How Africa is divided on LGBTQ+ rights
It is reported that out of the 69 countries that criminalize same-sex relations, 33 are in Africa. Today, most African countries have criminalized same-sex relationships with penalties of death sentences and life imprisonment.
While others have criminalized the act, some have also revised their laws to decriminalize LGBTQ+ activities. However, there’s still verbal, physical, and emotional abuse of the LGBTQ+ community.
South Africa was the first African country to protect LGBTQ+ people in its constitution in 2006. The country also prohibits discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. President Cyril Ramaphosa later in 2020 passed a bill that prevents marriage officers from refusing to conduct same-sex marriages, local news agency News24 reported.
Countries including Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho, Seychelles, and Mauritius have all decriminalised homosexuality in the last decade. Recently in May 2023, the Supreme Court of Namibia ruled to recognize same-sex couples who marry abroad while Gabon's Senate voted in June 2020 to decriminalise homosexuality.
At the same time, several African countries have criminalized homosexuality including Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Somalia, South Sudan, Cameroon, Eritrea, Nigeria, and Chad.
In Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan, the maximum penalty for LGBTQ+ people is death while that of Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia is life imprisonment. LGBTQ+ people in Gambia, Kenya, and Malawi get a maximum penalty of 14 years jail term.
The High Court of Kenya in 2019 upheld the law criminalising consensual same-sex sexual activity, adding it is "an effective method to contain the country's HIV epidemic".
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill passed in 2022 in Uganda would sentence anyone who identifies with “lesbianism, gay, transgender, queer or any other sexual or gender identity contrary to the binary categories of male and female” to 10 years in prison.
While Eritrea's bill states that, “A person who performs with a person of the same sex an act corresponding to the sexual act, or any other indecent sexual act, is guilty of homosexual conduct, a Class 7 serious offense, punishable with a definite term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years and not more than 7 years.”
While some African countries have decriminalized homosexuality, homosexuals present in the countries still face many forms of violence.
According to Human Rights Watch, Egyptian police and National Security Agency officers arbitrarily arrest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and detain them in inhuman conditions.
Likewise in February 2021, activists working on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity at protests were arrested and physically assaulted by the Tunisian security forces. Such acts of violence have also been recorded in Rwanda.
