The News
The presidential candidate for Ghana’s ruling party said Thursday that he opposes “the practice of homosexuality” and will maintain that stance if elected, raising the likelihood that a draconian anti-LGBTQ+ bill currently stalled in parliament will become law. Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia is seeking the country’s leadership in Ghana’s presidential election later this year.
Speaking at prayers held to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Bawumia said: “It is important to note that our cultural and societal norms and values as Ghanaians frown on the practice of homosexuality.” He did not mention the law specifically.
His main rival for the presidency, former president John Dramani Mahama, has made similar comments, although neither presidential candidate has said whether they would sign the bill into law.
SIGNALS
Anti-gay bill could cost Ghana billions in funding
The bill could have severe implications for the nation’s finances, with Ghana set to lose $3.8 billion in World Bank funding and see an IMF bailout scheme derailed if it passes, the finance ministry warned last month.
While gay sex is already illegal in Ghana, the “Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values” bill goes further by criminalizing gay relationships and LGBTQ+ advocacy, and forcing anyone who knows a gay person to report them to authorities. It carries jail time of up to three years for anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ and five years for “promoting and sponsoring” sexual minorities, such as through journalism seen as sympathetic.
Progress on LGBTQ+ rights in Africa is eroding — and the world is watching
While some African countries have liberalized their stance on LGBTQ+ rights in recent years, a surge in discriminatory legislation is putting that progress — and individuals’ lives — at risk, human rights activists say. Some 31 countries on the continent still criminalize same-sex relations, including nations where the death penalty “looms as a terrifying specter,” according to Amnesty International.
However, the regression has not gone unnoticed. When Uganda approved one of the world’s harshest anti-homosexuality laws last year, the World Bank stopped new funding to the country and the U.S. terminated its preferential trade status. “International business coalitions have already stated that such discrimination in Ghana would harm business and economic growth in the country,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, warning of the financial hardship that could ensue if the Ghanaian government leans in further.
Ghanaian LGBTQ+ activists decry ‘dangerous’ stance
Activist Angel Maxine, who is also the first openly transgender Ghanaian musician, called Bawumia’s stance “very dangerous and homophobic,” telling NBC that “LGBTQ+ lives should not be used as a tool of distraction and scoring political point(s).”
“This is a hate bill,” said Alex Kofi Donkor, the director of activist group LGBT+ Rights Ghana said of the anti-gay bill that will land on the next president’s desk. “We are rolling ourselves back as a democracy in the name of tradition, in the name of religion,” Bloomberg reported him as saying.