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Ghana's parliament adjourned for recess without voting on a plan to toughen sentencing in the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, leaving the already-passed version sitting on President Mahama's desk unchanged.
Senegal's Constitutional Council struck down a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that had passed the National Assembly unanimously — on a technicality that has nothing to do with LGBTQ+ rights.
Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Senegal have each moved to criminalize or further punish LGBTQ+ people in 2026. Rights groups say the timing and language are too similar to be coincidence.
A new penal code from Niger's military junta makes same-sex relations punishable by up to ten years in prison, with no room for judicial mercy. Rights monitors say around 40 people have already been detained.
On June 29, Senegal's National Assembly amended the constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. It passed unanimously, and it caps a brutal year for the country's LGBTQ+ people.
On May 29 Ghana's parliament approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill — the legislation that makes it a crime to be LGBTQ+. President Mahama, who has said publicly he will sign it, now holds the only remaining check.
Ghana's parliamentary committee held two days of public hearings on April 23 and 24 on the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill — the legislation that would criminalize LGBTQ+ identity itself. Here's the state of play, with President Mahama now publicly ambivalent.
A court in a Dakar suburb sentenced a young man to six years in prison for 'acts against nature' — the first ruling since Senegal doubled the maximum penalty for same-sex relations in January.
Ghana's parliament is advancing the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, which would make it a crime to identify as LGBTQ+, to advocate for equal rights, or to attend a same-sex wedding. President Mahama has said he'll sign it.
