and gorilla spotting.
That was before the country’s Parliament started debating one of the harshest anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws in the world. It included a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” — defined as same-sex relations with someone who is disabled, H.I.V.-positive or elderly, among other categories — and criminalized defending gay men and lesbians in public.
News of the bill made international headlines. On the day it was signed in late May, President Biden and leaders around Europe threatened sanctions that Uganda, which has an economy that lags in size behind those of Libya and Sudan, can ill afford.
