On February 28, 2024, Ghana’s Parliament passed the Promotion of Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, commonly known as the anti-LGBT+ bill.
The legislation criminalizes and prohibits activities related to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) individuals, including their promotion, advocacy, and funding.
Although approved by Parliament, the bill is not yet law, pending President Akufo-Addo’s assent.
According to Article 106 of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, the president must assent within seven days of Parliament’s passage for the bill to become law.
The bill outlines a jail term of six months to three years for individuals engaged in prohibited acts, with sponsors and promoters facing three to five years.
In case President Akufo-Addo refuses assent, the Parliament has the authority to pass the bill into law by a two-thirds majority vote, as stipulated in Section 10 of Article 106.
Here is what the law says:
(1) The power of Parliament to make laws shall be exercised by bills passed by Parliament and assented to by the president.
(2) No bill, other than such a bill as is referred to in paragraph (a) of Article 108 of this Constitution, shall be introduced in Parliament unless –
(a) It is accompanied by an explanatory memorandum setting out in detail the policy and principles of the bill, the defects of the existing law, the remedies proposed to deal with those defects and the necessity for its introduction; and
(b) it has been published in the Gazette at least fourteen days before the date of its introduction in Parliament.
(3) A bill affecting the institution of chieftaincy shall not be introduced in Parliament without prior reference to the National House of Chiefs.
(4) Whenever a bill is read for the first time in Parliament, it shall be referred to the appropriate committee appointed under Article 103 of this Constitution, which shall examine the bill in detail and make all such inquiries in relation to it as the committee considers expedient or necessary.
(5) Where a bill has been deliberated upon by the appropriate committee, it shall be reported to Parliament.
(6) The report of the committee, together with the explanatory memorandum to the bill, shall form the basis for a full debate on the bill for its passage, with or without amendments or its rejection, by Parliament.
(7) Where a bill passed by Parliament is presented to the president for assent, he shall signify, within seven days after the presentation, to the Speaker that he assents to the bill or that he refuses to assent to the bill, unless the bill has been referred by the president to the Council of State under Article 90 of this Constitution.
This provision enables Parliament to reconsider the bill and, if supported by at least two-thirds of its members, compel the president to assent within thirty days.
Former President John Dramani Mahama suggested that Akufo-Addo might withhold assent due to potential costs to the government, raising uncertainties about the bill’s final status.
Amnesty International has declared its intention to pursue legal action against the proposed Anti-LGBTQ bill if approved by Parliament.
This announcement follows the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) urging a reconsideration of certain sections of the bill, also known as the Promotion of Proper Human Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021.
The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference has expressed support for the bill, emphasizing its stance against criminalizing individuals based on their sexual orientation.
Speaking on Starr Today with Joshua Kojo Mensah, Genevieve Partington, Country Director for Amnesty International, asserted that the bill contradicts the Constitution of Ghana and should be rejected.
Among the concerns raised, Partington pointed out the lack of a clear definition for an LGBT person in the bill and questioned how romantic displays of affection between the same sex would be determined.
She warned that the bill could instigate homophobia in Ghana and result in wrongful arrests, particularly affecting individuals suspected of being LGBT.
Expressing firm opposition to the bill, Partington highlighted that Amnesty International rejects its existence and views the criminalization of private, consensual activities as a violation of international human rights laws.
“First of all the bill does not even define who an LGBT person is, there is no definition. So how are you going to identify who an LGBT person is?”
“There is a certain part of the bill that talks about romantic displays of affection. How do you define romantic affection between the same sex? So do you see two men holding hands apart from the LGBT community? These are some of the concerns that we have raised from the bill and so many other parts that we have issues with,” Madam Patington stated.
“So it is going to bring homophobia in Ghana” adding that now that Ghana gives visas on arrival tourists may be wrongly arrested.
“Persons suspected to be LGBT are being forced from their houses, landlords and landlords are going through a forced eviction process. We really have to be concerned with this bill as Ghanaians and understand that it will not just affect the LGBT community.”
“I have always said that Amnesty International completely rejects this bill, it should not exist and criminalizing persons for an activity that happens in their bedroom is actually against international human rights laws. So we should not even be considering it.
She emphasized that, if the bill is passed, Amnesty International will pursue legal action in accordance with their rights to challenge such legislation in court.
“It is against the 1992 Constitution so all these things we have to consider. For Amnesty International should the bill be passed we will take it to court. As we are allowed to so that is the agenda we have,” she added.
The US has punished the leader of Uganda’s prison system for allegedly allowing mistreatment and torture of LGBT+ people and government critics.
Twenty people from different countries around the world have been punished for treating people unfairly.
One of them is Jefferson Koijee, who is the mayor of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. The US says he is in charge of paramilitary groups linked to his political party.
Three militia leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been put on the sanctions list. Their names are William Yakutumba, Willy Ngoma, and Michel Rukunda.
Former president’s son, Jean-Francis Bozizé, is being accused of bringing weapons for the rebel group CPC in the Central African Republic. His friend Mahamat Salleh is a leader in a group called CPC. He is accused of hurting girls by making them do things they don’t want to do.
In South Sudan, it is said that county commissioners Gordon Koang Biel and Gatluak Nyang Hoth let government-aligned forces and their allies rape women and children as a reward.
They have been punished with Joseph Mantiel Wajang, the governor in Unity State who the US says chose both men for those positions of power even though they were accused of serious things.
They and everyone else on the list for Friday will not be allowed to come into the US. Or do business with people or companies in the US.
The bill explains that a parent has the main power to make decisions about their child’s education.
Bill 137 was approved on Friday after a long 40-hour discussion this week.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said on Friday that the bill was intended to give parents the ability and choice to help their children during the important early years of their life.
This means that parents will be told about things like how often their child attends school, how they behave, if they get in trouble, and how well they’re doing in school. However, some people got upset about the rule that says parents need to agree if a student who is younger than 16 wants to use a different name or gender identity at school.
MrMoe’s decision to use the notwithstanding clause to pass a policy has received a lot of criticism, including from the human rights commissioner in Saskatchewan.
Earlier this week, Heather Kuttai quit her job as commissioner because of the policy.
Ms Kuttai said in a letter that she and her husband have a child who identifies as trans. Ms Kuttai also mentioned that the policy being enforced is negatively affecting the rights of trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse children.
Carla Beck, the opposition leader from the left-leaning New Democrats party, said that the decision is a step in the wrong direction for Saskatchewan politics.
Some students didn’t like the policy and protested by walking out of their school in Regina and other cities.
Earlier this year, New Brunswick, a province in Atlantic Canada, introduced a similar policy.
MrMoe used a special clause called the notwithstanding clause to make Bill 137 pass. The clause lets provincial legislatures and parliament change some parts of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It basically allows provinces to give up some rights for five years.
The province said that the school’s rules will be different this summer.
The UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity asked the court to stop the measure because they believed it went against people’s rights and could cause teachers to use the wrong gender for students. The court agreed with them and made a decision.
The rule was not used often in the past, but it has been used many times in recent years.
One recent example that caused disagreement is when Quebec used a rule to make a law in 2019 that says civil workers cannot wear religious symbols at their job, like the hijab and kippah.
In Canada, there is a heated discussion about how schools should handle matters relating to sexual orientation and gender. Last month, there were protests in big cities against educational policies that support LGBT rights, and there were also some opposing protests.
Canada has given a new warning to its LGBT citizens who want to visit the United States.
There were a lot more protests against LGBT people in the US last year than in 2017, and there is also a growing number of laws being passed that limit the rights of LGBT individuals.
Global Affairs Canada alerted people that certain laws in certain states might impact them during their journeys, but didn’t mention which states exactly.
Usually, these warnings are only given to countries like Uganda, Russia, or Egypt.
Some states have made rules that can impact people who identify as 2SLGBTQI+. The US travel advice page says to look at the laws of the state and city you are going to visit.
In Canada, the term 2SLGBTQI+ is used to describe people who identify as two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, or intersex.
A representative from Global Affairs Canada mentioned that there are laws in the US that specifically affect and target transgender individuals.
“They said to CBC News that some states in the US have made laws stopping drag shows and limiting the transgender community’s ability to get gender-affirming healthcare and join in sports events since the start of 2023. ”
In March, the governor of Tennessee passed laws that made it illegal for drag shows to be performed in front of children and limited the medical treatment that transgender youth can receive.
Two months later, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis approved laws that prohibit kids from receiving transgender medical treatments or attending drag shows, and limit the use of certain pronouns in classrooms.
Many states run by conservative politicians in the US have suggested lots of similar rules about LGBT matters.
The Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest group that supports the rights of the LGBT community in the US, said in June that LGBT Americans are in a state of emergency. This is because some states are making laws that specifically aim to harm or discriminate against them.
On Monday, someone ruined a painting in Florida that was made to honor Lyra McKee, an Irish journalist who was killed in 2019. They drew a swastika and wrote mean things about LGBT people on it.
When asked why the advice had been changed, Canadian Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland said that the government asked experts to look around the world and see if there are any specific risks to certain groups of Canadians.
She said no when asked if they talked to the US government before making the change.
The 17-year-old defendant pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder in the context of a hate crime after fatally stabbing a gay man in New York.
On 29 July, O’Shae Sibley and his pals were voguing at a petrol station in Brooklyn when a fight with some teens started.
Before the suspect stabbed Mr. Sibley in the chest, according to the prosecution, the minors allegedly screamed homophobic and racist epithets.
The attacker, charged as an adult, might spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
He was identified as Dmitriy Popov, a final-year student at a nearby secondary school, at his first court appearance on Friday.
His attorney, Mark Pollard, told reporters that “nothing about his past or history shows that he’s the kind of person to commit this crime.”
He implied that his client might claim he acted in self-defense while denying that his client had uttered any insults.
The prosecution wants to show that the suspect’s “targeted” and “senseless” conduct were motivated by prejudice towards Black people and LGBT people.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez stated during a news conference on Thursday, “We’re going to stand up for Mr. Sibley, for the right he had to dance and be exuberant, for the right he had not to stop dancing because it offended someone else.”
Hate crimes affect the victim, but they also affect the community. It deprives not just the family but also the entire community of their sense of security.
A skilled dancer and choreographer named Mr Sibley and his companions were leaving the beach when they stopped at a petrol station in the Midwood neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
They were dancing to songs from Renaissance, a Beyoncé album that is regarded as a love letter to black gay dance culture, while at the petrol station. Voguing is a dance style connected to artistic expression and resistance in LGBT communities.
The two sides of a heated argument can be seen walking away in the surveillance video before Mr. Sibley comes and confronts the 17-year-old with his phone before lunging at him.
The teenager allegedly stabbed Mr. Sibley in plain sight of the cameras, according to the prosecution, who also said they did not think Mr. Sibley’s actions “caused for someone to take a weapon and do what was done in this case.”
In response to a murder, protests and candlelight vigils with voguing have been conducted in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
A murder that has touched a nerve within the LGBT community has sparked protests and vigils in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
At Mr. Sibley’s funeral, held on Tuesday in a historic opera house in his birthplace of Philadelphia, about 200 people paid their respects.
Otis Pena, a close friend who was at the petrol station, said of O’Shae, “He had the power to touch everyone’s heart, whoever met him.” For many of us in our community, O’Shae was a guiding light.
Others praised Mr. Sibley’s career in dance, which began when he was three years old and included teaching at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and performing with the Philadelphia Dance Company.
The dancing group declared that it has created a scholarship in his honour “to inspire other students to follow their dreams, like he did.”
Authorities in Ethiopia claim to have cracked down on hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues in the nation’s capital where it is said that homosexual acts are occurring.
The city government claimed that the activities were the result of public tips and that a guest house had already been raided.
It added that it would continue conducting operations in other locations and urged the public to report any such actions to the police.
Although homosexual actions are illegal in Ethiopia, there haven’t been any recent reports of instances or convictions connected to them.
An LGBT advocacy group, House of Guramayle, claimed earlier this week that Ethiopia was experiencing “unprecedented attacks on individuals based on their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity”.
It asked social media platforms to deal with hate speech videos encouraging violence and urged human rights organisations to denounce such acts both locally and globally.
Ghanaian musician Wanlov Kubolor is one of the few celebrities in Ghana who has championed the activities of the LGBT over the years. He is of the opinion that people should be allowed to practice what they want if only it doesn’t affect the country negatively.
Speaking with GhanaWeb, Wanlov disclosed how his daughter is infatuated with another female girl.
According to him, he sees nothing wrong with his daughter liking another girl. He disclosed that he fully supports his daughter’s right to love whomever she wants, regardless of gender. He disclosed that the mother of his daughter informed him and gave him his support.
“I have a daughter who is currently infatuated with another girl. I don’t see anything wrong with that. She likes this girl, and that’s what her mother told me. She is eleven,” he disclosed.
In Egypt, homosexuality is highly stigmatised, and there have long been allegations that police are hunting LGBT people online. Now BBC News has seen evidence of how the authorities are using dating and social apps to do this.
All victims’ names have been changed
Having grown up in Egypt, I am aware of the pervasive homophobia that permeates every part of its society. But friends there tell me that the atmosphere has recently become far more brutal, and the tactics for tracking down LGBT people more sophisticated.
There is no explicit law against homosexuality in Egypt, but our investigation has found that the crime of “debauchery” – a sex work law – is being used to criminalise the LGBT community.
Transcripts submitted in police arrest reports show how officers are posing online to seek out – and in some cases allegedly fabricate evidence against – LGBT people looking for dates online.
They reveal how the police initiate text conversations with their targets.
Egypt is one of the most strategically important Western allies in the Middle East and receives billions of dollars in US and EU support every year. Around half a million British tourists visit the country annually and the UK trains Egyptian police forces, via the UN.
In one text conversation between an undercover police officer and someone using the social networking and dating app WhosHere, the officer appears to be pressuring the app user to meet up in person – that person was later arrested.
Police: Have you slept with men before?
App user: Yes
Police: How about we meet?
App user: But I live with mom and dad
Police: Come on dear, don’t be shy, we can meet in public and then go to my flat.
There are more examples which are too explicit to publish.
It is extremely difficult for LGBT people to openly meet potential dates in public in Egypt, so dating apps are a popular way to do that. But just using the apps – regardless of your sexuality – can be grounds for arrest based on the incitement of debauchery or public morality laws in Egypt.
It is not just Egyptians who are being targeted. In one transcript, police describe identifying a foreigner, who we are calling Matt, on the popular gay dating app Grindr. A police informant then engaged Matt in conversation, and – the transcript says – Matt “admitted his perversion, his willingness to engage in debauchery for free, and sent pictures of himself and his body”.
Matt told the BBC that he was subsequently arrested, charged with “debauchery”, and eventually deported.
QUEER EGYPT UNDER ATTACK
LGBTQ people hunted by gangs and police in Egypt.
In some of the transcripts, the police appear to be trying to pressure people who seem to be simply seeking dates or new friendships into agreeing to sex for money. Legal experts in Egypt tell us that proving there has been an exchange of money, or an offer of one, can give the authorities the ammunition they need to take a case to court.
One such victim, whom we found through the transcripts, was a gay man we are calling Laith. In April 2018, the contemporary dancer was contacted from a friend’s phone number.
“Hello, how are you?” the message said. The “friend” asked to meet for a drink.
But when Laith arrived to meet him, his friend was nowhere in sight. He was met instead by police who arrested him and threw him into a cell belonging to the vice squad.
One policeman stubbed a cigarette out on his arm, he told me, showing me the scar.
“It was the only time in my life that I tried to kill myself,” Laith says.
He claims police then made a fake profile for him on the WhosHere app, and digitally altered his photos to make them look explicit. He says they then mocked up a conversation on the app which appeared to show him offering sex work.
He says the pictures are proof that he was framed, because the legs in the picture do not resemble his own – one of his legs is bigger than the other. The BBC has only had access to grainy photocopied police case files, so it cannot independently verify this detail.
Three other people told us the police forced or falsified confessions related to their cases, too.
Laith was jailed for three months for “habitual debauchery”, reduced to a month on appeal. Laith says the police also tried to get him to inform on other gay people he knew of.
Image caption,Laith (right) – the identities of all our contributors need to be disguised
How we disguised contributors’ identities
For the BBC documentary Queer Egypt Under Attack we used innovative face-tracking 3-D masking to ensure identities remained protected – the aim was to give the film a more attractive aesthetic than the usual blobbing technique of disguise allows.
“[The policeman] said: ‘I can fabricate a whole story about you if you don’t give me names.’”
The Egyptian government has spoken publicly about its use of online surveillance to target what it described as “homosexual gatherings”.
In 2020, Ahmed Taher, former assistant to the Minister of Interior for Internet Crimes and Human Trafficking, told the newspaper Ahl Masr: “We recruited police in the virtual world to uncover the masses of group sex parties, homosexual gatherings.”
The UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office told the BBC that no UK funding has gone towards training for the Egyptian police in activities relevant to the claims made in the investigation.
UK MP Alicia Kearns, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC that she wanted more to be done to warn LGBT travellers about the risks in countries such as Egypt, “where their sexuality might be weaponised against them”.
“I would urge the Egyptian government to cease all activities which target individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
The Egyptian government did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
The WhosHere app was referenced in nearly every police transcript the BBC has had access to.
Cyber privacy experts told us that WhosHere seems to have specific vulnerabilities, allowing hackers to scrape information about its users – such as location – on a large scale.
And they say the way WhosHere is collecting and storing data is likely in breach of privacy laws in the UK and the EU.
It was only after the BBC formally approached WhosHere that the app changed its settings, removing the “seeking same sex” selection, which could put people at risk of identification.
WhosHere disputes the BBC’s findings about vulnerabilities and say that they have a robust history of addressing problems when raised. And that they do not operate any specific service for the LGBT community in Egypt.
Grindr, also used as an app by police and criminals to find LGBT people in Egypt said: “We work extensively with Egyptian LGBTQ activists, international human rights advocates, and safety-focused technologists to best serve our users in the region.”
Criminal gangs are using the same tactics as the police to find LGBT people. They then attack and humiliate them, and extort them by threatening to post the videos online.
I managed to track down two people we are calling Laila and Jamal, who were victims of a video that went viral in Egypt a few years ago. The footage shows them being forced to strip and dance, while being beaten and abused. They are forced at knife point to give their full names and admit they are gay. They told me the duo behind the video – named Bakar and Yehia – are notorious amongst the community.
We saw at least four videos in which Bakar and Yehia either appeared, or could be heard, extorting and abusing LGBT people before they uploaded the videos to Whatsapp, YouTube and Facebook. In one of these videos, an 18-year-old gay man we are calling Saeed is forced to, falsely, say he is a sex worker. I met him to hear about what happened next. He told me that he considered legal action but says his lawyer advised against this, telling him his sexuality would be perceived as more of a crime than the attack he suffered.
Saeed is now alienated from his family. He says they cut him off when the gang sent them the video in a bid to blackmail them too.
“I have been suffering from depression after what happened, with the videos circulating to all my friends in Egypt. I don’t go out, and I don’t have a phone.
“No-one used to know anything about me.”
We’ve been told about dozens of attacks like this – carried out by multiple gangs. There are only a few reports of attackers being arrested.
It shocked me to learn, in the course of investigation that one gang leader, Yahia, is gay and actively posting online about his own sex work.
But perhaps it gives him a criminal edge – he knows just how vulnerable his targets are. And arguably his own position, as a gay man with little opportunity, fuels his criminality.
We have no evidence that Yahia has been involved in recent attacks, and he has denied involvement in any of the attacks.
Covering any of these issues inside Egypt itself has been banned since 2017, when the country’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation imposed a media blackout on LGBT representation except if the coverage “acknowledge[s] the fact that their conduct is inappropriate”.
LGBT community advocates, many of them in exile, are divided over whether the problems in Egypt should be highlighted in the media or tackled behind the scenes.
But Laila, Saeed, Jamal and Laith have chosen to step out of the shadows and break the silence.
LGBT refugees in one of Kenya’s biggest camps for displaced people are asking to be relocated because of what they have described as an increase in discrimination and harassment by other refugees in the camp because of their sexual orientation.
One of the refugees, who asked not to be identified due to fears of further backlash, told the BBC “we do not feel safe at the camp any more”.
Kakuma is run by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and is one of the biggest refugee camps in Kenya, hosting hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, as well as those from neighbouring countries.
Last week there were protests by LGBT groups in the camp, who complained about harassment and abuse towards them, which led to the temporary arrest of 18 people, scuffles, and the use of tear gas.
All of those detained were released the next day after UNHCR officials negotiated their release.
“We are fed up, Kakuma is no longer safe for us as members of the LGBTQI community. We are threatened. We have made complaints to the UNHCR and no action has been taken,” said the refugee.
They allege that the discrimination and harassment has made it close to impossible to access social services like education and events held at the camp because they are not allowed to mingle with the rest of the community.
A UNHCR spokesperson told the BBC that the body has been working with the LGBT community at the camp to guarantee their safety and security by increasing police patrol where they live and work, with community volunteers to help integrate them and increase awareness about protection of their rights and equality.
“The UNHCR remains committed to working towards ensuring the protection of, and finding durable solutions for, all refugees regardless of their culture, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or any other factor,” said UNHCR spokesperson Charity Nzomo.
“We are committed to ensuring that all refugees and asylum seekers residing in Kenya, including those with an LGBTIQ+ profile, are provided with the best possible protection and assistance on a fair and equal basis,” Ms Nzomo continued.
Muna and Mary believed they were beginning a fresh life when they relocated to Anambra, in southeast Nigeria.
But for the trans man and his lover, the dream quickly turned into a nightmare.
They had no choice but to leave after receiving rape threats and other insults from the neighborhood.
“It destroyed me. We didn’t know where to go. I felt like killing myself,” says Muna, 26, with tears in her eyes.
Today, the couple lives in a house that looks like any other, hidden away in a gated community in a deprived suburb of Lagos.
It is in fact one of the few refuges for LGBT+people – they can be counted on the fingers of one hand – in Nigeria’s vibrant economic capital. A rare haven of peace that welcomes eight gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans men and women for three to six months free of charge.
They have been rejected by their families, living mainly off the streets, but at least they don’t have to pay rent as Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, faces a severe economic crisis three months before the presidential election.
“This place means a lot. We’ve come back from a very dark phase. Here you feel loved and safe, away from danger,” Muna whispers, sitting on a sofa in the living room where daylight barely filters through the curtains.
law on LGBTQ+
In 2014, Africa’s most populous country – a very religious one – passed a law against “same-sex marriage”. Since then, homosexuality is punishable by 10 to 14 years in prison. In practice, this law is rarely enforced but it has legitimised widespread intimidation and violence against the LGBT+ community.
Even the police are frequently accused of extortion and humiliation.
The country is divided between the predominantly Muslim north, where Islamic law is applied alongside the judicial system, and the predominantly Christian south, where the church retains considerable influence.
As in much of Africa, homosexuality is often seen as imported from the West and contrary to local ‘values’. But in Nigeria, homophobia is at its worst.
– “Kito” –
The Nigerian NGO La Crème de la Crème, which campaigns for the rights of transgender people, provides the three-room shelter at its own expense.
Next to Muna, in front of the open window, Mary, 25, laughs yellow at the idea that her mother often asks God “what she did to deserve a lesbian daughter”.
“Almost everyone is homophobic. It’s funny, this country is full of LGBT+ people but we have to stay hidden in the wardrobe. And if one of us is caught…”
In the shelter, distrust and silence reign. Everyone tells their story in a low voice, for fear of being overheard. The coordinator, Richard, 26, admits that “nobody talks to each other”.
“But we shouldn’t blame them, we don’t know what they have been through. We’re doing our best to ensure that they’re at peace here,” he says.
One word explains this climate of mistrust and is a source of fear in the Nigerian LGBT+ community: “Kito”. It refers to the numerous photos, videos and stories of humiliation – or worse – of gay Nigerians posted on social networks.
This common practice, which mainly targets gay men, consists of creating a fake account on a gay dating application, mainly Grindr, and “tricking” a “target” by inviting him somewhere.
Once there, the victim is filmed, beaten, humiliated, insulted, sometimes raped and killed. They also have to pay large sums of money if they want to stay alive.
– Poverty” –
Diego, 29, says he is “lucky” when he hears these stories. The young man in the blue polo shirt and long fingernails says he takes every precaution, including waiting “months” or even “years” to invite someone over or to travel.
“You have to be invisible and really pay attention to the people around you,” he says.
There are, however, a few ephemeral pockets of freedom in Lagos, the tumultuous megalopolis of 20 million people, especially at parties and in the bustling art scene. Shrubs that hide a forest of dangers.
The country of over 215 million people is preparing to elect a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari in February. During the presidential campaign, no candidate mentioned sexual and gender minorities.
Dozens of protesters tried to stop Polish police from arresting a gay rights activist in Warsaw on Friday after a court ordered the campaigner held for two months preventive detention.
The activist, who was referred to officially in court as Michal Sz. but who identifies as a woman with the name Margo, is suspected of causing criminal damage to a van carrying homophobic slogans in Warsaw in June.
The activist is also accused of pushing a volunteer from the Pro-Right to Life Foundation which owned the van.
Margo was detained at the offices of Campaign Against Homophobia but dozens of protesters then blocked the police car, prompting a stand-off before officers cleared the way to allow it to pass.
“During the arrest of the activist, the crowd impeded the actions of the police. Interventions are being made against the most aggressive people. There will be zero tolerance for breaking the law,” Warsaw police wrote on Twitter.
The police later said they had made arrests.
Aleksandra Skrzyniarz, a spokeswoman for prosecutors, was quoted as saying by the news channel TVN24, that a court had “ordered the detention of this person for a period of two months”.
The PAP news agency quoted Margo as saying before the arrest that the preventive detention, a measure normally used to stop another crime being committed, was “repressive”.
Hanna-Gil Piatek, a leftist lawmaker, was at the scene.
“I wish serious criminals were prosecuted as diligently as activists.”
Margo belongs to a campaign group called Stop The Nonsense, which is also suspected of draping several Warsaw monuments, including a statue of Jesus Christ, with LGBT flags and anarchist symbols last week.
Prosecutors have charged three people in that case for desecrating monuments and hurting religious feelings.
The van from the Pro-Right to Life Foundation is a common sight in the centre of Warsaw, blasting homophobic slogans and plastered with posters linking homosexuality to paedophilia.
America’s top court has ruled that employers who fire workers for being gay or transgender are breaking the country’s civil rights laws.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court said federal law, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, should be understood to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
The ruling is a major win for LGBT workers and their allies.
And it comes even though the court has grown more conservative.
Lawyers for the employers had argued that the authors of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had not intended it to apply to cases involving sexual orientation and gender identity. The Trump administration sided with that argument.
But Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump, said acting against an employee on those grounds necessarily takes sex into account.
“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” he wrote. “The limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands.”
What does this mean?
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex as well as gender, race, colour, national origin, and religion.
Under the Obama administration, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces the anti-discrimination law, said it included gender identity and sexual orientation. But the Trump administration has moved to roll back some protections in health care and other areas.
While some states in the US had already explicitly extended such protections to LGBT workers, many have not.
Polish President Andrzej Duda has called the promotion of LGBT rights an “ideology” more destructive than communism, in a campaign speech.
He is an ally of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), and is seeking re-election on 28 June.
He said his parents’ generation had struggled against communist ideology for 40 years and “they didn’t fight for this so that a new ideology would appear that is even more destructive”.
Critics say PiS has an anti-gay agenda.
The LGBT rights group ILGA-Europe says Poland is the worst-performing country in the EU in terms of LGBT rights, in an index published last month.
PiS won a majority in parliament with a conservative-nationalist agenda strong on Catholic values, including support for traditional families and opposition to gay marriage.
Speaking to supporters in Brzeg, southwestern Poland, Mr Duda said “parents are responsible for the sexual education of their children,” and “it is not possible for any institutions to interfere in the way parents raise their children”.
On 10 June he signed a “Family Charter” of election proposals, including pledges to prevent gay couples from marrying or adopting children and to ban teaching about LGBT issues in schools.
Tensions with EU
Putting LGBT rights activism in the same category as communism can be seen as inflammatory in Poland, where the anti-communist Solidarity movement led the struggle for democracy in the 1980s.
Many Poles agree with the PiS message that communism was a foreign ideology imposed on Poles by the Soviet Union.
PiS has clashed with the EU over judicial reforms which, according to PiS, are necessary to eliminate vestiges of communist-era corruption. Critics in the EU say PiS is politicising the judiciary and violating EU principles.
The European Commission has written to the heads of five Polish provinces expressing concern about resolutions in which they declare themselves “free from LGBT ideology”. The EU’s executive has reminded them of their duty to guarantee non-discrimination as a core EU value.
Poland becoming an authoritarian state – top judge
Opinion polls suggest that Mr Duda is favourite to win the 28 June election, though his lead has shrunk amid the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.
‘Another ideology’
One of his chief rivals, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski of the centre-right Civic Platform (PO) party, has been criticised by religious conservatives for allowing discussion of LGBT issues in Warsaw schools. The election is likely to go to a second-round runoff vote.
In his speech in Brzeg, Mr Duda said “this is not why my parents’ generation for 40 years struggled to expel communist ideology from schools, so that it could not be foisted on children, could not brainwash and indoctrinate them…
Rival candidate Robert Biedron of the Left party – an LGBT rights activist – called Mr Duda’s Family Charter “a radical document which divides Polish society, introducing standards reminiscent of the most brutal… times of Polish and European history”.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Tanzanian government of denying basic health services to LGBT people.
HRW’s report says arbitrary arrests and forced anal examinations are meted out to LGBT people, among other violations of their rights.
“The Tanzanian authorities have orchestrated a systematic attack on the rights of LGBT people, including their right to health. Manufactured threats around the so-called ‘promotion of homosexuality’ have displaced best practices and evidence-based approaches in guiding HIV policy in Tanzania,” said Neela Ghoshal, senior LGBT rights researcher at HRW.
Four years ago, Tanzania’s health ministry banned non-governmental organisations from distributing free lubricants to gay people as part of efforts to control the spread of HIV/Aids.
Health experts criticised the move and warned that it could put the lives of vulnerable populations at risk of HIV infection.
But Tanzania’s health ministry insists that public health centres provide services to people of all backgrounds without discrimination, and says there is no need for specialised services run by civil society organisations targeting LGBT people.
The government is yet to respond to the accusations in this new report but homosexual acts are illegal in Tanzania, and punishable by 30 years to life in prison for “carnal knowledge against the order of nature”.
This has led to many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people to hide their sexuality.
Dozens of African LGBT+ refugees in northwestern Kenya’s sprawling Kakuma refugee camp pleaded on Thursday with the United Nations to relocate them to a safer place, saying they had suffered violent attacks.
More than 40 LGBT+ refugees from countries including Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo said they were targeted in two homophobic attacks by other refugees in the last three weeks.
Fifteen people were injured in the Dec. 21 and Jan. 7 incidences and some taken to hospital with wounds to the head and internal bleeding, they said.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation was given photographs of people with bleeding wounds on their head and scars on their limbs, but could not immediately verify the pictures.
The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said there had been some incidents of vandalism in the camp, but there was no evidence that LGBT+ refugees were specifically targeted.
“They came in large numbers – much more than us. They beat us with sticks and rods, kicked and punched us and told us to leave. They destroyed our shelters,” said Andrew, a 23-year-old gay man from Uganda who did not want to give his real name.
“We cannot go back to the shelters inside the camp. The other refugees know who we are and will kill us. We ask the U.N. to give us shelter and protection somewhere else – but they are ignoring us.”
The refugees have been staying outside the UNHCR reception centre in Kakuma since the first attack on Dec. 21, he said by phone from the camp in Kenya’s remote Turkana county.
The UNHCR’s regional spokesperson Dana Hughes said they were closely monitoring the situation, adding that decisions to relocate refugees were made on an individual basis and required authorization from the Kenyan authorities.
“Incidents of shelter vandalism were reported to law enforcement authorities in December, however these attacks were found to be attributed to common petty criminality and were not targeted at any particular individuals,” said Hughes.
The allegation that LGBT+ refugees were attacked on Jan. 7 had not been substantiated, she said.
“Security reports from law enforcement indicated that there was no attack/assault at the venue.”
It is not the first time LGBT+ refugees have faced physical violence in Kakuma, a vast camp that is home to more than 180,000 refugees.
In December 2018, the UNHCR relocated about 200 LGBT+ refugees from the camp to Nairobi as an emergency measure after a spate of violent attacks against them.
But Kenya requires most refugees to stay in designated camps and 75 of them were returned to Kakuma in June.
African countries have some of the most prohibitive laws against homosexuality in the world, with punishments ranging from imprisonment to death.
Although gay sex is punishable with up to 14 years in jail in Kenya, the law is rarely enforced. The east African nation is seen as more tolerant than neighbouring Uganda and Tanzania, though discrimination against the LGBT+ community is prevalent.
Gay rights groups say the camps are not safe for LGBT+ refugees and are calling on Kenya to allow them to live in urban areas.
“These persons were relocated out of this camp due to such violence last year, only to be forced to return to this dangerous and volatile situation,” said a statement from Refugee Coalition of East Africa.
“Claims that these attacks do not specifically target LGBTQI refugees are unfounded and patently untrue.”
