Statement On The Impact Of Trump Administration Policies On Marginalized Women in Their Diversities, In Uganda

PUBLIC STATEMENT

The Impact Of Trump Administration Policies On Marginalized Women in Their Diversities, In Uganda

KAMPALA, Monday 06 October 2025 — The Alliance of Women Advocating for Change (AWAC) expresses deep concern over the lasting impact of harmful U.S. foreign policies initiated under the Trump Administration, which continue to restrict access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. These policies have affected majorly marginalized women including sex workers, women with disabilities and those living  with HIV, further entrenching health inequities and undermining their fundamental rights ,  in Uganda.

The expansion of The Global Gag Rule (The Mexico City Policy), The Project 2025, and related funding cuts, have silenced vital community-led programs and systematically excluded grassroots individuals and community-led organizations like AWAC from  critical support. This U.S policy shift has not only disrupted lifesaving SRHR and HIV programs, but has also eroded dignity of marginalized women , who already face multiple and intersecting vulnerabilities including stigma, criminalization, gender-based violence, and limited access to tailormade comprehensive healthcare, including family planning, safe abortion and Post Abortion care. This prohibits access to biomedical HIV prevention services as outlined in the Choice Manifesto, which subsequently undermine marginalized women and Uganda’s HIV response and prevention of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies.

The withdrawal of funding from community-led and grassroots organizations that provide or even advocate for bodily autonomy, pleasure and choice including choice for safe abortion and Post Abortion Care; is an attack on the reproductive rights and socio-economic wellbeing of women in their diversities. Such policies perpetrate GBV and its consequences towards already marginalized groups such as female sex workers, gender expansive persons and other underserved groups. Beyond denying them essential health services, such policies reinforce and legitimize the structural and interpersonal violence marginalised communities face. For example, it perpetuates the devastating impact of rape in all its forms including lesbophobic and transphobic rape (corrective rape) – which is used as a weapon to punish, ‘correct’ and control those who defy patriarchal and heteronormative expectations like reproduction.

These forms of violence not only cause immediate physical and psychological harm but also deepen stigma, fear and exclusion. By silencing organizations that advocate for bodily autonomy and justice, especially grassroots community-led groups that rely on such funding to advance social justice – U.S. foreign policy restrictions amplify harms, erode dignity and entrench cycles of violence and inequality for those already pushed to the periphery of society. Moreover,  the new policies restrict PrEP access only to pregnant and breastfeeding women which reflect a reductive view of women as mere reproductive vessels, rather than autonomous individuals with the inherent right to full protection, dignity and bodily autonomy.

This systemic erosion of marginalized women’s health and rights not only undermine local struggles for dignity,  equality and grassroots advocacy movements but also a direct contradiction to international human rights obligations and frameworks that both the U.S. and Uganda have committed to, including the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), which affirm that women’s reproductive rights are fundamental to gender equality and must not be compromised by political or religious ideology; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which obliges states to eliminate discrimination in healthcare and ensure access to services, including family planning; the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), which emphasizes ownership, alignment, and inclusive partnerships—principles violated when funding is withdrawn from grassroots women’s organizations; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which guarantees the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health without discrimination.

From the start of our movement, our basis for work has been self-organization and communitarian efforts for dignity, healing safe spaces, sisterhood and … to challenge harmful norms and criminalization of all forms which fuels inaccessibility to health care, GBV and other systemic violences. While we value and welcome financial support, it cannot come at the expense of the principles, lives and rights of the very communities we serve. Conditionalities that require the denouncing of abortion rights undermine our institutional integrity, erode our feminist values, and compromise our commitment to ensuring that every marginalized woman can access the full spectrum of healthcare.

Forfeiting such funding results in a loss of 43% of our annual institutional budget; however, preserving our principles, solidarity, and accountability to our community must take precedence. Crucially, HIV and abortion rights are inextricably linked. Women living with or at risk of HIV often face elevated risks of unintended pregnancy due to structural barriers such as GBV, contraceptive gaps and socio-economic vulnerability. Denial of safe abortion services and post-abortion care exacerbates maternal morbidity and mortality and exposes women living with HIV to further health risks, including unsafe procedures and heightened susceptibility to opportunistic infections. Treating HIV and abortion as isolated issues fragments care, fuels preventable deaths and exacerbates health inequities. Policies that force organizations to choose between providing HIV services and advocating for abortion rights are therefore not only unethical but also detrimental to public health. AWAC is not ready to take part and support the relentless prioritization of political ideologies and capitalist interests over health which is a weaponization of aid, entrenched exclusion, and  marginalization of the already impoverished communities.

“The Global Gag Rule is not just a bad policy, it is a violent, patriarchal attack on our bodies and our autonomy. By cutting funding and silencing grassroots female sex workers’ voices, the Trump Administration’s policies pushes sex workers in Uganda deeper into the shadows of stigma, violence, and preventable death. We refuse to be sacrificed for political agendas. Our lives, our health, and our choices are non-negotiable.” – Kyomya Macklean, Executive Director, AWAC Uganda

“As a rural migrant sex worker activist, I have seen how the Trump Administration’s policies have stripped away our right to health and dignity. When funding is cut, it is our lives on the line—without HIV prevention, without family planning, without access to safe abortion care. We are not asking for charity; we are demanding the right to exist, to organize, to be healthy, and to be heard.”

– Tushabe Janefer, Grassroots Community Engagement Leader, AWAC Uganda

AWAC calls on governments, the global community, donors, and allies to recognize the devastating consequences of these draconian policies and to urgently invest in Integrated Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), rights-based, inclusive, and community-led health interventions. The health rights, and lives of marginalized women, especially female sex workers who face multiple and intersecting vulnerabilities must never be sacrificed to political agendas. Our communities deserve care, not silence.

About AWAC 

The AWAC is a feminist, grassroots network of Female Sex Worker (FSW)-led organizations, groups, and collectives operating across Uganda. Established in 2015 by sex worker leaders and activists, AWAC exists to amplify the voices, rights, and well-being of FSWs—particularly those in rural and peri-urban communities—through advocacy, movement-building, and holistic support. AWAC is rooted in the lived experiences of sex workers and committed to transforming structural injustice through participatory, and rights-based approaches.