Ghana’s Parliament Passes Anti-Gay Bill With Jail Terms

Ghana’s Parliament on Wednesday handed a invoice that additional clamps down on L.G.B.T.Q. rights by imposing jail phrases on those that establish as homosexual or kind L.G.B.T.Q. teams, measures that Amnesty Worldwide referred to as among the many most stringent laws on the African continent.

The laws, if signed into legislation by President Nana Akufo-Addo, would imply that individuals convicted of figuring out as homosexual may very well be sentenced to a few years in jail, these deemed “promoters” of L.G.B.T.Q. points may get 5 years, and those that interact in homosexual intercourse would obtain 5 years as an alternative of the three years underneath 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 dying penalty.

Thirty-one international locations 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 yr.

“There are nonetheless so many international locations 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 latest days, its passage had been slowed by modifications instructed by a member of the governing New Patriotic Get together, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, to make it much less harsh.

He mentioned earlier this month that Parliament ought to determine whether or not individuals convicted underneath the anti-gay legislation ought to be given counseling and made to carry out group service as an alternative of being jailed. However a few of his colleagues in Parliament shouted him down, saying that jail phrases ought to be imposed.