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Ghana’s Parliament on Wednesday handed a invoice that imposes jail phrases on individuals who establish as L.G.B.T.Q. or set up homosexual advocacy teams, measures that Amnesty Worldwide referred to 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 may very well be sentenced to 3 years in jail, these deemed “promoters” of L.G.B.T.Q. points may get 5 years, and those that have interaction in homosexual intercourse would obtain 5 years as a substitute of the three years below earlier laws.
The invoice is the most recent in a wave of anti-gay laws handed in Africa: Tanzania, Niger and Namibia have tightened such legal guidelines lately, whereas Uganda has adopted an anti-gay legislation that features the loss of life penalty.
Thirty-one international locations on the continent criminalize consensual same-sex sexual exercise, in line with Amnesty. Many have skilled a surge in homophobic attitudes, behaviors and rhetoric lately, 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 steered 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 below 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 elementary rights enshrined within the nation’s Structure, like the best to equality and to not be discriminated on the premise of intercourse or gender.
Michael Akagbor, a senior program officer answerable for human rights on the Heart for Democratic Improvement, a analysis group selling good governance in Ghana, mentioned his group was already difficult the laws within the nation’s Supreme Court docket.
“It’s inexplicable to cross such a invoice in a democracy that’s Ghana,” Mr. Akagbor mentioned. “However we nonetheless have authorized treatments to stop it from turning into actuality.”
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