The Government of Ghana has cancelled a conference scheduled for July 2020, organised by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association to bring together LGBTQ+ activists and leaders from around the world to share ideas and work together on changing discriminatory laws. According to a report by Openly, the government took this action, saying that it will not allow a major gathering of LGBT+ activists to go ahead after an outcry from conservative Christian groups in Ghana, one of the 32 African countries where it is still illegal to be LGBT (although no one has been prosecuted for same-sex relations in Ghana in recent years, LGBT+ people still face frequent abuse and discrimination, including blackmail and violent attacks).
A spokesman for the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, “(The) Ghana government won’t allow such (a) conference, and that is it.”
An Anti-gay group in Ghana had started an online petition campaigned against the upcoming conference that received almost 19,000 signatures in a week. “The current laws of Ghana … criminalise consensual same-sex sexual activities between adults, therefore it is clearly illegal for ILGA to hold a conference here in Ghana representing a group that promotes these activities,” said Advocates for Christ Ghana in a letter to the President.
Davis Mac-Iyalla, a Ghana-based LGBT+ activist and head of the Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa said “The debate seems to be one-sided. Why do the conservatives tend to hold the monopoly to organise but can block others with different views?”. Last year, Ghana hosted a major international conference organised by the World Congress of Families, a U.S.-based Christian organisation that promotes an anti-LGBT+ agenda.
