Uganda, with a population of 32 million, is a constitutional republic led by President Yoweri Museveni of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party. The 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections were marred by serious irregularities. An influx of arms continued to fuel violence in the Karamoja region, resulting in deaths and injuries. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which relocated to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2005, continued to hold children forcibly abducted from the country. The governments of Uganda, Southern Sudan, and the DRC continued military actions against the LRA in the DRC, Southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR). There were instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently of civilian control.

Serious human rights problems in the country included arbitrary killings; vigilante killings; mob and ethnic violence; torture and abuse of suspects and detainees; harsh prison conditions; official impunity; arbitrary and politically motivated arrest and detention; incommunicado and lengthy pretrial detention; restrictions on the right to a fair trial and on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association; restrictions on opposition parties; electoral irregularities; official corruption; violence and discrimination against women and children, including female genital mutilation (FGM), sexual abuse of children, and the ritual killing of children; trafficking in persons; violence and discrimination against persons with disabilities and homosexual persons; restrictions on labor rights; and forced labor, including child labor.