A White House spokesperson on Thursday did not say whether the Trump-Vance administration plans to lift sanctions against Ugandan officials responsible for human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups as part of an agreement to accept migrants deported from the U.S.

Ugandan Foreign Affairs Ministry Permanent Secretary Bagiire Vincent Waiswa in a statement said the agreement between his country and the U.S. “is in respect of third country nationals who may not be granted asylum in the United States, but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin.”

Waiswa described the agreement as “a temporary arrangement with conditions, including that individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted.”

“Uganda also prefers that individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda,” added Waiswa. “The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented.”

STATEMENT CONCERNING AGREEMENT ON MIGRATION ISSUES WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES

As part of the bilateral cooperation between Uganda and the United States, an Agreement for cooperation in the examination of protection requests was concluded.

The Agreement is in… pic.twitter.com/dStdBSXtBN

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Uganda 🇺🇬 (@UgandaMFA) August 21, 2025

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in May 2023 signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.”

The Biden-Harris administration imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials and removed the country from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. The World Bank Group in June resumed lending to Uganda after it suspended new loans in response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

The State Department’s 2024 human rights report that advocacy groups say “erased” LGBTQ people does not specifically mention the Anti-Homosexuality Act or the impact it has had on LGBTQ Ugandans. The report, however, does note Ugandan government officials “reportedly committed acts of sexual violence.”

“NGOs reported police medical staff subjected at least 15 persons to forced anal examinations following their arrests,” it reads. “Opposition protesters stated security forces used or threatened to use forced anal examinations during interrogations.”

“The Trump administration is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to carry out the largest mass deportation operation of criminal illegal aliens in history, using all the tools at our disposal,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in response to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the agreement.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday spoke with Museveni.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to discuss opportunities to deepen U.S.-Uganda cooperation on migration, reciprocal trade, and commercial ties,” said State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott in a statement. “The secretary also thanked Uganda for providing a model of regional stability including its valuable contributions to peacekeeping in East Africa.”

A State Department spokesperson told the Blade the State Department does not “comment on the content of private diplomatic negotiations.”

“However, we would note that for decades, Uganda has hosted refugees from across Africa and has one of the world’s most comprehensive protection regimes for refugees,” added the spokesperson.

Seven months since the Trump-Vance administration froze U.S global aid, African countries whose health programs have been seriously affected have devised new ways to address the funding challenge.

The governments’ urgent interventions, however, come with calls of inclusion from queer rights groups in Kenya and Uganda and elsewhere that have also been seriously impacted, warning their sidelining only implies a lack of seriousness to end HIV/AIDS.  

“We must fund, protect, and institutionalize community leadership to survive this moment and build systems that endure,” Richard Lusimbo, founder of Uganda Key Populations Consortium, said.

Lusimbo noted community-led organizations, including LGBTQ networks, not only implement public health programs but have co-designed them. They have created referral systems, peer support structures, and delivered medical clinics in remote areas that public systems cannot reach.   

“We are not there to patch holes,” said Lusimbo. “We are there to lead. Our leadership must be recognized, resourced, and embedded within national systems, and not only consulted once programs are already designed.”

The queer community’s demand for the government interventions comes amid UNAIDS’s latest warning of a serious global HIV response crisis if U.S funding is halted permanently. The agency’s report said this gap would reverse decades-long gains of saving 26.9 million lives from the virus.

“UNAIDS projections show that a permanent discontinuation of support from the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for HIV treatment and prevention could lead to more than 4 million additional AIDS-related deaths and more than 6 million additional new HIV infections by 2029,” its report states.

The annual UNAIDS reportreleased on July 10 notes the sudden dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development — which was the world’s largest contributor to HIV programs for low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere — has disrupted prevention and treatment programs.

USAID contributed 80 percent of the total funding for the aforementioned efforts.

The UNAIDS report also notes half of the 9.2 million people with HIV/AIDS around the world last year who needed treatment but were not receiving it lived in Kenya, Uganda, and other sub-Saharan African countries.

It notes the largest gaps are in diagnosing men living with HIV and linking them to treatment and care, while singling out men who are gay and are members of other key populations as the most affected because of discriminatory laws, violence, and stigma.

“In the absence of a cure for HIV, millions of people will continue to need HIV treatment for many decades to come, but funding losses are destabilizing many treatment programs and the efforts to make them more equitable,” UNAIDS warns.

Key populations, including gay men whose clinics, community-led health groups, and queer rights organizations depend largely on PEPFAR and other foreign aid programs, are reeling from the U.S. funding cuts. UNAIDS data notes around 25 percent of people from vulnerable populations in sub-Saharan Africa are denied access to HIV/AIDS programs, which causes new infections.

GALCK+, a Kenyan queer rights group, noted the freezing of PEPFAR funding has impacted most LGBTQ programs. The result has been fewer HIV testing clinics, queer mental health centers and safe spaces, and hospitals no longer offering gender-affirming care.

“Our lives are on the line, and we must fight for every life. Donate, volunteer, and uplift local LGBTQ+ organizations working on healthcare access and community support,” GALCK+ said.  

The queer lobby group also noted forging new partnerships with other international donors is crucial to address the new funding challenge.

Kaleidoscope Trust, a U.K.-based queer rights organization, has stepped in to support LGBTQ groups affected by the U.S. funding freeze.

Although the Global Fund has picked Kenya and Uganda as among the first sub-Saharan African countries to benefit from lenacapavir, a new long-acting injectable PrEP drug, anti-gay discrimination has prevented many people from accessing it.

“This long-acting option has the potential to revolutionize HIV prevention, especially for our community who continue to face stigma or barriers in accessing daily oral PrEP,” Lusimbo said.

Kenyan, Ugandan governments work to bridge funding gap

The PEPFAR funding cut has led to the closure of hundreds of HIV treatment clinics and disrupted the supply of antiretroviral drugs, forcing Kenya and Uganda to reconsider domestic financing through national budgets passed last month. 

Kenya, which received a total of $322 million in PEPFAR funding in 2024, increased its national budget for the health sector by $85 million, from $983 million in the previous financial year to $1.07 billion in the current one, in an attempt to bridge the shortfall.

The additional funding resulted from a joint high-level meeting of top officials from national and local governments, health sector players, and relevant communities in March to agree on a sustainable HIV response plan.

The plan entails redesigning medical service delivery to integrate HIV and other diseases in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health programs. It also involves more domestic funding for HIV products, vaccines, and effective health management systems.

NEPHAK, a Kenyan national network that works with people living with HIV and those at risk of the virus, has called for immediate integration of HIV care into general health care. NEPHAK has also said HIV treatment should be included in the country’s universal health coverage plan.

Uganda also convened a high-level national health financing dialogue in May in response to the U.S funding pause to explore ways of increasing its health sector spending, which has stood between $52-$57 per capita, below the World Health Organization’s recommended $86 minimum.

“Organizations in Uganda are asking for more local money for health and SRHR (sexual and reproductive health rights), better use of budgets, and more community involvement and engagement in all the processes,” stated CEHURD Uganda, a local health social justice rights group. Uganda this financial year increased its health sector’s budget to 8.1 percent from 4 percent in the last financial year, a move lauded by CEHURD as the only way towards having a robust health sector.     

As queer people around the world celebrate Pride month, their Kenyan and Ugandan counterparts are also marking it with a strong message of defiance and resistance.

Their agitation for “dignity, safety, and liberation” in homophobic environments follows last month’s second Pan-African Conference on Family Values in Nairobi, whose delegates were concerned about the push to normalize so-called LGBTQ practices on the continent and resolved to resist.      

The Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination, a Kenyan LGBTQ rights organization, for instance cites Pride’s founding spirit of protest to resist the attempt to “erase, silence and oppress” queer people.  

“In a world that tries to diminish our existence, choosing joy becomes a radical act. Queer joy is not just a celebration, it is resistance. It is healing. It is a bold declaration; we are here, we are whole, and we deserve to thrive,” INEND states. 

It affirms that queer people have space for rage, resistance, softness, and joy as they honor the roots of Pride packed with a variety of activities for the group throughout the month.    

“We demand inclusion, we bask for visibility and we dance through the fire. This, too, is revolution,” INEND says. 

During the Pan-African Conference on Family Values meeting, which delegates from national governments, anti-LGBTQ lobby groups, academic and religious institutions, and international partners attended, Kenyan National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula affirmed the country’s position on marriage between a man and a woman as the constitution states. Wetang’ula advocates for laws that protect the “traditional family” and cultural values against what he described as Western imports.

“I urge our legislators that they should shield the good provisions of our constitution on family from ideological redefinitions of marriage seeking to recognize outlawed same-sex relationships,” Wetang’ula said. 

He also asked lawmakers to enact laws to prohibit comprehensive sexuality education in schools and only permit a science-based curriculum that is appropriate to the age, development level, and cultural background of school children without normalizing same-sex sexual acts and relationships.

“In modern times, across all nations, there have emerged two forces: one fighting for, and the other pursuing ideologies, positions, and acts that are against the traditional family,” Wetang’ula said. 

The delegates during the conference, which sparked criticism from Kenyan queer groups committed to resist the imposition of LGBTQ rights and other so-called external values under the pretense of development aid, international agreements, or donor partnerships that conflict with national laws and cultural integrity. They also committed to establishing, strengthening, and coordinating “pro-family” advocacy platforms and multi-sector coalitions at national, regional, and continental levels to engage with policymakers, legislators, and public education players.  

This pledge was in response to the delegates’ concerns over external manipulation of national legislative processes through covert or overt efforts to influence or bypass national parliaments in adopting judicial decisions that redefine family, life, and gender. They were also concerned over the global push to normalize gender fluidity and “non-biological” sexual identities in law, education, and healthcare, contrary to established biological, African culture, and religious norms.  

The delegates asked the African governments, parliaments, the African Union, and regional economic blocs to urgently undertake legislative reviews and reforms to ensure all national laws align with constitutional protections for the family, life, and parental rights. The Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination, however, argue that describing queerness as un-African is a lie and a tool of imperialism used as a weapon to justify violence, exclusion and erasure, which should be rejected as it was enacted by colonial powers. 

Kenya’s queer community has nevertheless lined up a month’s worth of Pride events in Nairobi, the country, and across the country. Some of the locations are not publicly disclosed because of security reasons.

The events calendar that Galck, a group of 16 LGBTQ rights organizations, released includes entertainment and socializing every Friday evening in various places for queer party lovers. The celebrations also include queer community networking events to empower each other, meet-ups in safe places for soft, acoustic jam sessions and reflection, queer community days where the group gather to connect and celebrate queer lives. 

The calendar also invites queer people to participate in an open conversation with Galck, a trivia and karaoke event with the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a supportive healing circle termed ‘Healing out Loud’ for distressed queer people, and a queer community potluck for the group to enjoy food, fun and connection. 

Other Pride events include queer love edition for singles, an art exhibition that includes rainbow- themed painting, a healing-centred therapy workshop termed “Chosen Family, Chosen Self,” a literary forum for bookworms to celebrate queer African literature, and movie night for film lovers.

The Cosmopolitan Affirming Community, a Nairobi-based church for queer people, has organized Gospel Sunday. Trek Tribe Kenya, an outdoor activity organizer, is also organizing activities that include climbing Mount Kenya, Africa’s second-highest mountain, hiking the gorges of Hell’s Gate National Park, and enjoying a “Pastel in the Park” wellness treat. 

“Respect the spaces you attend as they are safe, affirming environments, and take care of oneself and each other during Pride fun fare celebration,” Galck urges.  

‘Pride is not just parades or celebrations’

Their queer counterparts in Uganda are also having an eventful Pride month, despite persistent challenges.

“Pride is not just parades or celebrations. It is solidarity for many who cannot celebrate or march. It means refusing to be erased and choosing to simply be who you are,” said Sexual Minorities Uganda, which LGBTQ activist Frank Mugisha leads.