International Diplomatic Consultant, Farouk Al-Wahab says the Ghanaian parliament is not showing a unified front on the matter of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill.
He indicated that the West African country’s parliament has not shown whether their position on the bill is a multilateral or collective decision.
“The Ghanaian parliament is a bit confused over the subject. The President was interviewed on the same subject and his response was not a yes or a no. It was a diplomatic response which simply means every generation must solve its own problems. He simply didn’t want to be in the middle of an international uproar,” he pointed out.
He believes the news of some European countries denying legislators supporting the anti-LGBTQ+ bill visas into their countries might keep going on. “The Parliament of Ghana must also show us if it took a multilateral or collective decision on the LGBTQ+ bill.”
The feelings of Ghanaians are supposed to be carried by parliamentarians but only 8 legislators submitted the anti-LGBTQ+ bill to parliament and not parliament as a whole. “If out of 275 parliamentarians only 8 are championing this cause and a majority are silent over the issue then embassies can deny them visas because of the bill. If it was a collective decision and parliament was together, then this will not happen to the MPs. Parliament is confused in such a way that the individual members are being refused visas because they are not showing collective stance.”
In an interview with Happy98.9FM’s Don Kwabena Prah on the Epa Hoa Daben political talk show, Farouk Al-Wahab indicated that most European nations consider the anti-LGBTQ+ bill as a unilateral one “and believe they can squeeze the 8 legislators into giving up on the bill. If parliament will pass the bill they should. If they won’t, then the 8 should be let in the known so they leave the bill alone.”
Earlier this year, the Speaker of Parliament received a private member bill from some MPs that would expand on the current law that provides up to three years in prison for same-sex activity.
Reports have it that the new bill when passed will prohibit and criminalize advocacy, funding and act of LGBTQ+ while promoting conversion therapy programs seeking to “convert” people from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
Meanwhile, fifteen renowned legal, academic and civil society professionals have filled a memorandum challenging the anti-gay legislation submitted to Parliament.
In the memorandum, they contend that the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which seeks to criminalize LGBTQ+ and adjacent activities, is an “impermissible invasion of the inviolability of human dignity.”
Some Christian leaders, on the other hand, have submitted a memorandum to Parliament on the Proper Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, endorsing the bill.
In the aftermath of this bill, it has been alleged that some MPs have been denied visas to travel abroad following the introduction of the anti-LGBTQ+ Bill to Parliament.
