By Nicholas Bariyo
KAMPALA, Uganda -- The gay-rights hotline is busiest on weekend nights, when the bars in this conservative East African country are crowded with both gay singles and police informants preying on them.
One call comes from a young gay man beaten after being lured into an ambush through a dating app. A lesbian couple says police raided their home after an informant reported them for kissing in public. Then there is the man who says police are threatening to charge him under Uganda's harsh antigay law -- unless he gives them $2,000.
"The vast majority of the callers are individuals facing extortion or immediate physical danger," said John Grace, the Ugandan activist who runs the hotline.
Ever since a new law came into effect imposing sentences of life imprisonment for same-sex intercourse and the death penalty for some homosexual acts, the bars, restaurants and nightclubs dotting Kampala's entertainment districts have become hunting grounds for police informants, fixers and con artists on the lookout for gay people to blackmail.
Using dating apps, expensive gifts and false identities, they trick unsuspecting victims into flirtations before demanding money in exchange for not reporting them to the authorities. Ugandan security officers, usually known for cracking down on political opponents of President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country since 1986, are cashing in, too.
"It's a big criminal network taking advantage of the law as a weapon to extort," said Frank Mugisha, a Ugandan gay-rights activist. "People deemed to belong to the LGBTQ community are routinely surveilled, targeted and harassed into making huge payments."
Uganda has long been seen as a solid security partner for the U.S., sending troops to fight al Qaeda's Somali franchise, al-Shabaab.
But its leaders, reflecting the country's general social conservatism, passed one of the world's strictest antigay laws in 2023. The move drew the ire of Western governments, including the Biden administration, which cut Uganda off from a preferential American trade deal. The World Bank suspended $5 billion in development funding, before restoring it last year after Uganda promised to prevent discrimination in its projects.
Victims of the extortion racket include two women who were arrested last month after a police informant said he had seen them kissing in the northern Ugandan city of Arua.
Relatives say a police informant initially demanded money from them in exchange for not reporting them. When the women failed to pay, he turned them in.
After being detained for a week, the women were released after paying the equivalent of $100 in bribes, with a promise to pay a further $100, according to relatives and friends. When the women failed to raise the second payment, police rearrested them. Prosecutors charged them with homosexuality and indecent practice, according to their lawyer. They pleaded not guilty.
The magistrate denied them bail, according to their lawyer.
Police spokeswoman Josephine Angucia said officers responded following a complaint from a neighbor that the women were living together and practicing homosexuality. Angucia denied knowledge of police demanding bribes from the women.
One Ugandan activist described the legal process as a money-minting business for law enforcement. "People have nowhere to hide," she said.
Gay Ugandans are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable to rejection by their families, discrimination from landlords and blackmail by criminals. Many have fled the country and sought asylum in Western countries.
Blackmailers generally calibrate their demands to what they believe the victims can pay, ranging from a few hundred dollars to thousands, local activists and victims say. For app entrapments or police bond extortions, the baseline demand usually falls between $130 and $1,300, but can reach into the thousands.
Even before the new legislation, same-sex relationships were illegal in Uganda under colonial-era law. But the old law was rarely enforced.
Since the new law's enactment, the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, a Ugandan advocacy group, has documented more than 1,200 cases of blackmail and harassment. The figures are likely understated because many victims are reluctant to report to police, the group said.
Feeling disapproval at home, Grace, the hotline activist, moved into a house a couple of miles away in 2020, throwing parties and having friends over to watch soccer matches.
Shortly after the new law passed, four men broke in, pinned Grace to the ground and demanded $500 to keep Grace's sexual orientation secret from the neighbors. Grace reached into a drawer, grabbed a fistful of Ugandan shilling notes, and handed over the cash.
Not long afterward, Grace packed up and moved into a house with other gay Ugandans. "I haven't recovered fully from that attack," Grace said in an interview.
Grace is now 34 and runs a charity, the Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium, which provides safe housing to gay men and lesbians across Uganda.
Each month, the charity receives up to 60 distress calls from gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and queer people facing threats ranging from extortion to eviction. The charity provides housing to 500 individuals each year, most of them displaced by extortionists and neighbors. The group is largely funded by foreign donors.
But many gay Ugandans can't find space in such shelters, rendering them vulnerable.
One victim said he agreed to meet a stranger who contacted him on a dating app in January. The stranger, however, arrived at the rendezvous accompanied by undercover police officers, who arrested the man. While in custody, officers searched his phone and found communications with another man they suspected to be an intimate partner. The officers tricked the suspected partner into meeting them, arrested him, and demanded $2,000 from the pair, according to local activists and lawyers.
The victim described it as a setup.
Activists say the man was a victim of criminals who open fake accounts on dating sites aimed at gay clients -- in this case, Grindr -- with the sole purpose of blackmailing them.
Homosexuality is illegal in more than half of Africa's 54 nations. In Uganda, the new law imposes the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," which includes repeated same-sex acts or same-sex acts with a minor or disabled person.
The law also requires citizens to report suspected homosexual behavior to the police.
Last year, Ugandan police arrested about 130 people accused of engaging in "unnatural sex offenses," according to a Ugandan police report. The term is a veiled reference to homosexuality.
Last month, a Ugandan court dismissed the first case brought under the new law, involving a 25-year-old man who had spent nearly a year in detention, after ruling that he was mentally unfit to stand trial.
A Ugandan gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, welcomed the acquittal but said it wasn't enough because it didn't challenge the law itself.
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at nicholas.bariyo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 22, 2026 11:00 ET (15:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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