The Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021 is currently before Parliament.
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Ghana doesn't have any law that criminalises LGBTQ+ persons — Nana Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said Ghana currently doesn't have any law that criminalises the activities of LGBTQ+ persons.
LGBTQ rainbow flag
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The Bill proposes jail terms for people who engage in same-sex activities and various forms of support for the LGBTQ+ community.
Nana Addo answering a question asked at the Jubilee House on Monday, March 27, 2023, when US Vice President Kamala Harris called on him, confirmed that the bill is currently before Parliament and yet to be approved by the lawmakers.
He said: "It hasn't been passed, so the statement that there is legislation in Ghana to that effect is not accurate.
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Nana Addo
Pulse Ghana
"Parliament is dealing with it and at the end of the process, I will come in."
The anti-LGBTQ bill, titled, "The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021", was submitted to Parliament in June 2021.
The bill, among others, seeks to make it a crime to be LGBTQ+ or to advocate LGBTQ+ rights. Offenders could face jail terms.
Section 6 of the LGBTQI+ bill, states that "a person commits an offence if the person holds out as any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female."
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However, the Bill in Section 6 (c), (f) (ii), and (g) (ii), exempts intersex people who 'agree' to undergo sexual reassignment to correct their 'abnormality'.
The submission of the bill to Parliament elicited a major public debate over its appropriateness.
Many religious organisations and like-minded institutions and individuals have expressed their full support for the bill to be passed into law while some civil society organizations (CSOs) and other campaigners had opposed it with the explanation that it would infringe on the human rights of LGBTQ+ people in the country, and subject them to persecution and violence.
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