The three Ugandan LGBT/HIV human rights defenders that were arrested and detained on the 4th of June 2008 and charged with criminal trespass faced prosecution at 9 am on Friday, the 20th of June 2008 at the Magistrate's court in Kampala.

The UN Security Council should adopt a resolution or presidential statement supporting efforts to rein in the capacity of the Lord’s Resistance Army to attack civilians and to ensure justice for the most serious crimes committed during the northern Uganda conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a letter released to council members.

Imagine a Uganda where bruises and broken bones don’t keep mothers away from caring for their children
Imagine a Uganda where women walk the streets and paths at night without looking over their shoulders
Imagine a Uganda in which girls live a life free of violence from their teachers, relatives, strangers, etc.
Imagine a Uganda where perpetrators of violence against women and girls face the full rigour of the law
Imagine a Uganda Without Violence Against Women and Girls…

The Disability Rights Fund—a groundbreaking grant making collaborative supporting the human rights of people with disabilities—has announced its first grants competition. The broad objective of the Fund -- which was launched by the Open Society Institute, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, and an anonymous donor on the first anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) -- is to empower disabled persons organizations in the developing world and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union to effectively implement and monitor the CPRD.

Close to three million Ugandan minors risked forced labour either by parents or poor economic living conditions, Uganda's Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Syda Bbumba, revealed. Minister Bbumba said the revelations were contained in the recent study conducted in the country. Most of Uganda's child labour victims fall between 5 and 17 years.

WOUGNET has explored the use of SMS in information sharing and carrying out SMS campaigns around different themes. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, an international SMS campaign from 25/Nov – 10Dec 2007, with over 170 participants drawn from 13 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, was used as a strategy to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women.

Margaret Olero, 46, is choking with the burden of looking after her 7 children, her husband, in addition to undertaking all the daily domestic chores, while her husband leaves everything to her as he has done for the past 24 years. Olero says her husband, just like many in Aminamong village, Akokoro sub-county in Apac is waiting for a dog that can work (go to the garden and earn money for the family) before he can get convinced to start working for himself and family.

Displaced HIV-positive children who start antiretroviral therapy can do as well as children who start anti-HIV drugs in politically stable settings, according to a small study conducted in northern Uganda and published in the May 31st edition of AIDS. But the investigators note that maintaining good outcomes in their population is likely to be challenging, particularly because of population movement.

On June 3, 2008, national police in Kampala arrested the three activists during a peaceful protest organized by local LGBT organizations. Demonstrators carried signs demanding attention to HIV/AIDS vulnerability among members of the LGBT community. The demonstration came in response to a statement by the Chairman of the Uganda AIDS Commission, Kihumuro Apuuli. On June 2, during the HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting in Kampala, he declared that “gays are one of the drivers of HIV in Uganda, but because of meager resources we cannot direct our programmes at them at this time.”

The government of Uganda has said peace talks to end a two decades of conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have failed. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president, on Thursday announced an agreement with neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan to fight the rebel group, led by Joseph Kony.

The fallout over the ordination of gay priests as bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion reaches a critical point next month when the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) kicks off in Israel. Gafcon brings together the more conservative bishops, several of whom have said they are boycotting the Lambeth Conference that takes place a month later in July. Archbishop Luke Orombi of the Church of Uganda is one of the primates who will not be attending Lambeth but will be in Jerusalem at Gafcon, which some have christened the "alternative Lambeth".

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), which is an umbrella body of gay organisations in Uganda and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) are demanding immediate release of three lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activists arrested yesterday 4 June. They were apprehended at the 2008 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting taking place in that country currently.

Uganda signed the Maputo Protocol--a key women's rights treaty in Africa--in 2003. Since then the landmark treaty has run into religious arguments against Western influence and abortion. Fifth in a series on African women and the rule of law.

The war in northern Uganda has driven thousands of people from their homes to live in camps. Now, after a lot of trial an error, BOSCO Uganda has brought the internet and low-cost phone calls to the camps, giving the people a chance to tell their own story.

Three gay, lesbian and transgender individuals have been arrested in Uganda after peacefully protesting about an announcement from the Ugandan AIDS Commission that no resources would be directed to HIV programmes targeting gay men and other men who have sex with men. The arrests happened at the HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting which is currently taking place in Uganda.

A Cabinet committee tasked to advise the government on taming critical media is considering a constitutional amendment that deletes the provision on freedom of the press. The sub-committee headed by Public Service Minister, Henry Muganwa Kajura,was formed after three separate Cabinet papers on the management of the media failed to find consensus in Cabinet

The Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO) has observed the escalating attacks and harassments of press freedom, media and journalists in Uganda. The latest development occurred on April 26, 2008 with the raids by Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) on the offices of privately-owned newspaper "The Independent" and the home of its publisher, Andrew Mwenda.

ganda's remote northeastern Karamoja region is facing a humanitarian emergency due to widespread food shortages, with some local people already starving, senior officials said. "We witnessed people starving," Aston Kajara, the government minister in charge of Karamoja development, told reporters in Kampala after visiting the region last week. "People are eating rats, others are eating leaves."

Northern Uganda leaders returned empty handed last week from South Sudan after waiting in vain for days to meet Joseph Kony, right, the elusive commander of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA. Kony’s no-show was the second time in two months that he has snubbed peace negotiators and appears to have killed what hope remained that a peace deal, 22 months in the making, will be signed.

International action is needed to end the Lord’s Resistance Army’s reported new spree of abductions and sexual violence and to help execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for the group’s leaders, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch has learned that since February 2008 the insurgent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) group has carried out at least 100 abductions, and perhaps many more, in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Southern Sudan.