A Bill currently before Ghana’s Parliament which seeks to criminalise and impose jail terms on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queers (LGBTQ+) and people who promote such activities in the country has been described as, “a flagrant violation of the 1992 Constitution, as it seeks to curtail freedom of expression and the media, the right to assemble and the right to join any association of one’s choice’’.
Consequently, a group made up of academics, lawyers, researchers, civil society organisations and human rights activists has kicked against it.
According to the group, the Bill, Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill when passed into law, would erode fundamental human rights, as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution, and send Ghana to the dark ages of lawlessness and intolerance.
The group, made up of 18 members, has already submitted a 30-page Memorandum to Parliament, detailing what it described as the unconstitutionality of the bill.
Speaking to Journalists in Accra, the group said its advocacy is not about whether lesbianism or gayism was right or wrong but rather it is worried about the blatant violations of human rights, as contained in the Bill.
The Bill according to the group violates virtually all the key fundamental freedoms guaranteed under the constitution, namely, the right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to assemble, freedom of Association and the right to organise, the right to freedom from discrimination and the right to human dignity.
It has, therefore, called on Parliament to reject the Bill.
The group include lawyer Akoto Ampaw; author, scholar and former Director of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Prof. Takyiwaa Manu; a Communications and Media expert, Prof. Kwame Karikari; the Dean of the University of Ghana, School of Law, Prof. Raymond Atuguba, and the Dean of the University of Ghana School of Information and Communication Studies, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo.
The rest are Director of Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Professor Dzodzi Tsikata; the Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor Kwasi Prempeh, and a former Executive Director of CDD-Ghana, Prof. Kofi Gyimah-Boadi.
Others are Dr. Rose Mensah-Kutin, Dr. Yao Graham, Kwasi Adu Amankwah, Dr. Kojo Asante, Kingsley Ofei-Nkansah, Akunu Dake, Tetteh Hormeku-Adjie, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobbey, Dr. Joseph Asunka and Nana Ama Agyemang Asante.