The Member of Parliament for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has refuted the assertion of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 (Anti-LGBTQI bill) has been ‘substantially modified’.
According to him, the final draft of the anti-LGBT bill which has now been laid before Parliament, remains essentially the same as the draft submitted to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews on Thursday, monitored by GhanaWeb, the MP added that the only variation is the change in the name of the bill and the reduction in the number of years for offenders to 3 years to match the existing sentencing laws.
“That (the claim the bill has been modified) is a big lie, the president has been misadvised. The Attorney General brought an advice in the form of a memo just like the other 150 persons and CSOs who have sent memos.
“The president says there have been substantial changes, we proposed the bill, if we say “Proper Human Values” and it is changed to “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values” is that significant? That is immaterial.
“We proposed five years as penalty but the existing laws say it should be three… and that is not any drastic change because you will still be imprisoned for engaging in conducts like this,” he said.
The MP went on to list some of the clauses in the final draft anti-LBGT bill, which Parliament is expected to debate and pass today, Friday, March 31, 2023.
“If you go to clause 3, a person commits an offence if the person:”
A. Names or purposes to marry a person who is of the same sex as that person.
B. Knowingly marries or purposes to marry anybody who has undergone gender or a sex reassignment except in the case of a person who has undergone a surgical procedure to correct a biological anomaly including intersex.
C. Marries or purposes to marry any animal or an object.
B. Holds out as a lesbian, a gay, transgender, transsexual, a bisexual, an align, a non-binary and all the categories under the LGBTQI+ concept.