Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, providing penalties of five to 15 years in prison for violations. Military court penalties for rape included death sentences. The government did not effectively enforce the law. There are no federal laws against spousal violence, including rape. During the year the federal government introduced a sexual intercourse bill that would have legalized child marriage, codified weak protections for victims of sexual violence and assault, and instituted weak procedures for investigating and prosecuting sexual offenses. While parliament rejected the bill, the introduction of the sexual intercourse bill rather than the sexual offenses bill that had been in development since 2018 raised significant concerns among the international community that efforts to combat gender-based violence and to strengthen rights for women and girls were losing ground in the country.

According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and international and local NGOs focused on combatting sexual and gender-based violence, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Somalis, particularly women and girls, have faced greater risk of sexual and gender-based violence. According to the Somali Women Development Center, over 50 percent of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrators lived in the same home as survivors or are neighbors. Anecdotal and survey data indicate that the closure of schools and some workplaces, as well as government curfew and social distancing measures, have led women and girls to spend more time in the home. This factor has placed them at greater risk due to the increased amount of time spent with potential or serial perpetrators, with fewer options to get away from abusers. There are some data to indicate the COVID-19 led to a meaningful increase in sexual and gender-based violence in the country.

Government forces, militia members, and individuals wearing what appeared to be government or other uniforms raped women and girls. While the army arrested some security force members accused of such rapes, impunity was the norm. In Lower Shabelle, most rapes of local civilians occurred at checkpoints or in farms and villages near checkpoints, which many local residents believed were controlled by local militias.

The work of approximately a dozen women’s groups, civil society organizations, and health care workers in Lower Shabelle helped to reduce the effects of rape cases across Lower Shabelle despite the lack of an effective judicial system. The organizations provided treatment, counseling, community coordination, and training on gender-based violence throughout the region and at times joined the Lower Shabelle administration in community engagement once a town was cleared of al-Shabaab.

IDPs and members of marginalized clans and groups suffered disproportionately from gender-based violence. Local NGOs documented patterns of rape perpetrated with impunity, particularly of female IDPs and members of minority clans.

Gender-based violence, including rape, continued to affect women and girls when on the move to collect water, go to the market, and cultivate fields. Dominant patterns included the abduction of women and girls for forced marriage and rape, perpetrated primarily by nonstate armed groups, and incidents of rape and gang rape committed by state agents, militias associated with clans, and unidentified armed men. In September, UNHCR and NGO partners in the UN Protection Cluster recorded 323 incidents of sexual and gender-based violence, including cases of rape or attempted rape, a figure thought to underestimate greatly the true total. Police were reluctant to investigate and sometimes asked survivors to do the investigatory work for their own cases. Some survivors of rape were forced to marry perpetrators.

Authorities rarely used formal structures to address rape. Survivors suffered from subsequent discrimination based on the attribution of “impurity.”

On September 2, a court in Garowe exonerated six men suspected of raping and killing a woman in 2019, based on the findings and testimony provided by the Bureau of Forensic Science. This exoneration was the first in the country to use DNA evidence.

Local civil society organizations in Somaliland reported that gang rape continued to be a problem in urban areas, primarily perpetrated by youth gangs and male students. It often occurred in poorer neighborhoods and among immigrants, returned refugees, and displaced rural populations living in urban areas.

Domestic and sexual violence against women remained serious problems despite laws prohibiting any form of violence against women. While both sharia and customary law address the resolution of family disputes, women were not included in the decision-making process. Exposure to domestic violence was also significantly heightened in the context of displacement and socioeconomic destitution. Survivors faced considerable challenges accessing necessary services, including health care, psychosocial support, and justice and legal assistance; they also faced reputational damage and exclusion from their communities. In several cases survivors and providers of services for gender-based violence survivors were directly threatened by authorities when such abuses were perpetrated by men in uniform.

Al-Shabaab also committed gender-based violence, primarily through forced marriages. Al-Shabaab sentenced persons to death for rape. The organization forced marriages on girls and women between the ages of 14 and 20 in villages under its control. The families of the girls and young women generally had little choice but to acquiesce or face violence.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): Although the provisional federal constitution describes female circumcision as cruel and degrading, equates it with torture, and prohibits the circumcision of girls, FGM/C was almost universally practiced throughout the country. According to the government’s 2020 Health and Demographic Survey, supported by the UNFPA, FGM/C remains widespread in the country, with 99 percent of women and girls between 15 and 49 having received the procedure.

A fatwa issued by the Somaliland Ministry of Religious Affairs condemns the most severe forms of the practice of FGM/C and allows FGM/C victims to receive compensation but does not specify punishments for the practice. Health workers from the Somaliland Family Health Association traveled from village to village to explain that FGM/C had no health benefits and could lead to health complications. Type III (infibulation) has been predominant type. Many women reportedly began to opt for less severe types of FGM/C.

In May an international NGO reported a significant increase in cases during the COVID-19 lockdown with cutters traveling door to door offering to cut girls while they were home from school. The increase was also linked to Ramadan.

Other Harmful Traditional Practices: Adultery in al-Shabaab-controlled areas was punishable by death. Child, early, and forced marriages frequently occurred (see section 6 on Children).

Sexual Harassment: The law provides that workers, particularly women, shall have a special right of protection from sexual abuse and discrimination. Nevertheless, sexual harassment was believed to be widespread.

Reproductive Rights: The country has not yet established a legal and policy framework on family planning. According to the 2020 Somali Health and Demographic Survey (SHDS), 38 percent of local women expressed a desire for greater birth spacing than was permitted in their families, and only 3 percent reported that desire met.

Contraceptives were available, but fewer than 1 percent of women of reproductive age had their needs for family planning satisfied with modern methods; discussions about sexual and family planning matters remained culturally limited to close family and friends. Government officials stated “multidimensional barriers” frustrated the expansion of family-planning services. The officials also noted traditional beliefs and a lack of support from community and religios leaders negatively influenced the acceptance of family-planning services. Religious leaders, an important influence in society, remained open to the use of contraceptives for birth spacing but not for limiting births.

According to the 2020 SHDS, by the age of 49, 68 percent of married women were aware of one method of contraception, and 50 percent of girls ages 15-19 had heard of at least one. Despite this awareness, the SHDS found that contraceptive use was 10 percent for girls ages 15-19 and 7 percent for women ages 30-34.

According to the SHDS, 68 percent of mothers received no antenatal care, and only 32 percent of births were delivered with the assistance of a skilled health-care provider, with access strongly associated with education levels and wealth. UN reports attributed these shortcomings to the high cost of health care and distance to health facilities. Additionally, the social convention of seeking consent from a spouse or male relative presented a cultural barrier to seeking care. Reports indicated that medical facilities in some areas dominated by one clan may bar female patients from another clan or group, specifically from minority and marginalized groups, from accessing health care in those locations.

According to the SDHS, 17 percent of female survivors of gender-based violence ages 15-49 sought care after an assault. The government provided limited access to sexual and reproductive health services for sexual violence survivors.

The United Nations recorded hundreds of instances of gender-based violence, including sexual violence against women and girls by unidentified armed men, clan militiamen, al-Shabaab elements, and members of the Somali police and armed forces. In most instances families and victims preferred to refer survivors to traditional courts. In some cases these bodies awarded damages to victims’ male family members or directed the perpetrator and victim to marry, in accordance with local customary law. The United Nations noted that customary and Sharia law often further victimized women and girls, with impunity for perpetrators and no justice for survivors.

The high maternal death rate of 1,168 per 100,00 live births was attributed to numerous factors. Health facilities were unevenly distributed countrywide, delivery care and involvement of skilled birth attendants were limited, interventions were low quality, and care was inequitably accessible. Women’s cultural and geographic isolation compounded these factors.

The SHDS reported 99 percent of women underwent FGM/C. Citizens were generally not aware of its implications for maternal morbidity, but 72 percent of respondents believed that FGM/C was a religious requirement. The adolescent birth rate was 140 per 100,000 women.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.

Discrimination: Women did not have the same rights as men and experienced systematic subordination to men, despite provisions in the law prohibiting such discrimination. Women experienced discrimination in credit, education, politics, and housing. When the former minister of women and human rights development tabled a sexual offenses bill in 2018, religious clerics called for her to be criminally charged. She received political and other pressure in connection to the bill, which parliament has yet to take up for debate.

Only men administered sharia, which often was applied in the interests of men. According to sharia and the local tradition of blood compensation, anyone found guilty of the death of a woman paid to the victim’s family only one-half the amount required to compensate for a man’s death.

The exclusion of women was more pronounced in al-Shabaab-controlled areas, where women’s participation in economic activities was perceived as anti-Islamic.

While formal law and sharia provide women the right to own and dispose of property independently, various legal, cultural, and societal barriers often prevented women from exercising such rights. By law girls and women could inherit only one-half the amount of property to which their brothers were entitled. There were legal barriers to women working the same hours as men and restrictions on women’s employment in some industries.

Children

Birth Registration: Nationality is derived at birth from a Somali national father but not from the mother, nor from birth in the country’s territory. Children of Somali mothers may acquire Somali nationality after two years. The provisional federal constitution provides that there is only one Somali citizenship and calls for a special law defining how to obtain, suspend, or lose it, but as of year’s end parliament had not passed such a law.

Authorities reportedly registered only a small percentage of births in the country. Failure to register births did not result in denial of public services such as education.

Although birth registration occurred in Somaliland, numerous births in the region were unregistered.

Education: The law provides the right to a free education up to the secondary level, but education was not free, compulsory, or universal. In many areas children did not have access to schools. Nearly one-half of the school-age population remained out of school due to barriers such as poverty in rural areas, lack of security, exorbitant school fees, and competing household and labor demands. NGOs and nonstate private actors attempted to fill this gap, but they used different curricula, standards, and languages of instruction. Preprimary Islamic education continued to be prevalent and often led to late primary student enrollment. Girls faced additional obstacles such as early marriage and low prioritization of girls’ education, leading to even lower attendance. IDP children had much lower rates of attendance than nondisplaced children. There was an insufficient supply of qualified teachers, particularly female teachers.

The government lacked funds to provide effective education countrywide, a gap partially filled by NGOs and nonstate private actors, and its reach was often limited to more secure urban areas.

Child Abuse: Child abuse and rape of children were serious problems, and there were no known efforts by the government or regional governments to combat child abuse. Children remained among the chief victims of continuing societal violence.

The practice of asi walid, whereby parents place their children in boarding schools, other institutions, and sometimes prison for disciplinary purposes and without any legal procedure, continued throughout the country.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The law requires both marriage partners to have reached the “age of maturity” and defines a child as a person younger than 18 but does not specifically outlaw child marriage. It notes marriage requires the free consent of both the man and woman to be legal. Early marriages frequently occurred. UNICEF estimated in 2006 that 45 percent of women married before age 18 and nine percent before age 15. In the government’s 2020 Health and Demographic Survey, supported by the UNFPA, more than 62 percent of married women and 74 percent of unmarried women aged 15-49 indicated they understood forced marriage as a form of domestic violence. In areas under its control, al-Shabaab arranged compulsory marriages between its soldiers and young girls and used the lure of marriage as a recruitment tool for its soldiers. There were no known efforts by the government or regional authorities to prevent child, early, and forced marriage.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law does not expressly prohibit using, procuring, and offering a child for prostitution, pornography, or pornographic performances. Additionally, children exploited in commercial sex are not protected from criminal charges under the law. There is no statutory rape law or minimum age for consensual sex. The law does not expressly prohibit child pornography. The law on sexual exploitation was rarely enforced, and such exploitation reportedly was frequent.

Displaced Children: There was a large population of IDPs and children who lived and worked on the streets. UNICEF estimated that 1.7 million of the 2.7 million total IDPs were children.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

There was no known Jewish community, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Persons with Disabilities

The law provides equal rights before the law for persons with disabilities and prohibits the state from discriminating against them. Authorities did not enforce these provisions. The law does not discuss discrimination by nongovernmental actors.

The needs of most persons with disabilities were not addressed. According to Amnesty International, persons with disabilities faced daily human rights abuses, such as unlawful killings; violence including rape and other forms of gender-based violence; forced evictions; and lack of access to health care, education, or an adequate standard of living. Children and adults with all types of disabilities were often not included in programs aimed at supporting persons in the country, including humanitarian assistance. IDPs with disabilities were often victims of multiple forced evictions. Domestic violence and forced marriage were prevalent practices affecting persons with disabilities. Women and girls with disabilities faced an increased risk of rape and other forms of gender-based violence, often with impunity, due to perceptions that their disabilities were a burden to the family or that such persons were of less value and could be abused.

Without a public health infrastructure, few services existed to provide support or education for persons with mental disabilities. It was common for such persons to be chained to a tree or restrained within their homes.

Local organizations advocated for the rights of persons with disabilities with negligible support from local authorities.

More than 85 percent of the population shared a common ethnic heritage, religion, and nomad-influenced culture. In most areas the dominant clan excluded members of other groups from effective participation in governing institutions and subjected them to discrimination in employment, judicial proceedings, and access to public services.

Minority groups, often lacking armed militias, continued to be disproportionately subjected to killings, torture, rape, kidnapping for ransom, and looting of land and property with impunity by faction militias and majority clan members, often with the acquiescence of federal and local authorities. Many minority communities continued to live in deep poverty and to suffer from numerous forms of discrimination and exclusion. Some observers believed minority clans’ resentment over abuses made them more vulnerable to recruitment by al-Shabaab. Bantu advocacy groups stated the community’s isolation from the government’s security sector integration efforts pushed some Bantu youth into joining al-Shabaab.

Bantu communities, primarily living between the Juba and Shabelle Rivers in the southern part of the country, continued to face discrimination, including verbal abuse and being forced to adopt Arabic names. The discrimination was renewed in IDP camps, where Bantu women were not protected by traditional clan structure.

Fighting between clans resulted in deaths and injuries (see section 1.g.).

Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The 1963 penal code criminalizes “carnal intercourse with a person of the same sex” with a penalty of three months to three years’ imprisonment. The country’s law classifies sexual violence as an “offense against modesty and sexual honor” rather than as a violation of bodily integrity and punishes same-sex intercourse. There remains a pervasive social stigma against same-sex relationships, and the law does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. There were no known lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) organizations and no reports of events.

There were few reports of societal violence or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity due to severe societal stigma that prevented LGBTI individuals from making their sexual orientation or gender identity known publicly. Anecdotal information indicated that some families sent children they suspected of being homosexual to reform schools in the country, but reporting on this practice largely stayed out of the public sphere. There were no known actions to investigate or punish those complicit in abuses. Hate crime laws or other criminal justice mechanisms do not exist to aid in the prosecution of bias-motivated crimes against members of the LGBTI community.

In Somaliland the situation was largely the same. Same-sex relationships are illegal and socially taboo.

Persons with HIV or AIDS continued to face discrimination and abuse in their local communities and by employers in all regions. The UN reported that persons with HIV or AIDS experienced physical abuse, rejection by their families, and workplace discrimination and dismissal. Children of HIV-positive parents also suffered discrimination, which hindered access to services. There was no official response to such discrimination.

Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape and sexual harassment are criminal offenses, and a rape victim may not be prosecuted for adultery. Marital rape is not recognized. Domestic violence is a crime.

There remain no reliable statistics on the prevalence of rape and domestic violence in the country. The UN independent expert on the human rights situation in Sudan and UNAMID’s Human Rights Section reported they received regular reports of incidents of rape and sexual and gender-based violence (see section 1.g.). Monitoring groups reported the incidence of rape and sexual assault increased as the economic situation worsened during the year. Intercommunal violence also increased. Human rights organizations cited substantial barriers to reporting sexual and gender-based violence, including cultural norms, police reluctance to investigate, and the widespread impunity of perpetrators.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): FGM/C remained a problem, and the procedure continued to be used on women and girls throughout the country. In July the CLTG formally criminalized FGM/C. The law provides a penalty of three years’ imprisonment for anyone convicted of practicing FGM/C. In November media reported the first legal action taken against a mother and midwife in Omdurman for practicing FGM/C. Both individuals were released on bail and were awaiting trial as of mid-December.

According to UNICEF and UNFPA, the prevalence rate of FGM/C experienced by girls and women between ages 15 and 49 was 87 percent. Prevalence varied geographically and depended on the local ethnic group.

Sexual Harassment: The law criminalizes sexual harassment and provides a penalty not to exceed three years’ imprisonment if convicted. Government officials have not enforced sexual harassment law effectively. There were no specific data available on the prevalence of sexual harassment throughout the country.

Reproductive Rights: Couples were generally able to decide the number, spacing, and timing of their children and manage their reproductive health. They had access to the means and information to do so, free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. Some communities lacked awareness of reproductive rights. In addition, women living in rural areas did not always have access to contraceptives, skilled medical attendance during childbirth, and obstetric and postpartum care.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) estimated that 10 percent of girls and women between the ages of 15 and 49 used a modern method of contraception during the year.

In 2017 the UNFPA estimated that the maternal mortality rate was 295 deaths per 100,000 live births and that skilled health-care personnel attended 78 percent of births.

The high maternal mortality rate stemmed in large part from a patriarchal system that limited women’s reproductive choices; early child marriages; lack of access to reproductive health and emergency obstetric care, particularly in rural areas; lack of access to family planning services; poor sanitation; lack of transportation in rural areas; and poor public health structures in the rural areas where the population experienced chronic undernourishment, malaria, hemorrhagic fevers, and anemia.

The Ministry of Health provided access to sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence in conflict areas. The ministry also provided preventative treatment for sexually transmitted infections and emergency contraceptives, depending on the public health infrastructure and availability of medications. In July the civilian-led transitional government ratified legislation that criminalized female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Despite the law, FGM/C remained a problem and resulted in prolonged labor and hemorrhage.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.

Discrimination: The law, including many traditional legal practices and certain provisions of Islamic jurisprudence, continued to discriminate against women. In accordance with common Islamic judicial interpretation, a Muslim widow inherits one-eighth of her husband’s estate; of the remaining seven-eighths, two-thirds goes to the sons and one-third to the daughters. In certain probate trials, a woman’s testimony is not considered equal to a man’s; the testimony of two women is required. In other civil trials, the testimony of a woman equals that of a man.

By law a Muslim man may marry a Jewish or Christian woman. A Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man and may be charged with adultery if she does so. Although the CLTG abolished the previous discriminatory Public Order Law, there were unconfirmed reports individual officers still applied it ad-hoc.

In July the government amended the personal law act to allow women to travel abroad with their children without a male family member’s permission (see section 7.d.).

Children

Birth Registration: The constitutional declaration states that persons born to a citizen mother or father have the right to citizenship. Most newborns received birth certificates, but some in remote areas did not. Registered midwives, dispensaries, clinics, and hospitals could issue certificates. Failure to present a valid birth certificate precludes enrollment in school. Access to health care was similarly dependent on possession of a valid birth certificate, but many doctors accepted a patient’s verbal assurance that he or she had one.

Education: The law provides for tuition free basic education up to grade eight, but students often had to pay school, uniform, and examination fees to attend. Primary education is neither compulsory nor universal.

Child Abuse: The government tried to enforce laws criminalizing child abuse and was more likely to prosecute cases involving child abuse and sexual exploitation of children than cases involving adults. Some police stations included “child friendly” family and child protection units and provided legal, medical, and psychosocial support for children.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The legal age of marriage was 10 for girls and 15 or puberty for boys.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: Penalties for conviction of sexual exploitation of children vary and may include imprisonment, fines, or both. The CLTG tried to enforce laws criminalizing child sexual exploitation.

There is no minimum age for consensual sex or a statutory rape law. Pornography, including child pornography, is illegal. Statutes prescribe a fine and period of imprisonment not to exceed 15 years for conviction of child pornography offenses.

Displaced Children: Internally displaced children often lacked access to government services such as health and education due to security concerns and an inability to pay related fees. UNICEF estimated 960,000 children remained internally displaced (see section 2.d.).

Institutionalized Children: Police typically sent homeless children who had committed crimes to government camps for indefinite periods. Health care, schooling, and living conditions were generally very basic.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The known Jewish community in the country consisted of two individuals in the Khartoum area. Societal attitudes were generally not tolerant of Jewish persons, although anti-Semitic acts were rare. In 2019 the minister for religious affairs called for all Jews of Sudanese origin to return to the country and underscored that the country is a pluralistic society.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Persons with Disabilities

Although the law and the constitutional declaration provide protections for persons with disabilities, social stigma and a lack of resources hindered the government’s enforcement of disability laws. The law does not specifically prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities.

Social stigma and lack of resources often prevented government and private entities from accommodating persons with disabilities in education and employment. Appropriate support remained especially rare in rural areas.

The population includes more than 500 ethnic groups speaking numerous languages and dialects. Some of these ethnic groups self-identify as Arab, referring to their language and other cultural attributes.

The law does not specifically prohibit homosexuality but criminalizes sodomy, which is punishable if convicted by five years in jail for an initial offense. The CLTG abolished corporal and capital punishment for conviction of sodomy. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons are not considered a protected class under antidiscrimination laws. Anti–LGBTI sentiment remained pervasive in society. LGBTI organizations alleged being pressured to alter their activities due to threat of harm.

There were no reports of official action to investigate or punish those complicit in LGBTI-related discrimination or abuses.

There was societal discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS.

Other Societal Violence or Discrimination

Clashes often resulted from conflicts over land rights, mineral ownership, and use of gold-mining areas, particularly in the Jebel Amer area in North Darfur. Observers believed those clashes resulted in deaths and displacement in past years. Largely unregulated artisanal gold-mining activities continued in all of the Darfur states, although it was a lesser source of tension among communities than in previous years. Claims to land rights continued to be mostly ethnic and tribal in nature. Other clashes took place in Red Sea State, Kassala State and South Kordofan.

There were multiple reports of hate speech and discriminatory language during the year. Reports increased following the appointment of civilian governors in areas where ethnic groups opposed an appointed governor because he or she belonged to a different group.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law provides for life imprisonment for persons convicted of rape, including spousal rape during periods of legal separation. The law stipulates a woman wishing to report a rape must do so at a police station, where she must receive a release form before seeking medical help. This process contributed to medical complications, incomplete forensic evidence, and failure to report rapes. Victims often feared that cases reported to police would be made public.

The law prohibits assault but does not specifically prohibit domestic violence. Domestic violence against women remained widespread, and police rarely investigated such cases.

Authorities rarely prosecuted persons who abused women. Persons close to the victims, such as relatives and friends, were most likely to be the perpetrators. Many defendants who appeared in court were set free because of corruption in the judicial system, lack of evidence, poor investigations, and poor evidence preservation.

There were some government efforts to combat violence against women. Police maintained gender and children desks in regions throughout the country to support victims and address relevant crimes. According to a Ministry of Health, Gender, Elderly, and Children budget speech, police gender desks increased from 417 to 427 in the fiscal year ending June 30. In Zanzibar, at One Stop Centers in both Unguja and Pemba, victims could receive health services, counseling, legal assistance, and a referral to police. The LHRC released a statement that condemned an increase in gender-based violence within the community during COVID-19 restrictions.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C from being performed on girls younger than age 18, but it does not provide for protection to women ages 18 or older.

Prosecutions were rare. Many police officers and communities were unaware of the law, victims were often reluctant to testify, and some witnesses feared reprisals from FGM/C supporters. Some villagers reportedly bribed local leaders not to enforce the law in order to carry out FGM/C on their daughters. In 2019 the Ministry of Health reported that approximately 10 percent of women had undergone FGM/C. The areas with the highest rates of FGM/C were Manyara (58 percent), Dodoma (47 percent), Arusha (41 percent), Mara (32 percent), and Singida (31 percent).

Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment of women in the workplace. There were reports women were asked for sexual favors in return for promotions or to secure employment. According to the Women’s Legal Aid Center, police rarely investigated reported cases. Those cases that were investigated were often dropped before they got to court–in some instances by the plaintiffs due to societal pressure and in others by prosecutors due to lack of evidence. There were reports women were sexually harassed when campaigning for office, and one MP said that women MPs were subjected to sexual harassment frequently.

The LHRC released a report in 2018 stating female students were frequently sexually harassed in higher-learning institutions, a point reiterated by a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam in a 2019 tweet calling on President Magufuli to intervene because there were so many incidents of harassment on campus. In July police arrested an assistant lecturer from the University of Dodoma, Jacob Paul Nyangusi, for alleged sexual harassment of female students. He was released on bail and at the end of the year the case was ongoing. Another lecturer from the National Institute of Transport was sentenced for sexual assault. He paid a fine of five million TZS ($2,160).

On May 22, two special-seat female MPs from CHADEMA, Joyce Sokombi and Suzan Macele, held a press conference where they alleged that male CHADEMA leaders had sexually abused women during the nomination process. They did not disclose who had sexually abused women. The two MPs defected and joined the CCM. They did not file a police report. On May 23, Deputy Secretary of CHADEMA Benson Kigaila held a press conference where he denied all allegations. He added that the two women were CHADEMA MPs for five years and they had never complained. He claimed that when the two women lost in the intraparty nomination process, they decided to defect to the CCM, implying that was the impetus for their allegations.

Reproductive Rights: Couples and individuals have the right to decide the number, spacing, and timing of their children. Individuals have the right to manage their reproductive health, but access to the information and means to do so was not free from discrimination, coercion, or violence.

Schools did not provide comprehensive sexuality education, and students reported they did not have adequate information to prevent pregnancy. In addition, many girls became pregnant as a result of rape. From March to June, 67 girls became pregnant in the Biharamula and Ngara districts in Kagera Region. According to an education officer, 32 of the girls were in secondary school and were automatically expelled from further studies because of their pregnancies.

Less than one-third of married women used modern contraceptives. Nearly one in four women would like to prevent pregnancy but lacked access to family planning. Reproductive conditions and levels of contraceptive use varied based on factors including education, income level, geographical area, and age. For instance, the fertility rate in rural areas is six children per woman and 3.8 in urban areas. Modern contraceptive use also varied geographically, from 51 percent of those currently married in the Southern Zone to 14 percent in Zanzibar. While 12 percent of adolescents have started having sexual relations by age 15, and 60 percent by 18, only 8.6 percent of adolescent girls between ages 15 and 19 used modern contraceptive methods. One in four adolescent girls between ages 15 and 19 were already mothers or ware pregnant with their first child. Of adolescents living in rural areas, 32 percent had a live birth or were pregnant, compared with 19 percent of those living in urban areas. Adolescence was associated with a high frequency of child marriage, insufficient knowledge about sexually transmitted infections, and restricted access to sexual and reproductive health services. Persons with disabilities (especially adolescents) had greater sexual and reproductive health needs than the general population due to lack of information, and greater exposure to sexual abuse and rape, HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and stigma. Access to sexual and reproductive health services was hindered by communication and environmental barriers, physical inaccessibility, and negative interaction with service providers including lack of confidentiality, mistreatment and disrespect, and inadequacy of service delivery.

Information was not available on government assistance to survivors of sexual violence.

From 2007 to 2015, maternal mortality increased from 454 to 556 per 100,000 live births. Only 57 to 68 percent of pregnant women delivered with a skilled birth attendant. A recent study conducted in Lindi and Mtwara regions in Southern Tanzania found that traumatic and nontraumatic postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) was the most common cause of maternal deaths: 51 percent of women died within 24 hours of delivery; 60 percent of those who died were ages 25 to 36; and 63 percent were lower-income rural inhabitants.

Despite government efforts to improve the availability and quality of postabortion services, women and girls who suffered complications avoided seeking treatment for fear of being prosecuted, and many health-care providers were not aware they are legally allowed to provide treatment and that women have the right to such service. More than 21,400 women had untreated obstructed fistula, a situation resulting in large part from deficiencies in the health system. Women attributed fistula development to negative experiences such as disrespectful maternity care. Multiple studies reported that women also perceived that their fistula resulted from prolonged wait times in the primary health-care facility due to nurses’ negligence and failure to make decisions to transfer them to a better prepared facility in a timely manner. Moreover, mothers reported persistent systematic barriers and dismissive institutional norms and practice, including poor communication, denial of husbands’ presence at birth, denial of mobility, denial of safe traditional practices, no respect for their preferred birth positions, and poor physical condition of facilities. Community stigma was another major factor that delayed women seeking obstetric fistula treatment.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.

Discrimination: The law provides the same legal status and rights for women and men, including in employment, housing, education, and health care; however, the law also recognizes customary practices that often favored men.

While women faced discriminatory treatment in marriage, divorce, inheritance, and nationality, overt discrimination in education, credit, business ownership, and housing was uncommon. There are no legal restrictions on women’s employment in the same occupations, tasks, and working hours as men. Nevertheless, women, especially in rural areas, faced significant disadvantages due to cultural, historical, and educational factors.

Children

Birth Registration: Citizenship is derived by birth within the country or abroad if at least one parent is a citizen. Registration within three months of birth is free; parents who wait until later must pay a fee. Public services were not withheld from unregistered children. The Registration, Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency, in collaboration with the Tigo telecommunication company, facilitated birth registrations of more than 3.5 million children younger than age five over the last six years in 13 regions. The program is ongoing. As of August 12, they had registered 4.3 million children younger than age five in 16 regions. In Tanga and Kilimanjaro, Tigo provided 1,350 free smart phones to facilitate the registration process.

Education: According to law, primary education is compulsory and universal on both the mainland and Zanzibar until age 13. Secondary school is tuition-free in Zanzibar but is not compulsory. The ruling CCM party manifesto includes a policy to provide fee-free education for primary and secondary students. Parents must still provide food, uniforms, and transportation.

Girls represented approximately one-half of all children enrolled in primary school but were absent more often than boys due to household duties and lack of sanitary facilities. At the secondary level, child, early, and forced marriage and pregnancy often caused girls to be expelled or otherwise prevented girls from finishing school.

Under the Education and Training Policy launched by the government in 2015, pregnant girls may be reinstated in schools. In 2017, however, President Magufuli declared that girls would not be allowed to return to school after giving birth. Human rights NGOs criticized the policy as contrary to the country’s constitution and laws. This policy led to girls being excluded from educational opportunities, while the fathers of the babies were often their teachers or other older men who frequently did not suffer any consequences.

Child Abuse: Violence against and abuse of children were major problems. Corporal punishment was employed in schools and the law allows head teachers to cane students. The National Violence against Children Survey, conducted in 2009 (the most recent data available), found almost 75 percent of children experienced physical violence prior to age 18.

On August 17, police in the coast region arrested a primary school teacher, Evata Mboya, for allegedly caning a 12-year-old fifth-grade student. The student, who was being punished for making noise in the classroom, was admitted to Mloganzila hospital in Dar es Salaam with severe head injuries.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The law sets the legal age for marriage at 18. The law makes it illegal to marry a primary or secondary school student. To circumvent these laws, individuals reportedly bribed police or paid a bride price to the family of the girl to avoid prosecution. According to Human Rights Watch, girls as young as age seven were married. Zanzibar has its own law on marriage, but it does not specifically address child, early, and forced marriage. The government provided secondary school-level education campaigns on gender-based violence, which included information on child, early, and forced marriage.

In October 2019 the Court of Appeal rejected a government appeal to retain provisions in the law, which would permit girls as young as 14 to marry with parental consent, ruling that the act was unconstitutional and discriminatory towards girls. The government was supposed to remove the parental consent exceptions provision for marriage before the age of 18, but had not amended the law yet.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law criminalizes child sex trafficking and child pornography. Those convicted of facilitating child pornography are subject to fines ranging from nominal to substantial, a prison term between one and 20 years, or both. Those convicted of child sex trafficking are subject to fines ranging from nominal to substantial, a prison term of 10 to 20 years, or both. There were three prosecutions based on this law in 2019.

The law provides that sexual intercourse with a child younger than 18 is rape unless within a legal marriage. The law was not always enforced because cases were not always reported or because girls, facing pressure, dropped charges. For example there were accounts of statutory rapes of girls that went unreported in Zanzibar.

Infanticide or Infanticide of Children with Disabilities: Infanticide continued, especially among poor rural mothers who believed themselves unable to afford to raise a child. Nationwide statistics were not available.

Displaced Children: According to the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly, and Children, large numbers of children were living and working on the street, especially in cities and near the borders. The ministry reported 6,132 children were living in hazardous conditions during the year. These children had limited access to health and education services because they lacked a fixed address or money to purchase medicines, school uniforms, and books. They were also vulnerable to sexual abuse. According to the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elders, and Children, from July 2019 to March, 15,680 displaced children received necessities including food, clothing, education, and health services from a combination of government and private organizations.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The Jewish population is very small, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Persons with Disabilities

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities, but the government did not effectively enforce these provisions.

Few public buildings were accessible to persons with disabilities. New public buildings, however, were built in compliance with the law to provide access. The law provides for access to information and communication, but not all persons with disabilities had such access.

There were six members of the union parliament with disabilities. Persons with disabilities held three appointed seats in the Zanzibar House of Representatives. The Prime Minister’s Office includes a ministerial position responsible for disabilities. The country defines persons with albinism as disabled and appointed a person with albinism as its ambassador to Germany in 2017.

Limits to the political participation of persons with disabilities included inaccessible polling stations, lack of accessible information, limited inclusion in political parties, the failure of the NEC to implement directives concerning disability, and prejudice toward persons with disabilities.

According to the Annual Education Survey of 2018/19, the government expanded school infrastructure for children with disabilities as part of its National Strategy for Inclusive Education 2018-21. In 2018-19, there were 49,655 children with disabilities enrolled in primary schools and 10,749 enrolled in secondary schools. There were 2,485 primary schools identified as inclusive. The government procured equipment such as braille machines, magnifiers, large print books, audiometers, and specialized furniture. More than 340,000 learners with special needs remained out of school.

Consensual same-sex sexual conduct is criminalized. The law on both the mainland and Zanzibar punishes “gross indecency” by up to five years in prison or a fine. The law punishes any person convicted of having “carnal knowledge of another against the order of nature or permits a man to have carnal knowledge of him against the order of nature” with a prison sentence on the mainland of 30 years to life and in Zanzibar of imprisonment up to 14 years. In Zanzibar the law provides for imprisonment up to five years or a fine for “acts of lesbianism.” In the past, courts charged individuals suspected of same-sex sexual conduct with loitering or prostitution. The law does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Police often harassed persons believed to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) based on their dress or manners.

During the year the government opposed improved safeguards for the rights of LGBTI persons, which it characterized as contrary to the law of the land and the cultural norms of society. Senior government officials made several anti-LGBTI statements. There were also reports of arrests and detentions to harass LGBTI activists. In March, seven men were arrested for same-sex sexual conduct and were purportedly subjected to forced anal exams. Their case was ongoing at year’s end.

LGBTI persons were afraid to report violence and other crimes, including those committed by state agents, due to fear of arrest. LGBTI persons faced societal discrimination that restricted their access to health care, including access to information regarding HIV, housing, and employment. There were no known government efforts to combat such discrimination.

In 2017 authorities filed a case against two women in Mwanza who exchanged rings in an engagement ceremony that was recorded and posted on social media. The case was withdrawn without being heard in 2018 and then reopened as a new case in June 2019. It was ongoing as of December.

On June 16, in Zanzibar the registrar summoned Hamid Muhammad Ali, director of the AIDS Initiative Youth Empowerment and Development, an LGBTI rights group, to a meeting in which officials questioned him and informed him that his organization’s registration was being suspended for “promoting homosexuality.” The meeting was later broadcast on television. Four days later, police visited and searched his home and directed him to undergo an anal examination at a local hospital the following day. He said he went to the hospital and was asked to provide his fingerprints and a copy of his national ID card but was not forced to undergo the examination. On August 10, the minister for regional administration, local government, and special departments cancelled the group’s NGO license for going against the “religious and social values” of Zanzibar.

The 2013 People Living with HIV Stigma Index Report indicated persons with HIV/AIDS experienced significant levels of stigma countrywide (39 percent), with stigma particularly high in Dar es Salaam (50 percent). The report highlighted that most common forms of stigma and discrimination were verbal insults and exclusion from social, family, and religious activities. Results also showed that more than one in five persons with HIV/AIDS experienced a forced change of residence or inability to rent accommodations. In Dar es Salaam, nearly one in three of these persons experienced the loss of a job or other source of income.

The law prohibits discrimination against any person “known or perceived” to be HIV-positive and establishes medical confidentiality standards to protect persons with HIV/AIDS. Police abuses of HIV-positive persons, particularly in three key populations (sex workers, drug users, and LGBTI persons), were not uncommon and included arbitrary arrest, extortion, and refusal to accept complaints from victims of crime. In the health sector, key populations experienced denial of services, verbal harassment and abuse, and violations of confidentiality.

After a pause in services earlier in the year, in 2017 the government allowed community-based services for key populations to be reinstated following the release of revised guidelines, although the distribution of lubricants was banned, as were “drop-in centers” that provided services specifically tailored for these marginalized groups. NGOs and CSOs serving these key populations continued to face occasional backlash and harassment from authorities and were often “de-registered” after investigations into whether they promote homosexuality. There was continuing fear among these NGOs to operate freely and openly, as well as among LGBTI persons to seek health services, including HIV prevention and treatment.

Gender desks at police stations throughout the country were established to help address mistrust between members of key populations and police, however, their effectiveness varied widely.

Other Societal Violence or Discrimination

Despite efforts by the government and NGOs to reduce mob violence through educational outreach and community policing, mob violence continued. According to the LHRC 2019 Mid-Year Report, 385 were killed in mob violence. In May in the Rukwa region, a university student was killed by an angry mob after he stabbed his girlfriend. In July in Pwani, a domestic servant killed his boss’s two children and wounded the mother. He was killed by persons who witnessed the incident.

Witchcraft-related killings continued to be a problem. According to the LHRC Mid-Year Report in 2019, there were 106 witchcraft-related killings from January to June 2019. Major victims or targets of such killings were often children or elderly women. The regions with the greatest number of killings were Mbeya, Iringa, Dar es Salaam, and Shinyanga.

In 2015 the government outlawed witchdoctors in an attempt to curtail killings of persons with albinism. Attacks on persons with albinism declined, and there were no reported cases of persons with albinism being killed or attacked. Persons with albinism remained at risk of violence, however, especially during election times, as some ritual practitioners sought albino body parts in the belief they could be used to bring power, wealth, and good fortune. Schools used as temporary shelters in some cases evolved into long-term accommodations, with many students with albinism afraid to return to their homes.

Farmers and pastoralists sometimes argued over traditional animal grazing areas, and violence occurred during some disputes.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape of women and men and addresses spousal rape, but authorities did not generally enforce it effectively. The law does not specifically address domestic violence. The law provides for five to 10 years’ imprisonment for conviction of rape and a substantial monetary fine. Conviction of spousal rape is punishable by up to 720 hours of community service and a smaller monetary fine. A prison term for conviction of 20 to 30 years applies if the victim is younger than 14, was gang raped, or if the rape resulted in pregnancy, disease, or incapacitation lasting more than six weeks. Although the government did not provide statistics on the incidence of rape or arrests for rape, some data were available from legal advocates for victims and NGOs.

Domestic violence against women was widespread. Police generally did not intervene in abusive situations, and many women were not aware of the formal judicial mechanisms designed to protect them. The government made some efforts to combat rape and domestic violence. For example, in February it sponsored the NGO One Billion Rising’s documentary film Broken Silence that included testimony from survivors of rape and sexual violence, raising awareness with showings throughout the country. Additionally, several other NGOs actively educated women on their rights.

A human rights organization reported that in April security forces arrested a popular singer on rape charges and put him in prison to await trial; however, he was unexpectedly released on May 15, to the dismay of human rights activists.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C for girls and women. According to UNICEF data from 2017, FGM/C had been performed on 3.1 percent of girls and women between the ages of 15 and 49. The most common form of FGM/C was excision, usually performed a few months after birth. The practice was most common in isolated Muslim communities in the sparsely populated Central and Savanes Regions.

The government sponsored educational seminars on FGM/C. Several domestic NGOs, with international assistance, organized campaigns to educate women on their rights and how to care for victims of FGM/C. NGOs also worked to create alternative labor opportunities for former FGM/C perpetrators.

Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment was a problem. While the law states harassment is illegal and may be prosecuted in court, authorities did not enforce it. The law provides penalties for conviction of one to three years’ imprisonment and a potentially substantial fine. Penalties for conviction are increased for sexual harassment of a vulnerable person, defined as a minor, person of advanced age, pregnant woman, or person with an illness or disability.

Reproductive Rights: Couples have the right to decide the number, spacing, and timing of their children. The major barriers to contraceptive use were poverty and lack of education. Lack of doctors meant most women used skilled midwives for childbirth. According to World Health Organization data, skilled health-care personnel attended 69 percent of births as of 2017. The government provided access to limited sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence.

According to UNICEF the maternal mortality rate was 396 deaths per 100,000 live births, and a woman’s lifetime risk of maternal death was one in 56 as of 2017. The most common causes of maternal mortality were hemorrhaging, adolescent pregnancy, and lack of access to skilled obstetric care during childbirth. According to the UN Population Division, 34 percent of unmarried girls and women ages 15 to 49 used a modern method of contraception as of 2017.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.

Discrimination: Although by law women and men are equal, women experienced discrimination in education, pay, pension benefits, inheritance, and transmission of citizenship (see section 6, Children). In urban areas women and girls dominated market activities and commerce, but did not receive adequate legal protection in those activities. Harsh economic conditions in rural areas, where most of the population lived, left women with little time for activities other than domestic tasks and agricultural fieldwork. While the formal legal system supersedes the traditional system, the government did not enforce the law effectively, and the courts were slow, distant, and expensive to access; rural women were effectively subject to traditional law.

There are no restrictions on women signing contracts, opening bank accounts, or owning property. Women did not experience formal-sector economic discrimination in access to employment, credit, or business management. By traditional law a wife has no maintenance or child support rights in the event of divorce or separation. The formal legal system provides inheritance rights for a wife upon the death of her husband.

Children

Birth Registration: According to the constitution, citizenship is derived either from birth within the country’s borders or, if abroad, from a Togolese parent. Conflicting nationality laws, however, discriminated against women. While the constitution provides that a child born of one citizen parent, be it the father or the mother, is a citizen, the nationality code states a woman may pass her nationality to a child only if the father is stateless or unknown. The child code, however, has gender-neutral nationality provisions that conflict with the nationality code.

Education: School attendance is compulsory for boys and girls until age 15, and the government provides tuition-free public education from nursery through primary school. Parents must pay for books, supplies, uniforms, and other expenses. There was near gender parity in primary school attendance. Girls were more likely than boys to complete primary school but less likely to attend secondary school.

Child Abuse: Child abuse was a widespread problem. The law criminalizes child abuse including sexual abuse defined as any sexual relationship or touching by an adult of a child younger than 16, the legal age of consensual sexual conduct for girls and boys. Conviction of violations is punishable by 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment and a substantial fine. The government worked with local NGOs on public-awareness campaigns to prevent exploitation of children.

The government maintained a toll-free telephone service for persons to report cases of child abuse and to seek help. The service provided information on the rights of the child and legal procedures and access to social workers who could intervene in emergencies. The government worked with UNICEF to train teachers on children’s rights and included human rights education in elementary school curricula.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The legal ages for marriage are 18 for girls and 20 for boys, although both may marry at younger ages with parental consent. UNICEF statistics (2017 data) found that 25 percent of women were married before age 18 and 6 percent before age 15.

The government and NGOs engaged in a range of actions to prevent early marriage, particularly through awareness raising among community and religious leaders. The Ministries of Education, Gender, and Health led development of the National Program against Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy. Multiple initiatives focused on helping girls stay in school. Messages broadcast through media, particularly local radio, stressed avoiding early marriage and the importance of educating girls.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits the commercial sexual exploitation of children, including the sale and offering or procuring of children for prostitution, and practices related to child pornography. It provides penalties for those convicted of up to 20 years’ imprisonment and substantial fines. For conviction of violations involving children younger than age 15, prison sentences may be up to 10 years. The law was not effectively enforced. The minimum age of consensual sexual conduct is 16 for boys and girls.

The law prohibits child pornography, and penalties for conviction are five to 10 years’ imprisonment.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

There is no known Jewish community, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Persons with Disabilities

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, mental, intellectual, and sensory disabilities, but the government did not effectively enforce these prohibitions. The law does not mandate accessibility to public or private facilities for persons with disabilities, although some public buildings had ramps. Children with disabilities attended schools at all levels, with some attending schools specifically for those with disabilities. Information regarding possible abuse in these facilities was unavailable. The law does not restrict the right of persons with disabilities to vote and participate in civic affairs, although lack of accessible buildings and transportation precluded some from doing so.

The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Social Action, Women’s Empowerment and Literacy were responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. The Ministry of Social Action, Women’s Empowerment and Literacy conducted awareness campaigns to fight discrimination and promote equality; it also distributed food and clothing and provided skills training to persons with disabilities.

Northern ethnic groups, especially the Kabye tribe, dominate the civil and military services, while southern ethnic groups, especially the Ewe, dominate the private commercial sector. Relative dominance was a recurring source of political tension and discrimination occurred. The government took little action to address these problems.

The law prohibits “acts against nature committed with an individual of one’s sex,” widely understood as a reference to same-sex sexual activity. The law provides that a person convicted of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity may be sentenced to one to three years’ imprisonment and a substantial fine, but it was not enforced. On those occasions when police arrested someone for engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity, the justification for the arrest was usually for some other legal infraction, such as disturbing the peace or public urination. The law forbids promotion of immorality, which is understood to include promotion of same-sex activities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons faced societal discrimination in employment, housing, and access to education and health care. Existing antidiscrimination law does not apply to LGBTI persons. No law allows transgender persons to change gender markers on government-issued identity documents.

LGBTI groups may register with the Ministry of Territorial Affairs as health-related groups, particularly those focused on HIV/AIDS prevention. Activists reported violence against LGBTI persons was common, but police ignored complaints. Most human rights organizations, including the CNDH, refused to address LGBTI concerns.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS, and the government sponsored broadcasts aimed at deterring discrimination. The government National Council for the Fight against AIDS (CNLS) is mandated with preventing discrimination against individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The CNLS conducted awareness raising activities, training, and other activities focused on achieving the objectives of the National Strategic Plan to Fight against HIV/AIDS 2016-2020. Persons with HIV/AIDS nonetheless faced some societal discrimination. For example, there were cases of family abandonment when HIV-positive status was discovered, and the perception that HIV/AIDS was religious punishment for wrongdoing persisted.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape of women, which is punishable by life imprisonment or death. The law does not address spousal rape. The penal code defines rape as “unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or a girl without her consent.” Men accused of raping men are tried under a section of the penal code that prohibits “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature.” The law also criminalizes domestic violence and provides up to two years’ imprisonment for conviction.

Rape remained a common problem throughout the country, and the government did not effectively enforce the law. Local media reported numerous incidents of rape, often involving kidnapping and killings of women, but authorities were often unable to investigate and hold perpetrators accountable. Local media often reported that perpetrators of rape included persons in authority, such as religious leaders, local government officials, UPF and UPDF officers, health-care workers, media personalities, teachers, and university staff. According to local media and local civil society organizations, rape victims often believed they were powerless to report their abusers, in part to avoid stigmatization. Civil society organizations and local media reported that, even when women reported cases of rape to the police, UPF officers blamed the women for causing the rape by dressing indecently, took bribes from the alleged perpetrators to stop the investigation and to pressure the victims into withdrawing the cases, or simply dismissed the accusations and refused to record them. According to civil society organizations, UPF personnel lacked the required skills for collection, preservation, and management of forensic evidence in sexual violence cases. Civil society organizations also reported that some police stations lacked female officers on the staff, which discouraged rape victims from reporting their cases. For example, on January 1, several women posted that radio presenter and employee of the state-owned Vision Group Charles Denzel Mwiyeretsi had raped or attempted to rape them. Vision Group’s chief executive said on January 2 that Mwiyeretsi would face a company disciplinary committee, but the company had not revealed details of its investigations by year’s end.

Women’s rights activists reported the government used the law to silence women and stop them from identifying their abusers online. On February 20, the UPF arrested university student Sheena Bageine, accusing her of cyberharassment and offensive communication after she posted the names of numerous men she alleged were rapists. The UPF released Bageine on February 21 without formally charging her.

Gender-based violence was common and became increasingly prevalent after March, when the government enforced a lockdown to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Civil society organizations reported the lockdown saw an increase in violent resolution of domestic disputes, which adversely affected women. On August 1, a 46-year-old teacher, Simon Shimanya, struck his wife with a pickax at their home in Kasangati, Kampala and killed her. On August 13, the UPF arrested Shimanya 200 miles from Kampala. On August 25, a court found Shimanya guilty of manslaughter and later sentenced him to 17 years in prison.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C and establishes a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment for convicted perpetrators, or life imprisonment if the victim dies. According to the 2016 Demographics and Health Survey, 0.3 percent of the female population younger than age 50 had undergone FGM/C. On February 5, State Minister for Gender, Labor, and Social Development Peace Mutuuzo reported that persons practicing FGM/C had co-opted health-care workers, who allowed them to carry out the procedures in hospitals, to create the impression that it was safer. Minister Mutuuzo also reported that persons aspiring to political office in the 2021 general elections made public statements in support of FGM/C. Minister Mutuuzo also reported the government allocated 200 million Ugandan shillings ($54,000) to combat FGM/C but declared that this was only one-sixth of the required sum.

Other Harmful Traditional Practices: According to local media and NGOs, violence against widows and acid attacks were prevalent. NGOs reported that widows in remote areas experienced sexual violence at the hands of their deceased husband’s family and lost their rights to property.

Sexual Harassment: The law criminalizes sexual harassment and provides for penalties of up to 14 years’ imprisonment, but authorities did not effectively enforce the law. Sexual harassment was a widespread problem in homes, schools, universities, workplaces, public transport, public spaces, and in the music and entertainment industry. Local media reported numerous incidents of senior executives, public servants in the legislature and judiciary, and music producers who demanded sexual favors from female subordinates in exchange for job retention, promotion, and nomination for official trips. In March numerous emerging women musicians reported on television that music producer and songwriter Andrew Ojambo, also known as Daddy Andre, had attempted to or had forced them into sexual relationships with him at a studio in his bedroom as a precondition for recording or promoting their songs. Ojambo denied the allegations.

Reproductive Rights: Couples and individuals have the right to decide the number, spacing, and timing of their children. The law criminalizes abortion although the government seldom enforced these provisions. All individuals have the right to manage their reproductive health and have access to the information and means to do so, free from coercion and violence. LGBTI organizations reported that some public health facilities discriminated against LGBTI persons seeking reproductive healthcare services. Family planning information and assistance were difficult to access, particularly in rural areas, where there were few healthcare providers.

Local media and civil society organizations reported that a government lockdown to control the spread of COVID-19, which prohibited public transport between March and July, prevented many women from accessing reproductive health services. Local media reported that as a result, women could not travel to healthcare providers to receive reproductive health services. Local media reported that the ban on public transport led to shortages of contraception in some parts of the country because there were no means for resupplying remote areas. The lockdown forced some reproductive health service providers to close after authorities denied them special permits to operate. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and local civil society organizations reported that men’s lack of support for, or active opposition to, family planning deterred some women from using contraception.

Local media and civil society organizations reported that the government lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 adversely affected access to skilled health attendants during pregnancy and childbirth. On March 30, the president banned all private passenger travel and directed that individuals seeking medical care travel only with written authorization from the resident district commissioner. This was rescinded for pregnant women on April 15, although the ban continued to be sporadically enforced. Local media reported several incidents of police officers and Local Defense Unit soldiers (a militia-like reservist corps) beating pregnant women found travelling to prenatal appointments without authorization. Local media reported that during the lockdown, some public health-care providers suspended neonatal and prenatal care services and turned away pregnant women because their staffs were unable to travel to their workplaces.

Maternal mortality was high at 375 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the World Health Organization and local civil society organizations. Media attributed the high rate to a lack of access to skilled medical care for pregnant women, a preference for traditional birth attendants over skilled medical workers, and unsafe abortions. According to UNFPA, the modern contraceptive prevalence rate was 36.3 percent. Female genital mutilation (FGM) occurred and, according to UNFPA, was a driver for obstetric fistula.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.

Discrimination: The law provides women the same legal status and rights as men, but the government did not enforce the law effectively. Local NGOs reported numerous cases of discrimination against women, including in divorce, employment, education, and owning or managing businesses and property. Many customary laws discriminate against women in adoption, marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Under customary laws in many areas, widowed women cannot own or inherit property or retain custody of their children. Local NGOs reported that the government occasionally paid significantly less compensation to women than men in exchange for land it repossessed, while in some cases, it forcefully evicted women without compensation. Traditional divorce law in many areas requires women to meet stricter evidentiary standards than men to prove adultery. In some ethnic groups, men can “inherit” the widows of their deceased brothers. The law does not recognize cohabiting relationships, and women involved in such relationships have no judicial recourse to protect their rights.

Children

Birth Registration: The law accords citizenship to children born inside or outside the country if at least one parent or grandparent is a citizen at the time of birth. Abandoned children younger than age 18 with no known parents are considered citizens, as are children younger than 18 adopted by citizens.

The law requires citizens to register a birth within three months. Lack of birth registration generally did not result in denial of public services, although some primary schools, especially those in urban centers, required birth certificates for enrollment. Enrollment in public secondary schools, universities, and other tertiary institutions required birth certificates.

Education: The law provides for compulsory education through the completion of primary school by age 13, and the government provided tuition-free education in select public primary and secondary schools (ages six to 18 years). Parents, however, were required to provide lunch and schooling materials for their children, and many parents could not afford such expenses. Local media and civil society organizations reported that child, early, and forced marriages and teenage pregnancy led to a higher rate of school dropouts for girls than for boys.

Child Abuse: The law prohibits numerous forms of child abuse and provides monetary fines, five years’ imprisonment, or both for persons convicted of abusing children’s rights. Victims’ parents, however, often opted to settle cases out of court for a cash or in-kind payment. Corporal punishment in schools is illegal and punishable by up to three year’s imprisonment. The law also provides for protection of children from hazardous employment and harmful traditional practices, including child marriage and FGM/C. Despite the law, a pattern of child abuse existed in sexual assault, physical abuse, ritual killings, early marriage, FGM/C, child trafficking, infanticide, and child labor, among other abuses. Traditional healers (witch doctors) kidnapped and killed children to use their organs for ancestral worship. Local NGOs reported cases in which wealthy entrepreneurs and politicians paid traditional healers to sacrifice children to ensure their continued wealth and then bribed police officers to stop the investigations. On August 3, local media reported that a community in Soroti Town had lynched Thomas Ekwaru, 25, after he confessed to killing his three-year-old niece in ancestral worship. Ekwaru said he had killed his niece to cleanse her deaf parents of evil spirits. Local media reported that in the vast majority of schools, beating with a cane was the preferred method of discipline. A 2018 UNICEF report stated that three in four children had experienced physical violence both at home and in school. Government statistics also showed that more than one in three girls experienced sexual violence during her childhood, and that most did not report the incidents because they feared they would be shamed or embarrassed. Local media, civil society organizations, and the government reported they registered an increase in child abuse after the government closed schools in March as part of a lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Civil society organizations reported that children experienced increased violence at home through beatings by their parents and guardians as a disciplinary measure.

The Lord’s Resistance Army, an armed group of Ugandan origin operating in the DRC, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, continued to hold children against their will.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The legal minimum age for marriage is 18, but authorities generally did not enforce this law. According to UNICEF in 2017, 40 percent of girls were married before age 18 and 10 percent were married before age 15. Local media, civil society organizations, and government officials reported that after the country instituted a lockdown in March to combat COVID-19, families married off children between the ages 13 and 17 to raise revenue through dowry payments to replace income lost during the pandemic. The minister of education and sports, the minister of gender, labor, and social development, and the minister of information and communications technology each called separately on communities to report child marriages and for police to investigate them adequately.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits commercial sexual exploitation, the sale and procurement of sexual services, and practices related to child pornography. It sets the minimum age for consensual sex at 18 years. The law defines “statutory rape” as any sexual contact outside marriage with a child younger than 18, regardless of consent or age of the perpetrator, carrying a maximum penalty of death. The government did not enforce the law effectively, however, and the problem was pervasive. Local media reported that pimps along major cargo transit towns worked in tandem with bar and motel owners to place children on their premises as sex workers to a largely truck driver clientele. Civil society organizations also reported that pimps placed children to work as sex workers in places that tourists frequented.

Infanticide or Infanticide of Children with Disabilities: On September 14, media reported that some parents of children with disabilities abandoned them in the bush or threw them in pit latrines to die.

Displaced Children: Local civil society organizations and media reported that poverty and famine drove families in the remote northeast Karamoja region to send many children to Kampala to find work and beg on the streets. Civil society organizations reported that traffickers often manipulated families in Karamoja to sell their children to traffickers for 50,000 Ugandan shillings ($13.50) with promises the children would obtain a good education or a profitable job. Instead, traffickers forced the children to beg on the streets of Kampala or other major cities and gave them almost none of what they earned. Kampala City authorities worked with civil society organizations to return Karamojong street children to their families, but often the families soon returned the children to the streets because they partly depended on their collections to maintain their households.

Institutionalized Children: Local NGOs reported the UPF often detained child and adult suspects in the same cells and held them beyond the legal limit of 48 hours prior to arraignment.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The Jewish population had approximately 2,000 members centered in Mbale District, in the eastern part of the country. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Persons with Disabilities

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, or mental disabilities. It provides for access to education, employment, health services, information, communications, buildings, transportation, and the judicial system for persons with disabilities, but the government did not effectively enforce the law. Local media and activists for persons with disabilities reported that persons with disabilities experienced social prejudice and discrimination in social service delivery and in access to public spaces. Disability rights activists reported government requirements for every person to wear a face mask as part of its public health regulations to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 discriminated against deaf persons, who needed sign language–often accompanied by mouthing words–to communicate. Disability rights activists also highlighted that the president issued important policy speeches on television regarding COVID-19 without providing sign language interpretation for deaf persons. Local media reported some parents with children with disabilities hid them from the public out of shame, while some physically restrained them by tethering them to tree trunks. Local civil society organizations reported the government neither ran any support programming for persons with albinism, nor made an effort to establish the number of those with albinism or their concerns.

There were reports that authorities used violence to displace an ethnic community from disputed land. According to local media and opposition politicians, authorities continued to harass and evict members of the Acholi community from the disputed village of Apaa as they had in prior years. Media reports noted that more than 2,000 Acholi whom the UPDF and the Ugandan Wildlife Authority had evicted since 2017 remained displaced, with no access to farming land. On several occasions the government announced that all residents should vacate Apaa village to make way for a wildlife reserve but reversed the decision after uproar from the community’s leaders. In July a parliamentary committee recommended that the government halt all evictions until it secured adequate land to which it would relocate the community. A committee the president instituted in 2019 to devise a peaceful solution to the issue did not report its findings by year’s end.

Indigenous minorities continued to accuse the government of marginalization that disabled them from participating in decisions affecting their livelihood. Civil society organizations reported the government continued in its refusal to compensate the Batwa people, whom it displaced from lands it designated as forest reserves. The government, however, announced in August that it would compensate and return game park land in the eastern part of the country back to the Benet people, whom it had evicted in the 1920s. Civil society organizations reported government failed to protect the Batwa people from discrimination, exploitation at work, and sexual violence. Civil society organizations reported that persons from other communities raped Batwa women because they believed that sexual intercourse with one cured HIV/AIDS.

Consensual same-sex sexual conduct is criminalized according to a colonial-era law that criminalizes “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and provides for a penalty of up to life imprisonment. Attempts to “commit unnatural offences,” as laid out in the law, are punishable with seven years of imprisonment. The government occasionally enforced the law. Although the law does not restrict freedoms of expression or peaceful assembly for those speaking out in support of the human rights of LGBTI persons, the government severely restricted such rights. The law does not prohibit discrimination against LGBTI persons in housing, employment, nationality laws, or access to government services.

LGBTI persons faced discrimination, legal restrictions, harassment, violence, and intimidation. Authorities incited, perpetrated, and tolerated violence against LGBTI individuals and blocked some meetings organized by LGBTI persons and activists. On July 19, local government authorities in Kyenjojo Town disrupted a meeting of LGBTI persons organized by the Western Uganda Faith-based Organizations Network, accusing it of breaching COVID-19 rules. Local civil society organizations reported that public and private health-care services turned away LGBTI persons who sought medication and some health-care providers led community members to beat LGBTI persons who sought health care. Local civil society organizations reported that some LGBTI persons needed to pay bribes to public health-care providers before they received treatment. According to civil society organizations, UPF and LDU officers–together with local government officials–raided the Children of the Sun Foundation shelter in Kyengera Town on March 29 and arrested 20 LGBTI persons, accusing them of violating COVID-19 public health guidelines by gathering in a closed space. Activists said the mayor of Kyengera, Abdul Kiyimba, personally beat two of the suspects “as he questioned them about their homosexuality.” Lawyers for the group reported prison authorities repeatedly denied them access to their clients while in pretrial detention, citing government restrictions on movement aimed at combatting COVID-19. On May 15, after the LGBTI persons’ lawyers filed suit, the UPS granted the lawyers access to the 20 LGBTI persons, two of whom stated UPS wardens subjected them to forced anal exams. On May 19, the UPS released 19 LGBTI persons, after the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution dropped all charges on May 15. The UPS released the final person on May 27. LGBTI activists reported on July 21 that they had sued the Kitalya prison deputy commander, Philemon Woniala, and Kyengera mayor Abdul Kiyimba for torture and inhuman treatment. The case continued at year’s end.

Although the law prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS, discrimination and stigma were common and inhibited these persons from obtaining treatment and support. Local civil society organizations reported the stigma resulted from limited public knowledge about the methods of HIV transmission as well as “the belief that having HIV is shameful.” Civil society organizations reported that stigma pushed persons with HIV to exclude themselves from social services and employment opportunities, including care programs. Local media and civil society organizations reported numerous incidents of parents who abandoned children with HIV and of persons, particularly men, who abandoned spouses who had HIV. The UPF, UPS, and UPDF regularly refused to recruit persons who tested positive for HIV, claiming their bodies would be too weak for the rigorous training and subsequent deployment.

In cooperation with the government, international and local NGOs sponsored public awareness campaigns to eliminate the stigma of HIV/AIDS. Government and HIV/AIDS counselors encouraged the population to test for and share information concerning HIV/AIDS with their partners and family. Persons with HIV/AIDS formed support groups to promote awareness in their communities.

Other Societal Violence or Discrimination

Mob violence remained a problem. Communities often resorted to mob violence due to a lack of confidence in the UPF and the judiciary to deliver justice. They attacked and killed persons suspected of robbery, homicide, rape, theft, ritual sacrifice, and witchcraft, among other crimes. Mobs often beat, lynched, burned, and otherwise brutalized their victims. On May 3, local media reported that a community in Kakiri Town attacked a man they found in possession of a stolen handbag, beat him, and cut off one of his legs.