Ghana’s legislative body voted Friday to enact new legislation that makes promoting LGBTQ activities a criminal offense, marking another step in West Africa’s increasing restrictions on sexual minorities.
The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, received approval through a voice vote following a unanimous endorsement from the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee, according to first deputy speaker Bernard Ahiafor.
The legislation was brought forward last year after President John Dramani Mahama assumed office. Religious leaders and other advocates had pressed lawmakers from Mahama’s National Democratic Congress party to move forward with the vote, creating pressure for the president to approve the measure.
Parliament had previously passed a similar version of this legislation in 2024 during the administration of Mahama’s predecessor, President Nana Akufo-Addo, though legal challenges prevented Akufo-Addo from signing it into law.
Friday’s approved legislation keeps current penalties of up to three years imprisonment for same-sex intimate acts. The measure also prohibits “funding, sponsorship or promotion” of LGBTQ activities, carrying sentences from three to five years in prison. Additionally, it establishes a “duty to report” requirement for prohibited LGBTQ activities to law enforcement or other officials, with violations punishable by up to three years incarceration.
The legislation also modifies Ghana’s Extradition Act of 1960 to classify violations under the new law as extraditable crimes.
Multiple West African nations have enacted similar anti-LGBTQ measures in recent months.
Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye approved legislation in March that doubles maximum prison sentences for same-sex intimate acts to 10 years while also criminalizing efforts to promote homosexuality.
Last September, Burkina Faso’s lawmakers voted to criminalize same-sex intimate acts for the first time and banned “behaviour likely to promote homosexual practices and similar practices.”
