According to a news report on Reuters, Lawmakers in Gabon’s lower house of parliament, yesterday, voted to decriminalize homosexuality. Gabon is a country in Central Africa. By voting to decriminalize homosexuality, the country is joining the few African countries who have put an end to anti-LGBT laws.
The win was unanimous in favour of decriminalizing homosexuality as 48 members of parliament backed the proposed initiative by the government to revise an article of the 2019 law that criminalised homosexuality, 24 voted against it, and 25 other lawmakers abstained.
“Forty-eight lawmakers have shaken an entire nation and its customs and traditions,” one member of parliament who voted against the revision, told Reuters.
On July 5, 2019, Gabon enacted revisions to its Penal Code, criminalizing homosexual relations between consenting adults with a potential penalty of imprisonment up to 6 months and/or a fine of up to 5 million CFA francs.
UPDATE:
On Monday, 29th June 2020, Gabon’s senate voted to decriminalise homosexuality. this is coming a few days after the lawmakers in Gabon’s lower house of parliament voted in the same direction.
By voting to decriminalize homosexuality, the country is joining the few African countries who have put an end to anti-LGBT laws. On July 5, 2019, Gabon enacted revisions to its Penal Code, criminalizing homosexual relations between consenting adults with a potential penalty of imprisonment up to 6 months and/or a fine of up to 5 million CFA francs.
In the Senate, it “was adopted with a large majority of 59 votes”, Jessye Ella Ekogha, a spokesman for Gabon’s presidency, told Reuters. In a closed-door session, 17 Senators voted against the move and four abstained.
Although the government of Gabon has not explained the motivation behind revising the law, activists are glad, commending the move by the government. “Gabon now joins African states such as Seychelles, Angola, Mozambique and Botswana who have chosen to rid their lawbooks of archaic provisions which enable discrimination, violence and harassment against LGBT people,” legal chief Victoria Vasey told Reuters.
According to the report on Reuters, the wife of the President, Sylvia Bongo, said that the ability to love freely without being condemned is a fundamental human right.
