West Budama North East Member of Parliament (MP), Fox Odoi, has suggested that the government should legalize prostitution as a potential source of tax revenue.
Odoi made the proposal during the consideration of the Sexual Offences Bill 2024, recently tabled by Soroti District Woman MP Anna Adeke. The Bill included a proposal to maintain prostitution as a criminal offense in Uganda.
While appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which is scrutinizing the Bill’s proposals, MP Anna Adeke requested the committee to retain clauses 13 and 14, which impose a two-year jail term on anyone convicted of engaging in prostitution. The same punishment was proposed for those engaging in sexual acts with a prostitute.
However, MPs on the Joint Committee of Legal and Gender rejected Adeke’s proposal to maintain prostitution as a criminal offense. Instead, they recommended that the government regulate the industry and begin collecting taxes from sex workers.
“I strongly feel we should legalize prostitution. We should regulate that sector, promote it, and make some money from it. For us as legislators, our forte isn’t morality. Morality is for the reverends, canons, and the Fathers,” Odoi argued.
Prostitution remains illegal in Uganda under the 1950 Penal Code, though it is widespread despite this prohibition. The law states:
“Any person who knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution, and every person who in any place solicits or importunes for immoral purposes, commits an offense and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.”
