Opposition lawmakers in Ghana are indirectly pushing President Nana Akufo-Addo into a tight spot by promoting an anti-LGBT law widely rejected by critics for undermining rights but applauded by many Ghanaians.
Africa Today News, New York understands that Gay sex is already illegal in the highly religious West African nation, however, while discrimination against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people is common, no one has ever been prosecuted under the colonial-era law.
A proposal that includes criminalising LGBT advocacy, requirements to denounce ‘suspects’, advocates for conversion therapy and imposes longer jail sentences was introduced in parliament earlier this month.
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In recent times, the international community has joined activists in condemning the ‘promotion of proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values bill’ drafted by eight lawmakers, mostly from the opposition party.
‘Adopting the legislation in its current or any partial form would be tantamount to a violation of a number of human rights standards, including the absolute prohibition of torture,’ a group of UN experts said in a statement.
‘It will not only criminalise LGBTI people, but anyone who supports their human rights, shows sympathy to them or is even remotely associated with them.’
If the text is passed by parliament, the president can either decide to ignore critics and sign it, or veto it — something analysts and diplomats say he may be unwilling to do, given widespread support for anti-LGBT legislation.
Nearly 90 percent of Ghanaians said they would approve of a decision by the government to criminalise same-sex relationships, according to research group Afrobarometer using 2014 data.
Knowing how popular it would be, ‘the opposition party is using this a major political tactic to get the current government to take a position one way or the other for political reasons,’ Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Wendy Isaack confirmed to Africa Today News, New York.
‘Demagogic’ bill
Akufo-Addo, who won a second term in office in December, has said publicly that same-sex marriage would not become legal under his watch.
But the British-educated former rights lawyer with a cosmopolitan reputation has nothing to win from this proposed bill, analysts and diplomats say.
The opposition has a ‘red carpet to surf on a homophobic wave and come up with a law that is particularly demagogic,’ another senior diplomat said.
Lawmakers pushing for the bill argue that homosexuality is foreign to Ghanaian culture.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK