Burkina Faso’s Transitional Legislative Assembly passed a law on September 1, 2025, that makes consensual same-sex relations a criminal offense, a major setback for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Under this new law, people found guilty of homosexuality could face two to five years in prison, as well as fines. The law violates LGBT people’s rights to non-discrimination and privacy.
The law is being enacted amid shrinking civic and political space and a major crackdown by the military junta on the political opposition, media, and peaceful dissent.
Until now, Burkina Faso has never had a law criminalizing consensual same-sex relations. Unlike many other African countries, it did not inherit a colonial penal code that outlawed so-called sodomy.
Passed as part of the broader Persons and Family Code, the criminalization provision was adopted unanimously by the assembly’s 71 members. It also would provide prison sentences and fines for “behavior likely to promote homosexual practices and similar practices.”
Burkina Faso’s justice and human rights minister, Edasso Rodrigue Bayala, said the new legislation responded “to the deep aspirations of our society” and showed “respect for cultural values.”
Recent judgments in other African countries like Botswana, Mauritius, and Namibia have confirmed that laws that criminalize same-sex conduct violate the privacy and non-discrimination rights of LGBT people.
Beyond violating basic rights, such laws foster violence and abuses against LGBT people. In 2014, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights strongly urged African Union member states to “end all acts of violence and abuse” targeted against persons due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Burkina Faso’s junta president, Ibrahim Traoré, should not sign the Persons and Family Code into law. Instead, he should refer it back to the assembly for revision. The revised code needs to respect the rights of non-discrimination and privacy of everyone in Burkina Faso regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
In the north-east of Ukraine, a mere 18 miles from the Russian border, sits the city of Kharkiv, home to Kharkiv Pride.
Since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country’s second-largest city has faced relentless strikes by Russian forces with more than 8,000 of its buildings – including schools and homes – destroyed, thousands of people killed and injured whilst countless more have fled westward to Kyiv or abroad for safety.
But despite the on-going war, the destruction, the uncertainty, Pride persists.
Pride continues in Kharkiv, despite the war (Christina Pashkina)
When the conflict began, Kharkiv was quickly identified as one of Russia’s main targets given its proximity to the border, history and infrastructure.
A traditionally Russian-speaking city, Kharkiv was a major centre during the Russian Empire and once served as the capital of Soviet Ukraine between 1919 and 1934.
The city and the wider region of Kharkiv Oblast, which has become increasingly known for its agricultural production and also holds Ukraine’s largest natural gas reserves, unsurprisingly contribute significantly to Ukraine’s economy.
Capturing the Kharkiv – home to 1.4 million before the start of conflict – would be both a strategic and symbolic victory for Putin.
When Russian forces crossed the border in February they captured several towns and villages across Kharkiv Oblast as they made their way towards Kharkiv – but were unable to take the city.
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In those early days of the war, Kharkiv became a powerful symbol of Ukrainian resistance and was one of several cities declared as a Hero City of Ukraine by president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Despite Kharkiv remaining firmly in Ukrainian control the city has been continuously bombarded with shelling, with residents attempting to live their day-to-day lives amongst air sirens, blackouts and ruins.
For LGBTQ+ people living in Kharkiv, there is a further dimension to the fear residents feel at the prospect of the city falling to Putin: Russia’s deeply queerphobic national policies.
Volunteers at KharkivPride are supporting both the LGBTQ+ community and the war effort (Christina Pashkina)
“It is my biggest fear,” Anna Sharyhina, the co-organiser of KharkivPride and president of the Sphere Women`s Association, told PinkNews when asked about a list Russia allegedly has of LGBTQ+ activists, “because I know that it means sexual violence. It means physical violence. They just beat people for hours.
“We have, for instance, a colleague from the LGBT+ Military who was in captivity for 20 months. I have no idea what I should do in that case, it makes me so scared. I feel frozen when I think about that.”
In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court said that the “international public LGBT movement” – which is not a specific organisation but rather a descriptor for LGBTQ+ activism in general – had been using “signs and manifestations” of an “extremist nature” which included what it describes as “incitement of social and religious discord”.
In 2022, after Russia invaded, KharkivPride held a MetroPride on the city’s subway (Christina Pashkina)
Sharyhina admitted she tries not to think about the threats she and others face from Russia, instead focusing her work for her community – LGBTQ+ and Ukrainian alike.
“We continue our fight and I continue that fight, even if I burn out,” she said, adding that it is not just that she does not want to be in the closet, she “can’t, anymore”.
“The only way I have is to fight. I am really tired but Ukraine, it is my home, and I really need our country to [be its own], not Russian because we are not Russian.”
“Our partners advised us to go from Kharkiv to other cities,” she said, “but we stay here and we continue our work.”
“It was important to continue our fight”
When the war came, KharkivPride, which began in 2019, was unable to go ahead with its usual activities.
Months after the invasion though, the Pride organisation instead held a MetroPride where LGBTQ+ people powerfully and resiliently marched through the city’s subway – protected from both the Russian airstrikes and the far-right groups who would normally seek to violently counter-protest.
That Pride, amidst the harrowing, early days of the conflict, was about still being in the public eye, with Sharyhina explaining “it was really important to continue our fight, continue to be visible in that situation”.
She told PinkNews initially the LGBTQ+ community chose to keep silent about its fight for equal rights when the invasion happened and focused instead on securing Ukrainian independence. But, after they were accused by certain quarters of not fighting for Ukraine, Sharyhina concluded LGBTQ+ people“can’t be silent again”.
This year’s KharkivPride celebrations are taking place between 30 August and 6 September, under the slogan: “Together for equality and victory”.
AutoPride will see a fleet of rainbow coloured cars travel through the city (Christina Pashkina)
On 30 and 31 August the group hosted a PrideFest, followed by a commemoration of fallen LGBTQ+ military personnel on 5 September and will conclude with an AutoPride on 6 September – which will see a convoy of cars decked out in rainbows travel through the city.
More than half a decade on from the first KharkivPride, when the group “collected people from zero” because the queer community was not publicly active, organisers continue to mobilise the community.
“Our community centre is a safe space for LGBT people. When people come to the community centre they feel freedom and like they can be themselves and proud of it. They don’t feel scared about coming out.
“When you have a place and know people like you – homosexual, queer or trans people – you can feel yourself,” Sharyhina said, adding LGBTQ+ residents feel “inspired” by that space.
“After that, they come to Pride because they are ready to say something about their rights.”
Beau Lamarre-Condon, 30, entered a plea of not guilty on Tuesday to two counts of domestic violence-related murder and one count of breaking and entering with the intent to commit an indictable offense. He stands accused of killing Jesse Baird and Luke Davies in February, 2024 at the couple’s shared house in Sydney.
Police believe that Lamarre-Condon used his service Glock firearm to fatally shoot the two shortly before 10 a.m. on February 19. Lamarre-Condon was reportedly previously in a sexual relationship with Baird, with investigators theorizing that Lamarre-Condon killed the couple because he was angry Baird ended their relationship.
Lamarre-Condon was arrested four days later on February 23 following a nationwide manhunt. He revealed the location of Baird and Davies’ bodies to law enforcement, leading to their discovery on February 27 at a remote rural property in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales (NSW). The two had been stuffed into surfboard bags and hastily covered with debris.
Baird, a television host and red carpet reporter for Network 10’s morning show until its cancellation, and Davies, a flight attendant for Qantas Airlines, were beloved within the local LGBTQ+ community. Their murders took place during Mardi Gras, the Australian version of Pride Month, which commemorates the violent police raid of a gay Mardi Gras celebration in 1978.
The event has been likened to the Stonewall Riots and is considered the beginning of the country’s modern queer rights movement. In response to the murders, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras board asked NSW not to march in the 2024 parade, saying that their presence “could intensify the current feelings of sorrow and distress.”
If convicted, Lamarre-Condon could face a sentence of lifetime imprisonment for each murder, plus an additional penalty of up to 20 years in prison for breaking and entering.
Ottawa’s Pride parade ground to a halt on Sunday afternoon when Queers4Palestine protesters blocked the route and demanded to negotiate with parade organizers over their stance on the war in Gaza.
After nearly an hour of talks, and with the route still blocked, the two sides failed to reach an accommodation. Capital Pride, the event’s organizers, decided to cancel the remainder of the march.
“We are bummed, of course, but we had a blast for the block and a half that we walked,” said Stefania Wheelhouse, who marched in the short-lived parade with a local theater company.
“We sang, we spread the word,” she told the Ottawa Citizen. “Everyone was so positive, so it was still a net win for us,” Wheelhouse said.
The atmosphere was less positive for parade and protest leaders, who tried and failed to come to terms over Israel’s continuing occupation of Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, and Capital Pride’s response.
Last year, the group was resolute in its support of Palestinians, issuing a letter that condemned both the “acts of terrorism” committed on October 7 by Hamas and Israel’s “endless and brutal campaign in Gaza,” which the letter said had caused the deaths of “innocent Palestinians.”
The Jewish Federation of Ottawa called the 2024 statement “antisemitic” and vowed to boycott last summer’s Pride parade in response. Other groups, and Ottawa’s mayor, Mark Sutcliffe, withdrew their support and sponsorship as well.
This year, that statement quietly disappeared from Capital Pride’s website.
“This is what a village looks like!” the pro-Palestinian protesters chanted from Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, a reference to this year’s “We Are a Village” parade theme. The parade ground to a halt there, Q4P said, with the ascent of Grand Marshall Patience Plush.
Protesters unfurled Palestinian flags and a giant pink-and-black banner that read “All of us or none of us” and “Stonewall was an intifada.” Many signs read, “No pride in genocide.”
Demonstrators also chanted slogans including “Free, free Palestine!” “Long live the intifada!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
Queers4Palestine issued several demands of Capital Pride, including a commitment to join the long-running boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
They also demanded that Mayor Sutcliffe and other elected officials publicly apologize for the 2024 boycott of Capital Pride and called on them to “stand with us and all oppressed peoples, including Palestinians.”
“We are in the parade today to affirm very clearly that our Pride is not for sale, and that 2SLGBTQIA+ communities will not accept sponsors and elected officials dictating what we stand for, how we celebrate ourselves, and how we claim our space,” a press release from the group said.
“CP had multiple discussions with those who boycotted over the last year, not with Q4P and allies. Why prioritize corporations and right-wing politicians over the queer community?” the group asked.
“CP’s board voted to publish last year’s solidarity statement. This year’s removal was not voted on. One board member even quit in protest.
“Mayor Sutcliffe and others boycotted Pride last year, hurting our community financially. Now he wants to show up without apology — using Pride for political gain,” the group said.
Capital Pride can’t say it wasn’t aware of Q4P’s demands. Sunday’s stoppage came after at least a week of public calls to reinstate the statement.
But Capital Pride organizers slow-walked a response, as former sponsors and Ottawa’s mayor returned in the absence of the polarizing document.
Belatedly, the group said it stood by the views expressed in last year’s letter about Israel’s actions in Gaza, and said the statement was missing online due to a website “refresh,” reiterating Executive Director Callie Metler’s description of the removal as part of the organization’s annual process of “refreshing their online environment.”
By that time, the parade had launched and was aborted.
Capital Pride released a “Clarification on Parade cancellation” message to social media that said that Q4P was marching in the parade as “guests invited by the parade garnd marshall,” before the group forced the parade to stop.
“As a community organization, we strive to engage with our community members in good faith and to balance the various interests and demands that are made of us while also organizing one of the largest festivals in our city,” the statement said. “Throughout the summer, we had several meetings with Q4P along with other community groups to discuss the issues that are important to them.
“Unfortunately, the group refused to have a meaningful discussion about how to move forward. After over an hour of attempting to resolve the stoppage, it became clear that Q4P was unwilling to engage in a good faith conversation and was insistent on misrepresenting our discussions.”
“Rerouting the parade mid-way was not possible and the street closures for the parade route were only permitted to 4:00 pm. Given the constraints we were facing and the nature of the discussion with Q4P, we were left with no other choice than to cancel the remainder of the parade.”
The message said that other parts of Ottawa’s Pride festivities would continue as planned.
In a statement, Mayor Sutcliffe said it was “deeply regrettable that a group of activists chose to block the parade, ultimately leading Capital Pride officials to cancel the event.”
“My heart goes out to the many people in our city who were deprived of the opportunity to participate in this celebration of joy, resilience, and community.”
Nepal has held its first Pride since President Donald Trump cut foreign aid funding. Hundreds of LGBTQ+ people and allies rallied in support of the queer community at Nepal’s Pride parade 2025.
During the annual Gai Jatra festival in the capital of Kathmandu, which honours relatives passed away throughout the year, the LGBTQ+ community and allies came together as part of Nepal Pride 2025 to advocate for queer rights.
Hundreds of people attended the event on Sunday (10 August), holding Pride, Trans Pride, Lesbian Pride and Asexual Pride flags, while signs proclaimed, “Pride for all intersectional queer identities”, “Transgender men are men”, and “Transgender women are women”. A large Progress Pride flag was also carried down the street by a group of people attending the event.
The country’s LGBTQ+ community has, in particular, been hit by Trump’s cuts to foreign aid, which saw over 80 per cent of USAID programs being cancelled as of March this year.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community participated in the Nepal Pride parade 2025. (Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Many help centres for Nepal’s LGBTQ+ community have remained closed since USAID was dismantled, leaving thousands without support, as per the Independent. The organisation partnered with local help centres to roll out HIV prevention and care and safe sex counselling.
Funds from USAID were said to be “vital” for the day-to-day operation of the centres and clinics, which helped distribute free condoms, sexual health screenings, and follow-up treatment for people living with HIV. The USAID office in Nepal is currently closed.
Cuts also affected LGBTQ+-inclusive programs in India and the UK.
LGBTQ+ people and supporters rallied for “Pride for all intersectional queer identities” at Nepal Pride parade 2025. (Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In 2023, Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage could be legally registered. Last year, a lesbian couple made history as the first sapphic pair to have their marriage recognised in Nepal.
Nepal is the second Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, following Taiwan, whose parliament passed a law to legalise equality in 2019.
“American voters, and to some extent the American media, don’t understand how many years the Republicans have been working in order to get us to this point,” Clinton said. “It took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court will hear a case about gay marriage. My prediction is they will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion. They will send it back to the states.”
WATCH: @HillaryClinton predicts to @JessicaTarlov that SCOTUS will overturn marriage equality and “send it back to the states” (like abortion) — leading to a ban in much of 🇺🇸 On Trump & Republicans stealing seats: “they don’t want a fair fight” Full: https://youtu.be/L4h9wllCtLo?si=QSnQgAPUvel8b9HI
If the Supreme Court reverses Obergefell , marriages between same-sex couples will still be recognized federally under the Respect for Marriage Act. Signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, the act mandates that the federal government recognizes same-sex and interracial marriages, and that all states recognize those performed in other states.
The act does not require states to allow marriages between same-sex couples. As state bans on these unions were struck down in Obergefell, such bans could be enacted again if Obergefell is overturned. If that were to happen, the fallout would likely be similar to that after Roe v. Wade‘s reversal, in which red states immediately enacted bans.
While the Supreme Court has made no official move to reconsider marriage equality, nine states have recently introduced resolutions asking the court to hear the case again. None have yet passed, and even if they were to, the resolutions are nonbinding — meaning they carry no legal weight, and the court is not obligated to hear them.
However, some justices have voiced opposition to Obergefell even after the ruling. When the conservative majority created by Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion at the time that the court should also revisit and overrule decisions that prevent state restrictions on contraception, marriage equality, sodomy, and other private consensual sex acts, calling the rulings “demonstrably erroneous.”
“Anybody in a committed relationship out there in the LGBTQ community, you ought to consider getting married,” Clinton continued. “‘Cause I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear that they will undo the national right.”
The Polari Prize has announced it will “pause” its 2025 awards competition following controversy over its inclusion of author and self-proclaimed ‘TERF’ John Boyne in its long list.
In a statement issued on Monday (18 August), organisers of the LGBTQ+ writing award confirmed that this year’s proceedings had been put on hold in the wake of the backlash, which has seen other nominated authors withdraw from the competition.
Public backlash was ignited earlier this month after the Polari Prize included Earth, the latest novel from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas author Boyne, on its long list.
In July, Boyne described himself as a “TERF” – a trans exclusionary radical feminist – in defence of his friend and fellow author, JK Rowling, whose views on trans issues are well-documented.
Writing in a column for the Irish Independent, Boyne expressed support for the Harry Potter author, claiming that “grown women” who publicly disagree with her are “astonishingly complicit in their own erasure” while comparing them to characters in The Handmaid’s Tale who are “ready to pin a handmaiden down as her husband rapes her.”
Author Sacha Coward, who was nominated for his book Queer as Folklore, was among those who withdrew from the competition in protest at Boyne’s inclusion, writing on X/Twitter that he could not “continue in good faith” to participate in the event.
Multiple nominated authors had withdrawn from the Polari Prize 2025 over the inclusion of ‘TERF’ author John Boyne (Polari Prize)
The Polari Prize issued several statements in the face of the backlash, stating it was committed to the principles of “diversity and inclusion” while defending Boyne’s inclusion as a decision based on “merit as judged by our jury.”
In its latest statement, Polari acknowledged that the awards ceremony had been “overshadowed by hurt and anger”, which it described as “painful and distressing for all concerned.”
The organisation wrote that it plans to undertake a review of its policies, including its “aims and values”, to better support LGBTQ+ authors from across the community, including trans and non-binary people.
“Many discussions have been undertaken over the last two weeks – with authors, judges, stakeholders, and funders – about the impacts and ramifications of the longlisting of John Boyne’s novel and how we can learn from this experience and move forwards.
“We extend our heartfelt apologies to everyone affected this year, for the disappointment and despair this has caused.”
The U.S. State Department is redoing its human rights reports on other countries, omitting anti-LGBTQ+ persecution, gender-based crimes, and other information the reports have traditionally included.
Leaked drafts of reports reviewed byThe Washington Poston El Salvador, Israel, and Russia “strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened,” the Post reports.
The drafts, which cover 2024, are significantly shorter than they have usually been, and they have been long delayed. The reports for the previous year are supposed to be sent to Congress by the end of February, and they are generally released to the public in March or April. Most of the reports for 2024 were nearly done by the time the Biden administration ended in January, current and former officials told the Post, but the Trump administration is now rewriting them.
Buckingham criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had praised the department’s human rights reports when he was a senator. “Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it’s convenient to them,” Buckingham, who is now managing director at the Council for Global Equality, told the Post.
Also, the report on El Salvador minimizes the issue of prison violence, and the one on Israel downplays political corruption and surveillance of Palestinians.
The Advocate sought comment from the State Department, which referred us to a transcript of the press briefing conducted Thursday by Thomas Pigott, the department’s principal deputy spokesperson. One reporter asked him, “Can you explain why the State Department is rewriting the human rights report? I understand it’s coming out soon, but it’s been changed and that you’re dropping certain things like LGBTQ rights. Just explain why.”
Pigott said the changes are designed “to make it more readable, to make it more digestible, and also to reflect some of the changing priorities that we’ve seen from the previous administration to this one, priorities that were voted by the American people and we at the State Department are here to carry out and fulfill.”
The journalist then asked if the department sees human rights reporting “as a political tool.” Pigott replied, “It’s more of just making sure that we’re implementing the policy and priority of this administration. It’s not political in terms of how that was described.”
An Islamic court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province on Monday sentenced two men to public caning, 80 times each, after Islamic religious police caught them engaged in what the court deemed were sexual acts: hugging and kissing.
The trial at the Islamic Shariah District Court in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, was held behind closed doors. Judges have the authority to limit public access in such a case and open it only for the verdict.
The two men, aged 20 and 21, were arrested in April after residents saw them entering the same bathroom at Taman Sari city park and reported it to police patrolling the area. The police broke into the toilet and caught the men kissing and hugging, which the court considered to be a sexual act.
The lead judge, Rokhmadi M. Hum, said the two college students were “legally and convincingly” proven to have violated Islamic law by committing acts that lead to gay sexual relations. The court didn’t publicly identify the men.
Prosecutors previously sought 85 strokes of the cane for each, but the three-judge panel decided on what they described as lenient punishment because the men were outstanding students who were polite in court, cooperated with authorities and had no previous convictions.
The judges also ordered the time they have served to be deducted from their sentence. It means the number of lashes will be reduced by four as they have been detained for four months.
The prosecutor, Alfian, who like many Indonesians uses only a single name, said he was not satisfied with the lighter sentence. But he said he will not appeal.
Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia allowed to observe a version of Islamic law. It allows up to 100 lashes for morality offenses including gay sex. Caning is also punishment for adultery, gambling, drinking and for women who wear tight clothes and men who skip Friday prayers.
Indonesia’s secular central government granted Aceh the right to implement the law in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end a separatist war. Aceh implemented an expansion in 2015 that extended the law to non-Muslims, who account for about 1% of the province’s population.
Human rights groups have criticized the law, saying it violates international treaties signed by Indonesia protecting the rights of minorities. Indonesia’s national criminal code doesn’t regulate homosexuality.
Monday’s verdict was the fifth time that Aceh has sentenced people to public caning for homosexuality since the Islamic law was implemented.
In February, the same court sentenced two men to public caning up to 85 times for gay sex after neighborhood vigilantes in Banda Aceh suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them naked and hugging each other.
After two years of living with tuberculosis (TB), 38-year-old Selina Kimuto’s condition is worse than ever. A single mother living in Kibera—Nairobi’s biggest slum—Kimuto had been receiving medication to treat her infection. But in June, her hospital told her that they wouldn’t be able to give her any more until October, due to severe shortages caused by the sudden pull-out of U.S. foreign aid.
Since then, Kimuto’s condition has rapidly deteriorated.
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
“I’ve really tried, but I can’t do it alone, to wash even my own clothes by myself,” Kimuto told Uncloseted Media. “Even the housework, I’m not doing it by myself. Sometimes I have to call my neighbors to come and help me.”
Kimuto’s medication had been funded in part by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the U.S. foreign aid program that has been a leading force in the global fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic since it was launched by President George W. Bush in 2003.
But on day one of President Donald Trump’s second term, the program was hit with a stop-work order and a complete funding freeze on all foreign aid. While limited services have been restored, the State Department is reportedlydrafting a plan to shut down the program in its entirety, with some countries getting as little as two years’ notice before a complete withdrawal of services.
In June, Uncloseted Media reported that a cessation of PEPFAR funding could cause as many as 3 million preventable HIV/AIDS related deaths and 11 million new infections. But the impacts cut much deeper, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and other heavily impacted countries like Haiti and Ukraine.
In Kenya, HIV funding from the U.S. in fiscal year 2024 totaled $307.9 million, equivalent to almost a third of the country’s entire domestic health spending that year. In addition to HIV/AIDS, that money supports TB treatment, women’s and children’s health care, and even the electronic record-keeping for health systems as a whole.
“Health care is dependent on that aspect of the foreign aid to be able to function,” says Dr. Davji Atellah, secretary general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union. “A big population is affected, and it means that living conditions must change.”
The Impact on Tuberculosis
Like in many other countries, Kenya’s HIV care is integrated with care for TB because it is a very common infection for people whose immune systems have been weakened by AIDS. PEPFAR funding frequently supported efforts against both epidemics.
Over 23,000 Kenyans are estimated to have died of TB in 2023, with 124,000 cases overall. Dr. Atellah says that there has been a lot of fear in Kimuto’s neighborhood, where TB is particularly prevalent and medications are becoming harder to access.
TB can weaken the lungs, leading to chest pain, weight loss, fever and hemoptysis, or the coughing up of blood. When left untreated, it can be deadly.
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
Since losing access to the TB medication Rifampicin, Kimuto—who also lives with HIV—now vomits frequently and has been too weak to do her usual work of selling vegetables and cleaning clothes, leaving her short on money, food and rent.
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
“They told me in the hospital that they were under a shortage of the medicines,” she says. “They were telling us that the drugs were coming from outside the country, so it stopped.”
Anisha Parambi, an OB-GYN at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, says that Kimuto’s situation is common and that patients who previously could pick up their medication once a month now need to come twice as often as the hospital has been forced to ration supplies.
“Often they’re able to see less patients than they used to see because they don’t have the staff or resources,” Parambi told Uncloseted Media.
Women and Kids in the Crossfire
In addition to TB care, the Trump administration’s cuts are especially affecting women and children. PEPFAR previously supplied 24% of Kenya’s contraceptives, with its disappearance leaving a void which has led to shortages and heightened risks of unintended pregnancies. While some women’s health services, such as cervical cancer screenings, were reauthorized in February, local NGOs have reported that even these services have experienced disruptions and lack of funds.
In 2024, PEPFAR provided care to over 1.3 million survivors of gender-based violence, including rape kits, STI testing and PrEP. Multiple Kenyan sources told Uncloseted Media that these and other social programs had been disrupted since the start of Trump’s second term.
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
Last year in Kenya, 127 femicides were reported, the most since the country started recording in 2016. The problem has only gotten worse now that gender-based violence programs are closing down: Kenya’s National Police Service reported that 129 women were killed from January to March of this year.
David Oduor knows this better than most. He says his mother suffered abuse and was treated “like an animal,” “beat” and “insulted.” He says the stress caused his mother to suffer from strokes, blood clots and heart failure. She ultimately passed away from complications with the conditions.
He now runs Joy Hope, an orphanage in Kibera, where he says that 90% of the kids he sees live with single moms due to gender-based violence. His organizations have worked to provide counseling for survivors and hold discussions to spread awareness in the community, and he says that the disappearance of aid organizations has made the weight they carry heavier.
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
At the end of 2024, PEPFAR estimated that they were supporting nutritional, educational and psychosocial services for 6.6 million orphans, vulnerable children and their caregivers in 55 countries
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
“These children are innocent, so we are just chipping in to help them,” Oduor told Uncloseted Media. “It is really really difficult, and it’s a burden, and we need some people to stand with us.”
The Kenyan government has had its own plan since 2023 to tackle what it calls the “triple threat”: adolescent STI infections, teen pregnancy, and sexual and gender-based violence. While the program had seen some success through providing education and community events for teenagers, one epidemiologist who spoke with Uncloseted Media says that the sudden loss of PEPFAR funding has made it challenging to market itself.
“You can’t bring teenagers together and not have something fun for them—they won’t turn up,” he says. “You have to have a bit of entertainment, or some refreshments, or some skit they can listen to, videos they can watch. All these have been hampered … so we are having challenges with bringing these teenagers together in a forum where … you can actually educate them on how to avert gender-based violence.”
In addition to medication, PEPFAR funding is estimated to have supported and trained 342,000 health workers as of 2024. But the cuts have had devastating effects on employment. In Kenya, roughly 54,000 people lost their jobs just over a month into Trump’s second term due to the U.S. foreign aid freeze.
“In a population of 56 million, when over 50,000 jobs are being lost, then there is a serious problem in terms of the population’s access to health care,” says Dr. Atellah, whose union has been scrambling to get laid-off workers new jobs. “Those who remain in services will be extremely overwhelmed, and therefore there is a need to ensure that there are alternative plans.”
One Kenyan epidemiologist, who specializes in treating especially difficult cases of HIV/AIDS, told Uncloseted Media that he’s been unable to find employment for months after being fired by a health care NGO. He says it’s because the Kenyan government rarely hires specialists, instead focusing on primary care doctors.
“You have to contend with just working as a general doctor, of which the government does not have enough slots for you,” he says. “So you work part-time in a few private health care facilities just to try as much as possible to bring food to the table.”
He says that because HIV and TB specialists like him are getting fired, patients with these conditions are being sent to general providers who aren’t trained to deal with these viruses.
He says this has caused intense disarray: Patients are being prescribed the wrong regimens; difficult and resistant cases are going unnoticed; people are falling out of care; and higher viral loads are contributing to more deaths.
“There’s no individualized care anymore, so the patients are running away from care, and some of them, if they stop taking their medication, they get sick at home,” he says.
The epidemiologist adds that it’s hard to know the scale of the epidemics because shortages and service reductions have limited the number of people who can get tested, often excluding the worst cases and thus skewing the data.
In addition, PEPFAR programs typically use their own information systems to manage health care data. But because these record-keeping systems are managed by the U.S., disruptions to PEPFAR are causing countries to lose access.
That happened in Kenya in March, when government officials reported that they had lost access to several health information systems, including those that track the spread of infectious diseases, vaccine stocks and even patients’ electronic health records. While the cloud storage for the systems has been restored, funding cuts have made it unreliable, with some facilities resorting to using paper documents.
Without good record keeping, “You’re blindly treating the patient, you don’t know the challenges, you’re starting from afresh,” says the epidemiologist. “The quality of care you’re going to offer the client is going to be heavily affected.”
Dr. Atellah says the Kenyan government may have to start developing a new system—a very real risk given that the State Department plans to defund billions of dollars in electronic record keeping despite the fact that, by their own admission, these systems “are in nearly every case unlikely to be financially sustained by the country government.”
Dr. Atellah says that the Trump administration’s removal of aid is disastrous for Kenya. He adds that Kenya’s dependency on the U.S. is so intense and the country’s government has been relatively slow and ineffective in their response, which exposes the flaws and corruption in their health system as a whole.
He says the Kenyan government should put more support into public health, PEPFAR or not, noting that the pilferage of public funds is one reason this isn’t happening.
“The Trump administration has said ‘America first,’ and therefore the time has come for the [Kenyan] government to put Kenya first,” says Dr. Atellah. “And there’s no possibility to do that if the access to health care for the over 2 million [people] living with HIV and over 100,000 people living with TB are not covered.”
Despite this, Dr. Atellah and the experts who spoke with Uncloseted Media agree that the Trump administration’s sudden and rapid cessation of aid is not a solution. In April, a group of 18 global public health experts published a policy proposaladvocating for a five-year plan to transition the leadership on the fight against HIV from the U.S. to the most impacted countries’ governments. But according to the State Department’s plans, PEPFAR would end in most countries in two to four years.
Photo by Brian Otieno Storitellah for Uncloseted Media.
The sudden cuts continue to be felt by Selina Kimuto in the Kibera Slums, whose condition is deteriorating because she can no longer access the appropriate amount of medication that can help her manage her TB, leaving her unemployed and struggling financially, physically and emotionally.
“The place that I stay right now, I’m really struggling to pay my rentals—when I get it, I try to at least pay it, but most of the time I don’t get it, so all I’m asking for is for you to help me.”
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