Debating Sex and Sovereignty: Uganda’s New National Sexuality Education Policy

This article examines recent moral panics over sex education in Uganda from historical perspectives. Public outcry over comprehensive sexuality education erupted in 2016 over claims that children were being taught “homosexuality” by international NGOs. Subsequent debates over sex education revolved around defending what public figures claimed were national, religious, and cultural values from foreign infiltration. This paper is grounded in a survey of Uganda’s two English-print national newspapers (2016–2018), archival research of newspapers held at Uganda’s Vision Group media company (1985–2005), analyses of public rhetoric as reported in internationally and nationally circulating media, textual analysis of Uganda’s National Sexuality Education Framework (2018), formal interviews with Ugandan NGO officers (3), and semi-structured interviews with Ugandan educators (3). Uganda’s current panic over sex education reignited longstanding anxieties over foreign interventions into the sexual health and rights of Ugandans. We argue that in the wake of a 35-year battle with HIV/AIDS and more recent controversies over LGBT rights, both of which brought international donor resources and governance, the issue of where and how to teach young people about sex became a new battleground over the state’s authority to govern the health and economic prosperity of its citizens. Ethno- and religio-nationalist rhetoric used to oppose the state’s new sexuality education policy was also used to justify sex education as a tool for economic development. Analyzing rhetoric mobilized by both supporters and detractors of sex education reveals the contested political terrain policy advocates must navigate in Uganda and other postcolonial contexts.