From Africa Is a Country
Anti-queer laws in Africa are often framed as cultural defense—but their roots lie in colonial legacies, religious nationalism, and global reactionary alliances.
Early in March, Ghanaian lawmakers reintroduced an anti-queer bill titled the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill. The Ghanaian parliament had passed the bill last year, but it was not signed into law by former President Nana Akufo Addo, whose party was later swept out of power in the general elections held last December. Same-sex relations are already criminalized in Ghana, but the bill seeks to impose harsher sentences for queer Ghanaians and anyone else who engages in the “willful promotion, sponsorship or support” of LGBTQ+ activities.
The bill is one of several that have been introduced across Africa in recent years. Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda have all seen similar bills proposed in their national parliaments in the past few years, with that of Uganda being signed into law in 2023. As in Ghana, homosexuality is already criminalized in these countries, underscoring that these bills serve a political purpose that goes beyond just the legislative.
The COVID-19 pandemic widened class inequalities across the globe. In West Africa, the number of people unable to meet their basic food needs rose to 25 million in 2021, a 34 percent year-on-year increase. Despite this, African governments have continued to enact neoliberal reforms at the behest of IMF and World Bank policymakers while cracking down on dissent. Particularly, youth-led protest movements have mobilized to force a change in government policy, if not a change in government itself.
It is in the context of these crises of political legitimacy that these anti-queer bills are being deployed to gin up a moral panic capable of realigning the African masses behind governments that they know don’t represent their interests. By painting queerness as a moral threat to the well-being of African society at large, Africa’s ruling elites coalesce conservative political, religious, and cultural organizations behind the state, and through them, mobilize political legitimacy for unpopular regimes, even as they continue to enact widely unpopular economic policies.
Ani Kayode Somtochukwu is an award-winning Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist. His work interrogates themes of queer identity, resistance, and liberation. His writings have appeared in literary magazines across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.