A silent battle rages on in the bustling city of Accra. The struggle for LGBTQ+ rights in Ghana has reached a critical juncture, highlighting severe human rights violations that have captured global attention. The approval of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill by the Parliament of Ghana on February 28, 2024, marks a significant escalation in the repression of LGBTQ+ individuals, threatening to undermine their basic human rights and dignity.
The proposed bill would criminalise even the act of providing support or information to LGBTQ+ individuals, effectively silencing advocacy groups and cutting off vital lifelines. The bill’s draconian provisions reflect and reinforce a deeply ingrained cultural and religious conservatism in Ghanaian society. It mandates up to three years of imprisonment for engaging in same-sex intercourse, six to ten years for producing or distributing material deemed to promote LGBTQ+ activities, and six months to one year for public displays of same-sex affection or cross-dressing. It also includes a ban on trans healthcare, the forced disbanding of all LGBTQIA+ associations, and severe penalties for anyone involved in supporting or teaching LGBTQ+ rights.
The Offence Against the Person Act of 1861
For decades, Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community has been criminalised under archaic laws inherited from British colonial rule. The Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, implemented in all British colonies, laid the foundation for this discrimination. Following independence, Ghana’s Criminal Code of 1960 continued this legacy by criminalising “unnatural carnal knowledge” which authorities interpret as “penile penetration of anything other than a vagina.” These laws have fostered an environment where LGBTQIA+ individuals live in constant fear of persecution. According to Human Rights Watch, this provision discriminates queer people’s access to healthcare, employment, housing, and education.
The human cost of legal and cultural attitudes is devastating. LGBTQ+ individuals in Ghana face routine harassment, violence, and blackmail. Many have been assaulted, threatened at gunpoint, or robbed by blackmailers, with little to no recourse from law enforcement. Homophobic attacks are encouraged by media, and political and religious officials, who see LGBTQIA+ rights and advocacy as a form of Western colonisation and associate it with sexual deviance and paedophilia. As a consequence, young queer people are disowned by their families and communities and evicted from their homes. Some of them rely on sex work to survive. A report by Human Rights Watch in 2014 documented several hundreds of prayer camps in Ghana run by private-owned Christian religious institutions with roots in evangelical and Pentecostal denominations where queer people are detained in inhuman conditions and face countless tortures.
LGBT+ Rights Ghana
The Ghana Gay Blackmail List, an initiative by LGBT+ Rights Ghana, was created to combat this pervasive threat, providing a lifeline for victims by cataloguing blackmail incidents and offering support. “We don’t just post the faces of the perpetrators,
we post the names of the apps where they operate and the usual contact numbers they use to extort money from,” says Kellison Benjamine to rassegnazionestampa, Deputy Communications Director of LGBT+ Rights Ghana. The List has also proven necessary because in Ghana, there are anti-queer vigilante groups who monitor suspects to beat them up and, sometimes, even kill them.
Founded in 2018, this organisation has been at the forefront of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. “We want to create a formidable movement to champion the fight for freedom of persons in Ghana,” says Benjamine. Initially a cyber activism blog, the organisation has become a powerful advocate, providing resources, creating awareness, and challenging discriminatory practices. In 2021, LGBT+ Rights Ghana opened its office in Accra. This event caused outrage across the country.
Additionally, there was opposition from anti-gay organisations, which called on the government to shut down the organisation and asked for the Inspector General of Police to arrest all persons associated with the organisation. On 25 February, their centre was shut down by police. “Those whose names appear on the website had to leave the city for a while to settle elsewhere because there was a mandate to capture them,” comments Benjamine. Talking about the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, Benjamine remarks that “the bill has also created a positive effect: now Ghanaians recognise the existence of queer people among them. Before we didn’t exist, now we are constant in the conversations”.
