Dutch lobbyist Henk-Jan van Schothorst, affiliated with the right-wing orthodox Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (State Reformed Protestant Party) and founder of Christian Council International, has been instrumental in exporting anti-rights legislation across the African continent.
In early 2023, the Ugandan parliament passed a brutal anti-gay law mandating the death penalty for "aggravated cases of homosexuality" and imposing a 20-year prison sentence for the “promotion” of homosexuality. Shortly after its enactment, a pan-African conference on "African family values" was held in the Ugandan city of Entebbe, with the aim of exporting the law across the continent. The conference was attended by parliamentarians from across Africa, and a nearly identical bill was subsequently introduced in neighbouring Kenya.
Van Schothorst posed with the Ugandan presidential couple
Much international attention was given to the key role of U.S. citizen Sharon Slater and her organisation, Family Watch International (FWI), in organising the Ugandan conference. Numerous international media outlets, including CNN, the Guardian, or the New York Times, highlighted her key role in Uganda's anti-gay law. Images of Slater with the Ugandan President and First Lady circulated globally, often accompanied by commentary on her involvement in promoting anti-gay legislation across the continent.The international spotlight, however, overlooked a Dutchman who also attended these events. Evangelical politician Henk-Jan van Schothorst also spoke at the conference and posed with the Ugandan presidential couple. When the Entebbe 'family values' conference was held again in 2024, Van Schothorst served as the keynote speaker.
Van Schothorst’s organization, the Christian Council International, originates from the Transatlantic Christian Council (TCC), which was founded in 2013 to “strengthen the work and boldness of Christians and conservatives in the public square on both sides of the Atlantic and worldwide.”
Henk-Jan van Schothorst is the founder and executive director of Christian Council International. In this role, he represents the organisation and advocates its voice within international bodies such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), as well as in member states. Van Schothorst previously served as a board member of the international committee of the Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (Reformed Political Party) and as a staff member for an alliance of Christian parties in the European Parliament.
The TCC transitioned to Christian Council International in 2020, officially to adopt a “more global” outlook. However, as Van Schothorst states in interviews, the shift was particularly aimed at increasing focus on Africa—specifically, on efforts to oppose a proposed agreement between the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) platform and the European Union. While the agreement addresses trade and development, it also encompasses human rights issues, including sexual and reproductive health rights.
Radically conservative
In April 2021, the adoption of the EU-ACP agreement was stalled. While this was largely due to Europe's internal political situation and the invasion of Ukraine, it was also influenced by protests from anti-rights organisations such as the CCI, which had established a network of likeminded groups for this purpose. Sharon Slater’s Family Watch International (FWI) is part of this network, alongside the equally radical Political Network for Values (PNfV) and others. Among their African lobbying partners are the Kenyan Christian Professionals Forum, the African Bar Association, and the Nigerian Foundation for African Cultural Heritage (FACH), with whom FWI has long organised various conferences, including the Global Policy Forum since its launch in 2011. FACH describes its mission as “the preservation and promotion of African cultural values.” The foundation’s directors, Theresa Okafor and Sonnie Ekwowusi are vocal opponents of LGBTQI rights in Nigeria and across Africa. Okafor has characterised LGBTQI rights as “another ploy to depopulate Africa.”
The AU should adopt “policies that underline the Christian perspective”
In 2021, CCI applied for NGO observer status at the AU’s Commission on Human and People’s Rights in order to monitor whether the “AU adopts policies and strategies that underline the Christian perspective on the right to life, family and freedom.” That October, CCI staff travelled to Kigali, Rwanda, to host a high-level dinner for African ambassadors and lobby African ministers attending an AU-EU meeting. In 2022, FWI and CCI also coordinated advocacy sessions in Brussels and at the African Union.
The last frontier
All this activity emanates from the viewpoint that the West is largely a lost cause for conservative anti-sexual rights agendas and that Africa is “the last frontier for conservative Christianity”. A 2020 investigation by Open Democracy found that U.S. evangelical groups have spent “at least US$54 million in Africa since 2007”.
In the end, the evangelicals’ resistance did not prevent the overall signing of the EU-ACP agreement. It was signed on 15 November 2023 in Samoa, establishing a legal framework for the EU-ACP relationship. However, the lobby and Van Schothorst’s activities in Africa did not cease; they continue to fight for its abolition.
More broadly, this lobby opposes sexual and reproductive rights across various institutions, including the UN. Slater’s FWI still organises annual training sessions for diplomats and UN delegates, claiming that the UN system is being “manipulated by sexual rights activists to promote the sexual agenda.” These programmes include mock negotiations on gender, sex education, and other human rights issues.
“Traditional values” code disguises anti-rights policies
On its webpage and in its newsletter, the CCI does not explicitly state its anti-LGBTQI stance but instead focuses on “promoting the role of the traditional family” in raising children “with high moral values.” Similarly, Sharon Slater’s FWI firmly states on its website that it does not operate “to change laws in Africa and other countries (sic),” adding that it only helps “countries protect their national children, laws, cultures, and values, not to change them.” However, audio recordings of Slater’s speech at the Ugandan conference—leaked to me—show that she positioned FWI as capable of assisting with “model legislation” on a range of conservative issues and offered delegates help in drafting legislation across various fields, saying, “We can connect you to our model legislation, positive legislation to protect the family on various issues; on pornography, religious freedom, transgenderism, the family, sex education, parental rights, [and] protection of life.”
A powerful ally
In this ecosystem of religiously conservative organisations, the term "traditional family values" effectively serves to mask anti-sexual rights policies. For example, Van Schothorst—and also Slater—have defended their participation in the aforementioned and subsequent conferences by stating, in Van Schothorst's words, that they were "advising the President and Parliament to find a pathway for a legal safe haven for people with same-sex attraction." In other words, they claim to be advocating against the death penalty prescribed by Uganda’s anti-gay law. However, Van Schothorst did not utter one word about this in his public speech, which remains available online. Instead, Uganda continued to be portrayed as a powerful ally, one that "has taken a strong stand against anything that threatens African values regarding the family." Furthermore, both Slater and Van Schothorst, through their statements, refer to conversion therapy, treating homosexuality as a ‘disease.’
Conversion therapy has been thoroughly debunked and discredited by both the academic and medical communities. Numerous bodies, including the UN Human Rights Commission, have demonstrated that such practices can constitute torture, as well as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Despite this, Slater and FWI continue to feature testimonies of individuals claimed to have been ‘cured’ by conversion therapy in FWI’s annual Global Forum.
An anti-LGBTQI bill was drafted in Kenya
On 11-12 May 2023, shortly after the Ugandan conference, the first "Regional Family Conference" was held in Nairobi, Kenya. Organised by the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF), the event brought together representatives from 25 African countries, alongside Henk-Jan Van Schothorst. According to CCI and Van Schothorst, the conference was aimed at “promoting the role of the traditional family” in raising children with strong moral values. However, the Kenyan organiser of the conference, KCPF, presented the event in a slightly different light. In his opening address, MP Peter Kaluma emphasised the “LGBTQI attack on the family unit,” criticising the “LGBTQI ideology.” Kaluma also discussed the harsh anti-LGBTQI bill he had previously introduced in Kenya’s parliament, which proposed a life sentence for LGBTQI-related “crimes.”
Following the introduction of his draft bill, LGBTQI organisations reported a significant increase in the harassment of sexual minorities. Despite multiple delays, MP Kaluma continues to push the bill forward.
A “battle for humanity”
The lobbying effort has certainly proven successful in Uganda. A day after the first Entebbe conference, the official X account of the Ugandan Government posted a photo of conference participants meeting the President, alongside foreign delegates Van Schothorst, Sharon Slater, and her husband. The tweet caption read, "President Museveni calls on Africa to reject promotion of homosexuality”. The President subsequently issued a series of posts and reiterated similar statements during a press conference, describing homosexuality as a "vice" and “a big threat and danger to the procreation of the human race”. During a press conference with Van Schothorst, Slater, and other key conference figures, First Lady Janet Museveni lauded the Ugandan parliament for "standing up and passing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill" in order to “fight these evils in the world that are being forced upon our children”. She promised that “we will win this battle for humanity”.
The 'Entebbe Principles,' published after the conference, echoed FWI's key demands for a ban on Comprehensive Sexuality Education and opposition to international agreements such as the ACP-EU post-Cotonou Agreement. Ironically, despite describing itself as "countering foreign influence"—a theme also reflected in its closing session title—the prominent roles played by Slater and Van Schothorst made the conference, for the most part, a foreign product.
Uganda was presented as an example for other African countries
At the second ‘African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values & Sovereignty’ in Entebbe a year later, Uganda was once again hailed as the epitome of African resistance to "the West," and an example for other African countries to follow. On the final day of the conference, various MPs from other African nations were required to present their progress since the previous year. The Kenyan representative was applauded for introducing his bill, while the Ghanaian representative was urged to ensure the bill was signed in their country.
In this second conference, Van Schothorst was the only remaining Westerner. Neither Sharon Slater nor any others showed up—perhaps fearing association with the conference's radical anti-gay rhetoric. However, this fear was evidently not shared by Van Schothorst, who was introduced as the main speaker. He took the floor immediately following the two Ugandan hosts: Ugandan MP and conference chair Sarah Opendi, and deputy speaker of the Ugandan parliament Thomas Tayebwa, both of whom are key figures in Uganda's anti-LGBTQI legislation. CCI refers to Thomas Tayebwa as "a good friend" https://www.christiancouncilinternational.org/news/news/2024/africa-news-q1-2024. Sarah Opendi had previously called for the castration of gays during a parliamentary debate. In his speech, Van Schothorst primarily focused on criticising the EU-ACP agreement and described Africa as “the last man standing” for family and cultural values.
Funding
According to Ugandan media, Van Schothorst’s CCI also financed this second Entebbe conference. (The formal organiser, the Ugandan parliament, lacks the funds to host events of this scale.) While CCI did not respond to a query confirming this, the organisation stated in December 2023 that it was assisting with the conference's organisation. Similarly, in its 2023-2025 sponsorship plan, CCI requested US$265,000 for a “special project” aimed at “supporting lobbying efforts in Africa to challenge the ideological and neo-colonial EU-ACP Trade Agreement” and prevent African citizens “from being compelled to accept CSE (Comprehensive Sexuality Education), abortion, and LGBTQI/SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) policies.”
Russia has also been banging the “conservative values” drum
Interestingly, it has been reported that Russia financed the first Entebbe conference. Russia has also championed "conservative values" as part of its strategy to sow division between Africa and the West.
While the Western Christian right-wing lobby, like Russia, portrays homosexuality as a “neocolonial” perversion imported from the West, many of CCI's other statements are neither strongly anti-colonial nor pro-African. Peter Smith, CCI’s representative at the UN, has defended the Western colonisation of Africa, claiming that it abolished slavery and arguing that colonialist families have never received “reparations for the families who lost loved ones doing this good work.” He has also asserted that Africans are now the ones perpetuating slavery, criticising a UN high-level meeting for not addressing the “estimated seven million slaves in Africa” today. John van den Brinck, a member of CCI’s Board of Directors and the recipient of all US donations to CCI, is outright dismissive of the Black Lives Matter movement, equating it with euthanasia and abortion. In his words, “Reverse discrimination (…) is an insidious evil undermining peace and stability in society.”
Increased violence
Since the enactment of Uganda's anti-gay law on 30 May 2023, there has been a significant rise in threats of violence, actual violence, evictions, and arrests targeting individuals based on their presumed sexual orientation. Between January and December 2024, a total of 415 verified incidents of violence and human rights violations against individuals due to their real or presumed sexual orientation were reported to the legal aid network of HRAPF (the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum).
Activists have protested the “spread of hateful and dangerous ideology”
Ugandan activists have consistently voiced their concerns and anger regarding the influence of foreign groups and individuals – particularly from the United States and Europe – on anti-rights and anti-LGBTQI movements across the continent. Ugandan writer Soita Khatondi Wepukhulu argues that "Western imperialism (…) enables white US citizens like (Sharon) Slater to wield the privilege of their passports to spread hateful and dangerous ideologies in the Global South." Wepukhulu and others are directly advocating for travel bans – akin to those imposed on Ugandan lawmakers involved in the anti-gay law – targeting foreigners involved in the anti-rights legislation across the continent.
Several requests for comment from the author to Van Schothorst went unanswered.
Kristof Titeca is a professor at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels. He has been studying Ugandan politics for more than 20 years.
