Ghanaian lawmakers have reintroduced a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill that could result in members of the LGBTQ+ community facing up to ten years in prison.
Currently, consensual same-sex acts are punishable by up to three years in prison in Ghana. The “Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill” would increase the maximum penalty to five years. The nation’s residents can also face imprisonment for the “wilful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities,” Reuters reported.
Ghana’s parliament approved the bill
last year, but President Nana Akufo-Addo declined to sign it before the end of his term.Ghana’s current president, John Mahama, supported the bill while speaking at the Fellowship with the Clergy event on February 28, 2025.
“I, as a Christian, uphold the principle and the values that only two genders exist, man and woman, that a marriage is between a man and a woman,” Mahama said.
He continued, “The renewal of the expired Proper
Family Values Bill should be a bill that is introduced by government rather than as a private member’s motion, and it’s my hope that that consultation would see a renewed Proper Family Values Bill.”Winnie Byanyima, executive director for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS(UNAIDS, said that the bill, if passed into law, will harm Ghanaians both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community.
“To achieve the goal of ending AIDS as a public health
threat by 2030, it is vital to ensure that everyone has equal access to essential services without fear, stigma, or discrimination and that providers of life-saving HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and care services are supported in their work,” Byanyima wrote in a statement.The executive director noted that if the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill becomes a law, it may incite violence against LGBTQ Ghanaians and their supporters. Last year, Ghana’s finance ministry warned that if the bill were signed into law, it could jeopardize $3.8 billion in financing from the World Bank and a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
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