Uganda Drops Charges Against Women Accused of Kissing
The women faced up to 20 years in prison after neighbors accused them of kissing in public and hosting "same-sex orgies."
Prosecutors in Uganda have thrown out a case against two women accused of violating the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act by kissing in public.
The 2023 law — which American evangelicals and Republican lawmakers encouraged Ugandan lawmakers to pass as part of a crackdown on displays of homosexuality and expressions of LGBTQ identity — imposes some of the world’s harshest penalties for same-sex intimacy, including up to life in prison for consensual same-sex relations.
The women — Wendy Faith, a 22-year-old musician known as Torrero Bae, and Alesi Diana Denise, 21 — were arrested in February in the city of Arua after neighbors claimed to have seen them kissing in public. The neighbors photographed the women and accused them of hosting “same-sex orgies,” a local police spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse at the time.
Irene Nakimbugwe, deputy spokesperson for Uganda’s Director of Public Prosecutions, told AFP that the case had been withdrawn.
“Finally, Wendy and Diana are free,” Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), wrote on X. “Thank you to everyone who stood with them and supported them throughout this journey.”
Mugisha told AFP that the women’s prosecution “should never have reached this stage” and renewed his longstanding call for the Anti-Homosexuality Act to be repealed.
“Kissing is not a crime, and no one should be persecuted for who they are or who they love,” Mugisha said. “I hope this decision marks the beginning of a wider review of similar cases and that all unjust prosecutions arising from the Anti-Homosexuality Act are dropped.”
At the time of the arrests, Ugandan gay rights activist Hans Senfuma told The Guardian that the case was intended to intimidate the country’s broader LGBTQ community.
“It is a message, loud, deliberate and brutal, sent to every queer person in Uganda: we are watching you, and we will come for you too,” Senfuma said. “There are thousands of LGBTQI Ugandans who are silently deleting messages from their phones, moving out of shared homes, pulling away from the people they love, rehearsing how to look straight, how to laugh differently, how to survive.”
Senfuma urged the international community to use financial and diplomatic pressure to persuade Ugandan authorities to drop the charges.
“Two girls are facing life imprisonment,” he said. “If that does not move you to action, I genuinely do not know what will.”
Since the Anti-Homosexuality Act’s passage, Ugandan authorities have arrested several people accused of engaging in same-sex relations. Prosecutors also sought the death penalty for a man charged with “aggravated homosexuality” over an alleged sexual encounter with a 41-year-old whose “mental status” purportedly rendered him incapable of consent. The defendant, who was 20 when arrested, later had the charge dropped after reportedly suffering a mental breakdown in custody.
Human rights advocates say the law is frequently used to blackmail and extort LGBTQ people. The United States imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials responsible for enforcing the law, while the World Bank froze new loans to the East African nation. The World Bank resumed funding to Uganda in 2025.
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