The Law Britain Left Behind: The Colonial Roots of Uganda's Anti-Gay Laws

October is Black History Month in the UK. For LGBTQ+ Ugandans, part of that history was written in London.

Uganda’s leaders regularly describe homosexuality as “un-African”, a Western import. But read the law Uganda has used for decades to punish same-sex intimacy. Section 145 of the Penal Code Act makes it a crime to have “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature”, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

That is not the language of Luganda, Lango or Ateso. It is Victorian English legal language, and it was brought to Uganda by the British.

Where the words came from

In 1860, the British introduced a new penal code in India. Its section 377 punished “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with up to life imprisonment.

According to Human Rights Watch’s report This Alien Legacy, British administrators applied the Indian Penal Code in their African territories, including Kenya and Uganda, between 1897 and 1902. Colonial officials in East Africa later moved towards a code modelled on Queensland’s, which had been adopted in Northern Nigeria in 1916. One legal historian quoted in the report puts this down to the “personal views and prejudices” of colonial officials, not to local custom.

The report is clear about the thinking behind these laws. Colonisers “saw indigenous cultures as sexually corrupt”, and lawmakers believed “the colonized needed compulsory re-education in sexual mores”. The provisions were drafted and imposed without any local input.

Uganda kept the law at independence in 1962. It is still in force today, alongside the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Not one law, but an empire’s worth

Uganda is not unusual. In 2008, Human Rights Watch found that laws in more than three dozen countries, from Asia and the Pacific to Africa, descend from that one Indian section 377. The African list includes Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria.

Today, 65 countries criminalise homosexuality, according to figures from ILGA cited by Rainbow Migration. Thirty-five of them were once British colonies.

Britain changed its mind. Uganda kept the law

England and Wales decriminalised sex between men in 1967. The countries Britain had given these laws to were left with them.

Uganda went the other way. In 1990, legislators raised the maximum penalty to life imprisonment. In 2014, Parliament passed an Anti-Homosexuality Act, later struck down by the Constitutional Court because Parliament lacked a quorum. In 2023 came the current Act, with the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and up to 20 years for “promotion”. We have written about what that law has done.

In April 2018, Theresa May told Commonwealth leaders in London: “I deeply regret the fact that such laws were introduced.” She added: “I am all too aware that these laws were often put in place by my own country. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.” At the time, 36 of the 53 Commonwealth countries still had colonial-era laws against same-sex intimacy.

Colonial roots are not an excuse

Saying where the law came from does not let Uganda’s present leaders off. Ugandan MPs, not British officials, voted for the 1990 increase, the 2014 Act and the 2023 Act. Rainbow Migration makes the same point: the link with colonialism should not erase the choices and agency of people in Africa today.

Nor is all of today’s pressure home-grown. Human Rights Watch has reported that the “family values” conferences held in Africa have documented ties to US-based far-right groups, and that past editions promoted Uganda’s Act as a model. Ghana’s parliament passed a similar bill this year.

What was here before

Uganda’s history before colonial rule was not a single story, and it did not match the “un-African” claim. Our myths article sets out some of the evidence, including the mudoko dako among the Lango, men who lived as women and could marry men, and accounts of Kabaka Mwanga II’s relationships with male and female servants.

What was imported was not same-sex love. It was the criminal law against it.

What Britain owes now

If the UK regrets these laws, it should protect the people fleeing them. Between 2015 and 2023, 49% of Ugandan asylum claims in the UK raised sexual orientation. Many of those people are fleeing a law with British origins.

Instead, the Home Office has moved to 30-month temporary refugee status, and this month it publicised a raid on fake gay asylum claims in a way that will make genuine claimants harder to believe.

In 2018, the UK said it “stands ready to support any Commonwealth member wanting to reform outdated legislation”. That support should go to African-led efforts for reform, and it should start with a fair hearing for the people who reach the UK asking for safety.

Black history includes queer history

Black History Month is about telling the whole story. That includes Black LGBTQ+ people in Britain and in Africa. UK Black Pride began in 2005 as a day trip to Southend organised by a network of Black lesbians. Today it describes itself as Europe’s largest gathering for LGBTQ+ people of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Caribbean heritage. It is where, last summer, I saw what Pride can be.

The law that criminalises LGBTQ+ Ugandans was written in English, by officials who thought Africans needed correcting. When Ugandan leaders call LGBTQ+ Ugandans “un-African”, they are repeating that colonial idea, not rejecting it.