On April 4, 2023, Janet Museveni, the First Lady of Uganda, tweeted to her half-million followers, “I recently had the honor of meeting with Ms. Sharon Slater, President of Family Watch International.” The tweet included a photograph of Museveni standing next to Slater and a small group of people on the steps of the State House in Entebbe. The thread continued, “[W]e discussed the significance of safeguarding African culture & family values against emerging threats, & I expressed my concern about the imposition of harmful practices like homosexuality.”

Less than two months later, Janet Museveni’s husband, President Yoweri Museveni, signed into law one of the world’s most punitive anti-LGBTI bills, which includes punishments that range from life imprisonment to the death penalty. Most Ugandans have likely never heard of Sharon Slater or her organization, Family Watch International (FWI). If they have, they may wonder how a Mormon American who leads a small Arizona-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) comes to sit at the table with the wife of a head of state to discuss African values and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. This is also a question many in the United States and elsewhere are asking.

Private U.S. citizens are free to travel and engage with political leaders in other countries; when this work is politically driven and contributes to dangerous legislation that harms individuals and violates basic human rights, the public is entitled to learn more about the person and the organization they represent. This report aims to shed light on FWI, a group that peddles disinformation and homophobia that is impacting health, education, and human rights policy from Arizona to East Africa and in multilateral spaces like the United Nations. While FWI has cycled in and out of the public eye since its incorporation in 2000, Slater’s close ties to Museveni, and high-level participation with the first lady in a regional anti-LGBTI inter-parliamentary conference in Entebbe, Uganda, has drawn renewed scrutiny and intense criticism of her organization and its agenda.