Anti-LGBT+ Law Ghanaian Parliament Begins Public Hearings

The Ghanaian parliament on Thursday held its first public hearing on a new law that would make it illegal to be gay or to advocate for gay rights.

Africa Today News, New York gathered that bull which was tagged ‘family values bill’ is currently before the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, which said it had received more than 150 memoranda from individuals, groups, and faith-based organisations on the bill.

The committee is expected to hear no fewer than 10 petitions each week in a series of public sessions before the bill is put to a vote, deputy majority leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, said.

Gay sex is already punishable by prison time in Ghana, but no one has been prosecuted in years.

Read Also: Ghana’s President Pushed To Tight Spot Over Anti-LGBT Law

The new bill would go much further, criminalising the promotion and funding of LGBT+ activities as well as public displays of affection, cross-dressing and more.

Ghana’s speaker of parliament, Alban Bagbin, pledged in his opening address last month that parliament would pass the bill into law “at the earliest possible time’’.

U.N. human rights experts have urged lawmakers to reject it, saying it would establish a system of state-sponsored discrimination and violence against sexual minorities.

LGBT+ rights groups in Ghana said they have seen a spike in homophobic attacks since the draft law was introduced in August.

Arbitrary arrests, blackmail and evictions have more than doubled since then, with people targeted if they are suspected of being gay, said Danny Bediako, director of the human rights organisation Rightify Ghana.

 

AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK

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