About the Speaker
Kasha
Jacqueline
Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist
Kasha Jacqueline (Nabagesera) is a Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist and founder and director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), one of the only lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersexual advocacy groups in a country where homosexuality is criminalized. Despite media-led witch hunts, harassment, attacks, and threats of arrest and death, she publicly campaigns for an end to homophobia in Uganda. FARUG was one of the groups that lobbied in the Ugandan Parliament against the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. In response to the signing of the bill into law in early 2014 and widespread anti-gay media, she launched the Kuchu Times, a platform for LGBTQ+ communities throughout Africa. She also publishes the magazine Bombastic, which focuses on the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda. Jacqueline is the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, the 2013 Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, and the 2015 Right Livelihood Award.