"We Deserve Protection" : Anti-LGBTIQ Legislation and Violence in Ghana / Ohotuowo Ogbech

O. Ogbech

Violence against gender and sexual minorities has surged recently in Ghana, largely stimulated by an expansive anti-LGBTIQ bill now under consideration in Parliament. Though the legislation was introduced in June 2021 and has not yet been adopted, its backers have succeeded in creating an anti-LGBTIQ climate well before they proposed specific legislation. Hostility toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people has only intensified since. The new proposed legislation, titled the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021 (the Bill), targets all gender and sexual minorities by prescribing strict punishments for simply existing, including fines, imprisonment, and conversion practices. The Bill empowers persons and institutions to report, arrest, detain, and prosecute LGBTIQ persons. They are also empowered to discriminate against gender and sexual minorities at work, home, and in health care and other public goods and services. The Bill indirectly sanctions hatred and violence against LGBTIQ persons by its mere introduction in Parliament. To document the impacts of the Bill on sexual and gender minority persons in Ghana, OutRight Action International (OutRight) interviewed 44 Ghanaians of various minority gender identities, sexual orientations, and sex characteristics. This research finds that the Bill has created a hostile and dangerous situation for sexual and gender minorities in Ghana, leading to multiple forms of human rights violations without redress. These include mob attacks, physical violence, arbitrary arrests, blackmail and onlineharassment, verbal harassment, gang rape and other acts of sexual violence, conversion practices, forced evictions and homelessness, employmentdiscrimination, and robbery. In addition, the police violate persons' rights based on perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and sex characteristics, including arbitrary arrests, detentions and courtcases, forced searches, verbal and physical harassment, extortion and intimidation, among others.