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Article

3 Oct 2014

Author:
Amy Fallon, in The East African

Tour operators market Uganda as gay-friendly destination; local activists skeptical of initiative

"Tough sell: marketing Uganda to gay travellers" 1 October 2014

Uganda is probably the last place a gay holidaymaker would want to visit, but tourism bosses in the east African nation are nevertheless trying to achieve the seemingly impossible...The country's tourism representatives and private sector businesses, however, have rallied to assure gay and lesbian travellers that they have nothing to fear. "No one is actually being killed," asserted Babra Adoso of the Association of Uganda Tour Operators. "We are not aware of anybody who has been asked at the airport 'what is your sexual inclination?' or been turned away," she said...[M]embers of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) and other industry representatives from Uganda met recently with the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), a gay-friendly global travel network...Ugandan gay rights activists are equally sceptical on the initiative, saying the country should first look at how it treats its own citizens who happen to be gay. "It's very difficult for us to even move from one town to another," said activist Pepe Julian Onziema, adding that the pronouncements by Uganda tourism representatives gave the impression there was one law for locals and another for foreigners. "The freedom has to begin with us," he said.