Why is Ghana criminalising LGBTQ+ people?

Ghana passed legislation, uh, which basically criminalizes the promotion of, um, LGBTQ+ activities or anybody identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, and it mandates prison sentences of three to 10 years.

This is Morgan Ofori, a journalist who writes about marginalized communities and social justice.

Ghana is not alone among African countries when it comes to stripping away LGBTQ+ rights.

In the past year, the president of Senegal signed a new law that doubled the maximum prison sentence for sexual acts by same-sex couples to 10 years, and that act banned financial support for or promotion of, um, homosexuality.

Last September, uh, Burkina Faso's, um, interim president, Ibrahim Traoré, signed into law a provision, uh, that criminalized homosexual acts that will be punished with a prison sentence of two to five years and a fine of up to i- in arm money is £13,000 or just over that.

Morgan Ofori says that there is one country in particular that is known for kickstarting a new wave of repressive laws criminalizing homosexuality on the continent.

The most famous law to date is, uh, what's going on in Uganda, where, where in 2023, uh, the Ugandan head of state, Yoweri Museveni, um, ratified probably the most infamous anti-LGBT legislation, uh, which was, which included the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality, in quotes.

It's actually got the nickname the Kill the Gays Bill.

According to Morgan Ofori, there are multiple reasons for this worrying trend, and some stretch back generations.

Many of them are rooted in, um, colonial-era criminalization of sexuality and old laws that have been built upon.

It wasn't necessarily something that was prohibited, but it was, it was enshrined in colonial law.

Many experts in pre-colonial Africa have suggested that the policing of sexuality and gender was something that arrived on the continent with its colonizers.

But Morgan Ofori says that there are also more recent influences at play from overseas.

There's been various data pointing to US and so-called Christian rights groups known for anti-gender campaigning.

That's not just, um, around homosexuality, but also around reproductive rights, abortion.

These Christian groups have held conferences in several countries where they promote the Ugandan model of anti-homosexuality legislation.

End of last month, Ghana hosted the fourth African, this so-called the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family and Sovereignty, and so that platform had documented links to US-based far-right advocacy groups.

These US-backed groups often find a receptive audience among African populations with a high percentage of Pentecostal and Evangelical Christians.

In Ghana and other countries, when it is coming down to election time, the Pentecostal church, they vote as a bloc.

As a result, politicians often feel the need to appeal to their interests.