Ghana's Push to Make Its Anti-LGBTQ Bill Even Harsher Stalls — For Now

Ghana’s parliament closed out its summer session on August 1 without acting on a plan that would have made the country’s already-severe anti-LGBTQ+ bill harsher still — a procedural stumble that, for now, leaves the law exactly where it stood after its May passage: sitting on President John Dramani Mahama’s desk, awaiting his signature.

The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill cleared Ghana’s parliament on May 29, criminalizing LGBTQ+ identity itself, with penalties of up to three years in prison for identifying as LGBTQ+ and up to ten years for anyone who promotes, funds or advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. Mahama has said publicly that he intends to sign it. Since then, a smaller and less-noticed fight has played out inside parliament over whether the bill, as passed, is tough enough.

The rescind-and-resubmit plan that didn’t happen

Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin had assured the country’s Chief Imam that the House would revisit three clauses in the bill dealing with sentencing, with an eye toward strengthening the penalties before a formal re-passage. The plan required a motion to rescind parliament’s original vote on the bill — procedurally necessary before lawmakers could reopen and amend text that had already cleared the chamber. That motion was listed on the order paper for Friday, July 31, the day before the scheduled recess. Parliament ran out of time. The House adjourned sine die on August 1, closing the second meeting of its second session without ever taking up the motion.

Parliament’s business that day tells its own story about where the bill ranked among competing priorities: lawmakers spent their final hours passing the Ghana Cocoa Board Bill, an Excise Bill eliminating taxes on locally made fruit juice, a Customs Bill modernizing trade administration, and a Tribunals Bill aimed at court backlogs, before wrapping with debate on the government’s mid-year budget review. The anti-LGBTQ+ bill’s sentencing revisions simply didn’t make the cut.

What this does and doesn’t change

Nothing about Ghana’s legal exposure for LGBTQ+ people has softened. The version of the bill Mahama is weighing is still the one passed in May: identity criminalized outright, advocacy criminalized up to a decade in prison, LGBTQ+ organizations required to dissolve. The stalled amendment effort was aimed at making penalties worse, not better, and hardliners in parliament — along with religious leaders like the Chief Imam that Bagbin had been in contact with — are likely to push to revive it when the House reconvenes.

For now, the practical effect is a pause rather than a reprieve. Mahama’s signature remains the only outstanding step to bring the bill into force as written in May, and he has given no public indication that the stalled sentencing fight has changed his position. Ghanaian civil society groups, ILGA World and Pan Africa ILGA continue to call on him to withhold assent entirely, while a coalition of Western embassies in Accra has pressed the same point privately. None of that pressure appears to have moved him yet.

Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community — and the organizations still trying to operate legally in Accra and Kumasi ahead of a possible dissolution order — are left in the same holding pattern they’ve been in since May, watching a presidential desk rather than a parliamentary floor.

Sources: Citi Newsroom; 76 Crimes.