Extreme bill to punish allies for advocating for LGBTQ+ rights could soon pass in Ghana

Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that has been languishing in Ghana’s Parliament for three years is moving forward and could be ratified this week, according to a member of the West African nation’s minority party.

A final reading of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021 will be followed by a vote scheduled for Sunday.

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Despite the years-long consideration, the bill is expected to pass the Parliament’s single chamber overwhelmingly. The bill would increase the penalties for homosexuality from three years in prison to five. It would also make it a crime to identify as LGBTQ+ or as an ally, according to Human Rights Watch. Anyone found to provide support, advocacy, or funding for LGBTQ+ people’s rights could face punishment if the bill passes.

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“I’ve not seen any MP against this bill and the people of Ghana are strongly in favor of this bill. The Afrobarometer shows that 90% Ghanaians are in favor,” MP Ato Forsen told JoyNews on Tuesday.

The member of Parliament also expressed confidence that Ghana’s president, Nana Addo Dankwa Afuko-Addo, would sign the legislation.

The bill is the latest criminalizing same-sex activity in a wave of discriminatory legislation sweeping Sub-Saharan Africa.

While lacking the most severe penalties for same-sex relations found in Uganda’s notorious Kill the Gays law, Ghana’s version imposes increased punishments for same-sex sexual activities, raising the maximum penalty from three to five years in prison, and expanding criminalization for anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+, queer, pansexual, as an ally, or any other non-conventional gender identity, according to Human Rights Watch.

The new law would also punish anyone providing support or funding or publicly advocating for sexual and gender minority rights. 

The effects of the pending legislation have been felt for years and heightened attacks against LGBTQ+ people, even before its expected passage on Sunday.

The advocacy group Rightify Ghana has reported multiple accounts of landlords evicting LGBTQ+ people from their homes or raising their rents using the bill as a pretext.

In February 2021, police raided and closed an LGBTQ+ resource center that provided community services and information about HIV/AIDS.

In September, authorities dismissed a 17-year-old student from a boarding school over allegations that he was gay, activists told Human Rights Watch. The boy was the subject of homophobic harassment and death threats. 

In October, police detained and blackmailed a 30-year-old man at a checkpoint who was carrying sex toys. Authorities threatened him with jail time, citing the pending law, and he was forced to pay an exorbitant bribe.

Human Rights Watch called on members of Parliament to “immediately withdraw the bill.”

“Not only is it inconsistent with Ghana’s human rights obligations,” HRW researcher Larissa Kojoué said in a statement, “including in the constitution, and incites fear, hatred, and violence against fellow Ghanaian citizens, but its passage would be an anti-democratic and authoritarian turn for Ghana.”