With international attention focused on the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda, the Western Regional International Health Conference theme, Uncensored, is at the forefront of global health. Conference Coordinator Mariel Boyarsky interviewed Stella Nyanzi,PhD, a social science researcher and anthropologist at the Makerere Institute of Social Research at Makerere University in Uganda, to get her perspective on the events unfolding in Uganda, and her work on African sexuality.
Mariel (M): What are the potential consequences of the anti-homosexual bill about to be signed into law by Ugandan President Yoweri Musevni?
Stella (S): “If the bill becomes law in Uganda there will be dire consequences for members of the LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, and queer) communities, their allies, but also more widely for the functionality of several sectors in the country including the public health, education, housing and welfare, law enforcing institutions such as the police, courts and prisons, etc.”
M: What is the climate like for homosexuals in Uganda?
S: “The majority of the Ugandan public expresses homophobic sentiments ─ mainly verbally ─ but also there has been an increase in cases of beatings, violence, termination of employment, expulsion from schools, denial by families, eviction by landlords, or eviction from residential areas by members, and arrests by the police of LGBTIQ members.”
M: What effects would an anti-homosexual bill have beyond LBGTIQ individuals?
S: “Landlords, family members, priests, hoteliers, and other people in authority will be required to report on individuals known to be homosexual, or else risk facing penalties.” Additionally, she said, service providers such as teachers, counselors, journals, and public health workers could be prosecuted for providing HIV prevention, treatment, and care efforts for men who have sex with men, or transgender women.
M: How do changing gender roles and masculinities intersect with public health efforts?
S: “If HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care interventions are to be appropriate and more effective in Uganda ─ and Africa more generally ─ then it is important to engage the men, and notions of ruling masculinities, and bring them on board as partners in these efforts to reduce the epidemic.”
M: How are women being engaged in public health efforts?
S: Women are also being left out. Nyanzi points to the lack of access to age-appropriate sex education, and information in one’s own language as perpetuating pregnancies, illegal pregnancy terminations, and sexually transmitted infections among teenage girls. For women of reproductive age, Nyanzi describes a “plethora of sexual and reproductive health challenges,” including access to affordable contraceptives, challenges of accessing antenatal health care, especially in the first trimester, and lack of emergency obstetric care during pregnancy or delivery of babies. “These pregnancy, delivery and post-partum challenges affect many women in Sub-Saharan Africa regardless of whether we have STIs, including HIV/AIDS, or not.”
M: Could you talk about your accomplishments?
S: “Anthropology as a discipline allows me to get in touch with the everyday issues affecting the local individual living in the streets and villages that I study, live in, work in. It gives me a methodology to reach the heartbeat of the locals.”
At the same time, Nyanzi sustains a keen focus on creating social change. “The activist in me burns for change right now! The activist is often frustrated by the systematic rigor, time for observation and analysis, and need for biographic comparisons that are required by the academic before one can pronounce a position or idea or intervention. However, the methodical processes of the academic often yield more concrete and well-researched bodies of knowledge that aid the activism.”
M: What do global health students need to know about working in Sub-Saharan Africa?
S: “While partnerships with American citizens are important, the solutions to the health challenges in Africa must be initiated, conceived, designed, and tailored from Africa, in Africa, by Africans.” She cautioned against the tendency of non-Africans to prescribe one-size-fits-all models of global health, rather than community-based, locally owned projects.
Students and global health advocates will have the unique opportunity to converge and learn from people around the globe at the conference in April. “Conferences such WRIHC are an important avenue to interact with African and other non-Western academics who can share their experiences,” said Nyanzi.
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Learn more. Register for the conference today at 2014.wrihc.org.