2024-01-08 23:11:09
The human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) has warned of increasing legal discrimination against LGBTQ people in several African countries. The English abbreviation LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.
Last year, LGBTQ organizations were banned and meetings were dissolved in many African countries, explained the Africa consultant at AI in Germany, Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft, today.
“Assaults on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people as well as arrests are the order of the day,” said Ulm-Düsterhöft. According to AI, 31 African countries criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts.
Tightening due to new laws
The organization cited Uganda as an example, where one of the world’s strictest laws against homosexuals was passed in May. But even in countries like Ghana, LGBTQ people are “already exposed to a whole range of human rights violations”. There, too, parliament could soon pass “one of the harshest draft laws” against LGBTQ “on the entire continent”.
According to Amnesty, there is also a draft law in Kenya that aims to ban homosexuality. Kenya is Germany’s largest trading partner in East Africa. In December the country signed a free trade agreement with the European Union.
According to Ulm-Düsterhöft, supporting homosexual people in African countries is increasingly being criminalized, so that they lose their jobs, “their apartments and access to medical care.” The situation is so precarious in many places that numerous LGBTQ people “have gone into hiding or are trying to escape.”
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