In Ghana, where a new anti-LGBT law awaits the president’s signature, homosexuality is presented as a Western import. Irony of history: in this West African state, the criminal homophobia inherited from British colonial rule has transformed into a religious crusade and then into a political project in the name of the “African values”.
“Liberty and Justice”, proclaims Ghana since its declaration of independence, pioneering in Sub-Saharan Africa, on 6 March 1957. Liberty and justice, but not for everyone… When this English-speaking West African country was still the Gold Coast, a British colony, male homosexual relations were already criminalized there. Since the 19th century, London has disseminated across its Empire a series of anti-sodomy laws: codified in the Indian Penal Code of 1860, these homophobic provisions progressively took hold in a large part of British Africa.
In Ghana, the colonial penal ordinance which since 1892 punished “unnatural” sexual relations (“unnatural carnal knowledge”) survived decolonization. In 1960, upon adoption of the Criminal Offences Act, the young independent state retained this offense by placing it in section 104 of its new Penal Code. It still defines sexual relations “against nature”. This provision has never been repealed.
For several decades, despite this criminalization, the question of homosexuality remained largely invisible in Ghana’s public debate. Secretly, the LGBT+ community found a discreet margin for organization at the end of the 1990s. In 1998, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana (GALAG) was born, with several activists later participating in the creation of the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights (CEPEHRG), which works notably on HIV prevention among men who have sex with men. The struggle was then primarily health and social: distribution of condoms, support for victims of violence, documentation of discrimination. This new visibility remained modest. Yet it was enough to provoke a reaction.
2006: Homosexuality Becomes a National Issue
The first outcry occurred in September 2006. GALAG announced the organization in Accra, the capital, of an international conference dedicated to LGBT issues. Religious leaders immediately opposed the event, presenting it as a foreign initiative threatening the country’s “traditional values”. Under pressure, the government publicly intervened to oppose it. Information Minister Kwamena Bartels stated that “the government does not tolerate any activity of this kind that gravely undermines the culture, morality and heritage of the entire Ghanaian people”. The conference was cancelled. Like the Mbao gay marriage affair in Senegal two years later, the episode marked a turning point. Until then relatively marginal in public debate, homosexuality suddenly became a national issue.
The radicalization accelerated in 2011. A rumor spread by the press spoke of the supposed existence of 8,000 homosexuals in the country’s western region. Regional Minister Paul Evans Aidoo then urged the population to report individuals suspected of being homosexual so that they could be arrested. He stated he wanted to “rid the society of homosexuals”. At the same time, the Christian Council of Ghana denounced an attempt to impose “in the name of human rights” foreign values on Africans.
2011: Homophobia Becomes a Nationalist Banner
The same year, a statement by British Prime Minister David Cameron provoked intense controversy. At the conclusion of a Commonwealth summit held in Perth, Australia, he stated: “We want the countries that receive our aid to fully respect human rights”, including the rights of LGBT people. For many religious and political leaders, this stance confirmed fears of Western pressure aimed at imposing LGBT rights on the African continent. The Ghanaian president John Atta Mills’s response was immediate. He asserted that Ghana would accept “no aid with conditions” and that he would “never support any attempt to legalize homosexuality in Ghana”. In 2013, American President Barack Obama would trigger a similar reaction in Senegal.
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Sophie Brennan