LGBT legalization: Ayorkor Botchwey sends message to Joe Biden

The Minister-designate for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration has reacted to United States (US) President, Joseph Biden’s decision to sanction countries yet to make laws that accommodate homosexuals.

Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, when answering a question during her vetting on Thursday, said Ghana’s laws clearly criminalise the practice.

Her statement comes after President Biden on Thursday, February 4, issued a memorandum aimed at expanding protection of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people worldwide, including potentially through the use of financial sanctions.

According to President Biden, all human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear no matter who they are or who they love.

The memo further directs U.S. agencies working abroad to work harder to combat the criminalisation by foreign governments of LGBTQ status or conduct, and directs the State Department to include anti-LGBTQ violence, discrimination and laws in its annual human rights report.

But Miss Botchwey said Ghana is a sovereign country and has its own laws that its citizenry must abide by regardless of the relationship the country has established with other countries.

“Ghana is a sovereign country but as part of our foreign policy we engage countries all over the world; America is one of our strongest friends. But in this country we have laws. And our laws work and must work.

“So in spite of what somebody will say and in this case President Biden, the laws of Ghana criminalises unlawful carnal knowledge and therefore the laws of Ghana definitely are supreme and that is what we all adhere to,” she noted.