Ghana’s Parliament on Wednesday handed a invoice that imposes jail phrases on individuals who determine as L.G.B.T.Q. or manage homosexual advocacy teams, measures that Amnesty Worldwide known as among the many harshest on the African continent.
The laws, if signed into legislation by President Nana Akufo-Addo, would imply that folks convicted of figuring out as homosexual might be sentenced to a few years in jail, these deemed “promoters” of L.G.B.T.Q. points might get 5 years, and those that have interaction in homosexual intercourse would obtain 5 years as a substitute of the three years beneath earlier laws.
The invoice is the newest in a wave of anti-gay laws handed in Africa: Tanzania, Niger and Namibia have tightened such legal guidelines in recent times, whereas Uganda has adopted an anti-gay legislation that features the loss of life penalty.
Thirty-one nations on the continent criminalize consensual same-sex sexual exercise, in accordance with Amnesty. Many have skilled a surge in homophobic attitudes, behaviors and rhetoric in recent times, the rights group mentioned in a report final 12 months.
“There are nonetheless so many nations in Africa the place being L.G.B.T.Q. is taken into account evil or un-African,” mentioned Linda Nduri, a Kenya-based marketing campaign supervisor for Africa at All Out, a nonprofit group.
Each main political events in Ghana help the invoice, however in current days, its passage had been slowed by adjustments urged by a member of the governing New Patriotic Celebration, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, to make it much less harsh.
He mentioned this month that Parliament ought to resolve whether or not folks convicted beneath the anti-gay legislation ought to be given counseling and made to carry out neighborhood service as a substitute of being jailed. However a few of his colleagues in Parliament shouted him down, saying that jail phrases ought to be imposed.
The invoice, which was first launched in Parliament in 2021, has obtained widespread public help and has been pushed by Christian, Muslim and conventional leaders in Ghana.
However human rights organizations have warned that, if handed into legislation, the invoice would violate basic rights enshrined within the nation’s Structure, like the proper to equality and to not be discriminated on the premise of intercourse or gender.
Michael Akagbor, a senior program officer in command of human rights on the Heart for Democratic Growth, a analysis group selling good governance in Ghana, mentioned his group was already difficult the laws within the nation’s Supreme Courtroom.
“It’s inexplicable to go such a invoice in a democracy that’s Ghana,” Mr. Akagbor mentioned. “However we nonetheless have authorized treatments to forestall it from changing into actuality.”
