Ghana's anti-gay movements want homosexuality outlawed, say it is 'a mental issue'

• Hearings are underway for Ghana's "Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill".
• Anti-gay movements say if LGBTQI+ is given a chance, it will become a pandemic.
• Ghana's human rights commission says LGBTQI+ is a human right.

If Parliament fails to outlaw homosexuality in Ghana, it "will be a pandemic", with far-reaching effects, claimed anti-LGBTQI+ proponents during the ongoing public hearings in the country.

The west African country is currently conducting hearings for the proposed "Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021".

In a televised session on Tuesday, a representative from the Coalition of Muslim Organisations added to the view of the government's chief psychiatrist, Dr Akwasi Osei, that LGBTQI+ is a mental issue.

"There are both predispositions and pre-stating factors, and the sense is that these two must come together for the disorder to be exhibited.

"If someone has tendencies of LGBTQI+ and the environment is not conducive, they might change behaviour, so if we make it liberal, people with those tendencies will all come out and it will be a pandemic," the speaker said.

Sam George, one of the eight parliamentarians sponsoring the bill addressing the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament on Monday, said the African Charter, Article 17(3), which states "the promotion and protection of morals and traditional values recognised by the community shall be the duty of the State", should guide Ghana in disregarding anything outside heterosexuality.

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The LGBTQI+ community face public humiliation and victimisation in Ghana.

Kwame Anyimadu Antwi, the chairman of the parliamentary committee handling Ghana's anti-LGBTQI+ bill, told the committee that he received videos showing violence towards LGBTQ+ Ghanaians.

Joseph Akanjolenur Whittal, a commissioner with Ghana's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, said the new law will have far-reaching effects, but the government should not do something that will reverse Sustainable Development Goals.

He said:

Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have in place "conversion centres" that seek to pressure LGBTQI+ to quit same-sex attractions. The proposed law in Ghana has a provision that parents should send their children to "approved service providers", despite conversion centres being condemned by international human rights groups.

A 2020 report by ILGA World, a global voice of LGBTQI+ international networks, stated that, in some states, conversion therapies are actively promoted by governments as the appropriate way to correct or forcibly "heal" lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people.

"In this regard, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has indicated that regulations requiring that LGBTQI+ people be treated as mental or psychiatric patients or requiring that they be "cured" by so-called "treatment" are a clear violation of their right to sexual and reproductive health.

"Consequently, it emphasised that states have an obligation to combat discrimination, based on sexual orientation and gender identity," read the report.