UGANDA
Male to Male relationships: Not Legal
Punishments for male to male relationships: Imprisonment of 10 years or more
Female to Female Relationships: Not Legal
Marriage and Substitutes for Marriage: No law
Gay or lesbian able to serve in the armed forces: No
BACKGROUND:
MARPS IN UGANDA is involved at various spaces sharing on; Capacity building, organisation development, Sexuality, orientation, gender, identity, microbicides, HIV, cancer, Female genital mutilation and other issues. Calls for repeat sessions on such subjects like; microbicides continue coming in. Today, after activities during the World cancer-day in Uganda we have decided to launch our "microbicide information center".
6P’s make up our concept: Understanding Policy, intensifying Programmes, identifying all Players, Providing education and enabling Participation to Popularise microbicides in Uganda.
We hope to reach 800 key leaders with the lubes, condom and microbicide messages by December 2012. These in turn will reach many others. We hope to popularise acceptability in a network with 350 persons by December 2012 if all goes well. Microbicides, especially rectal microbicides are anti-HIV decision-support tools in the hands of marginalised.
UNDERSTANDING A MICROBICIDE:
Microbicide /mi•cro•bi•cide/ (mi-kro´bĭ-sīd):
1. a substance that destroys microbes.
2. a substance that destroys infectious agents, including also viruses; sometimes used specifically for that used to prevent transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
HOW MICROBICIDE INFORMATION HAS BEEN POPULARISED:
1. We have used meetings (e.g., National consultative meetings) to share information on microbicides. This has been possible because MARPS IN UGANDA is part of the large CSO Network in Uganda. It takes lead on MSM. WSW, TG, Substance users and PLHIV. It as well takes lead on providing evidence in form of reports on all most at risk populations (MARPs) in Uganda. These include but not limited to: fisher-folk, sex-workers, truckers, discordant couples, persons in long term relations, PLHIV, MSM and Uniformed services Personnel. Given the vast networks within which we work, we have also interacted with: mobile communities, displaced persons, disabled persons, young persons, men and women.
2. We work with school and non-school going communities and with these we did design schedules on talks around: sexual and reproductive health. We use these spaces to introduce topics such as, microbicides.
3. We are a lead organisation promoting the eradication of violence, violations, abuse, discrimination and stigma in communities due to for instance: sexuality, orientation, gender and identity. Through these spaces we share on microbicides.
4. We link with various organisations under the capacity building contracts. While we train, we also introduce issues around Microbicides.
OUTCOMES: We have become a lead organisation, voluntarily providing information on microbicides in Uganda.