Uganda Bill to ‘Rehabilitate’ LGBTIQ+ People Sparks Concern Among African Psychologists.
In 2019, research conducted in three African countries revealed that fifty percent of respondents were converted.
These included psychotherapy, exorcism, herb consumption, healing prayers, beatings, and sexual assault.
Mental health professionals from across Africa, including Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Nigeria, and South Africa, have signed a declaration against conversion practices that involve the forcible alteration of the sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression of LGBTIQ+ individuals.
The declaration categorically rejects any conversion attempts by mental health professionals.
Expert organizations, such as the Professional Association for Transgender Health, have already given the declaration their official support.
The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill for 2023 includes the practices described in the declaration. Legislators in Uganda have proposed to “rehabilitate” sexually or gender-nonconforming individuals.
Professor Floretta Boonzaier, president of the PsySSA, described the bill as “an attack on human dignity, well-being, autonomy, and self-determination”
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Conversion practices, also known as “reparative therapies,” are unscientific and ineffective.
However, they are widely used throughout the continent.
In 2019, research conducted in three African countries revealed that fifty percent of respondents were converted.
These included psychotherapy, exorcism, herb consumption, healing prayers, beatings, and sexual assault.
Psychologists with expertise in sexuality and gender in South Africa have condemned the bill.
It violates a fundamental ethical obligation to promote well-being and minimize harm.
Two examples demonstrate this point. If a client discloses that they are (or maybe) LGBTIQ+, psychologists will be expected to violate client confidentiality.
Professionals who fail to report these clients to the police risk imprisonment for six months.
Second, psychologists and presumably other health professionals will be required to “rehabilitate” LGBTIQ+ individuals.
In an email exchange, Pierre Brouard, the acting director of the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS, and Gender at the University of Pretoria, stated:
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This climate of fear would betray all that our profession stands for. It is inconceivable that any mental health professional could work under these conditions, and we call on all members of our profession to denounce this assault on us and the clients we serve. “Reporting clients to the authorities would be harmful, would impede wellness, would undermine trust, would lack integrity, would be inherently unjust, and would harm any confidentiality relationship.”
No scientific justification
The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has requested a scientific response to the bill.
However, he has ignored critiques based on evidence that has been presented to him since 2010 and 2014. Brouard stated that the bill
“is anti-scientific and represents a regression in the modern understanding of human nature.”
For instance, in 2015, The Academy of Science in South Africa, in collaboration with the Uganda National Academy of Sciences, reached the conclusion, based on a thorough review of the evidence, that
“Modern science increasingly acknowledges the vast array of natural variations in human sexuality, sexual orientations, and gender identities”
the fact that
There is no justification for efforts to eradicate non-heterosexual individuals from society.
Perpetuating harm
The bill is an assault on sexual and gender minorities who are already vulnerable.
Professor Kopano Ratele, a distinguished African psychologist, stated in an email that
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“The bill is fundamentally inhuman. In contrast to the notion that homosexuality is un-African, the spirit of the bill is un-African. The bill appears to be primarily about the desire of some individuals to control the bodies, relationships, and inner lives of others. What is so frightening about human affection?
LGBTIQ+ individuals have an elevated risk of developing mental health disorders.
This is because of homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination based on their identities.
The bill goes beyond making sexual behavior between consenting adults illegal.
Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria, Dr. Jarred Martin, stated (via email):
“It criminalizes identity by mandating prosecution for how individuals think, feels, identify, and, ultimately, who and how they love. South Africans are all too familiar with attempts to criminalize love, having lived under colonial and apartheid-era laws that defined love in legal terms as moral or immoral.
In other African nations, similar anti-LGBTIQ+ efforts are afoot.
Under the Family Protection Act, Kenya is currently targeting individuals.
In Tanzania, castration is advocated as a punishment for homosexual men.
Current anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies in African nations have direct ties to American evangelical Christian churches.
The next measures
The message is unambiguous: all psychologists, but particularly those of us based on the African continent, must condemn Uganda’s, Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
We request that mental health professionals from across Africa sign and support the declaration and join the growing chorus of experts who have condemned Uganda’s dangerous bill.
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For instance, the PsySSA Sexuality and Gender Division has been at the forefront of leading a scientifically-based critique of Ugandan law.
In 2017, PsySSA published an innovative set of practice guidelines for psychologists working with LGBTIQ+ individuals.
This was a first in Africa and has been translated and used as a global mental health resource in other African nations.
Therefore, psychologists can and should demonstrate leadership in promoting human rights and LGBTIQ+ well-being.
Uganda Bill to ‘Rehabilitate’ LGBTIQ+ People Sparks Concern Among African Psychologists.
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