Ghana: Anti-gay bill becomes an imperialism loop problem
US far-right groups urged MPs into drafting anti-gay law, now Western dismay is giving them cold feet
Marian Ansah
Passage of a bill first proposed in mid-2021 to expand Ghana’s restrictions on its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer (LGBTQ+) citizens, stalled again this week.
“To jail a person for his or her sexuality would not be the solution to maintaining our Ghanaian family values and ensuring proper human rights,” said the then deputy leader of ruling party legislators, Afenyo Markin, in Parliament on Wednesday.
He is now its leader.
He proposed replacing some of the prison sentences in the bill with mandatory counselling for LGBTQ+ people. But MPs voted against him. They nonetheless approved other proposed amendments – meaning that it must be revised again, even though it was previously considered in detail and redrafted by the Parliament’s legal affairs committee – and adjourned.
Gay sex in Ghana is already punishable by a three-year sentence. But in 2021, triggered by the opening of Ghana’s first LGBTQ+ community centre, nine opposition MPs sponsored a new bill that includes harsh, broad and controversial measures.
As The Continent previously reported, the bill’s local promoters are linked to American far-right groups like the World Congress of Families. Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the United Nations Independent Expert on sexual minorities’ rights, warned that the bill could fuel “state-sponsored discrimination and violence”. The bill and debates around it have already driven a surge in violence against LGBTQ+ people.
The proposed law has dragged through Parliament, especially in recent months as Ghana watched the international backlash against Uganda as it also expanded anti-LGBTQ+ restrictions.
The World Bank froze new funding to Uganda while the United States kicked the East African country out of the Agoa preferential trade deal. Ghana would want to avoid such reactions given that its economy is struggling so much that the president sacked his finance minister last week.