Ghana’s Parliament approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, on Friday, significantly tightening restrictions on sexual minorities by criminalizing the “promotion” of LGBTQ activity. First
Deputy Speaker Bernard Ahiafor announced the bill’s passage in the House following a voice vote and endorsement by the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee.
The legislation was introduced last year under President John Dramani Mahama’s administration, driven largely by governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) MPs responding to intense pressure from religious organizations and conservative advocacy groups.
The bill now awaits presidential assent.
A similar piece of legislation passed Parliament in 2024 under former President Nana Akufo-Addo but stalled due to legal challenges and remained unsigned when he left office.
While the new bill maintains the existing penalty of up to three years in prison for same-sex sexual acts, it introduces harsher punitive measures for advocacy.
Funding, sponsoring, or promoting LGBTQ activities now carries a prison sentence of three to five years.
Furthermore, the legislation establishes a mandatory “duty to report” clause, rendering individuals who fail to report prohibited LGBTQ acts to authorities liable for up to three years of imprisonment.
The passage of the bill sparked immediate political blowback from the opposition. Minority Leader and Effutu MP Alexander Afenyo-Markin heavily criticized the NDC and the parliamentary Majority, accusing them of inconsistency and political expediency.
Afenyo-Markin argued that the Majority pushed through a heavily altered version of the text that deviated significantly from the original legislation introduced during the Eighth Parliament.
According to the opposition, the NDC previously rejected crucial amendments aimed at mitigating legal and systemic risks.
“As Majority Leader in the Eighth Parliament when our friends in the NDC introduced this bill and we invited them for discussions, drawing attention to the danger in certain clauses, they refused,” Rev. Fordjour had recalled on the floor.
Afenyo-Markin emphasized that the Majority’s current legislative position directly contradicts their historical stance. He described the version passed on Friday as “odious, nugatory, empty,” adding that it fails to address the concerns the NDC previously championed.
“What you have passed today doesn’t address the very concerns you claim you believe in. Where is your principle?” Rev. Fordjour had asked in the chamber.
The Minority Leader urged the Ghanaian public to compare the bill passed during the Eighth Parliament with the newly adopted 2025 version to see the discrepancies, asserting that the NDC cannot fundamentally present this modified text to President John Mahama for assent as if it were the original framework.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana