The world of LGBT in Ghana

A nation that prides itself as the custodian of democracy within sub-Sahara Africa on which most African countries use as a benchmark to measure their democratic strength level. To be measured as a democratic state stands on several parameters and not just being transitional that is to say handing over political power from one political party to another as experienced in the fourth republic constitution.

Since the inception of the fourth republic constitution, Ghana has smoothly transferred political power from one party to a different party but fail woefully on some of the parameters especially when it comes to the protection of human rights. The main tenet of democracy has always been and continues to be the protection of the right of the minority and on this, I can confidently say that as a country, we have not done much in this regard.

The LGBT which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender community who obviously are in the minority has witnessed a significant increase in the violation of their rights simply because of their sexual orientation.

I am a resident of a community called Mamobi a suburb of Accra which is Muslim-dominated. I have witnessed on countless occasions how these individuals were physically abused. On August 2015 in Mamobi, a young man was assaulted by a vigilante group by name SAFE EMPIRE because of his sexual orientation.

I have on numerous occasions been physically and verbally assaulted by these same groups because of my close association with the LGBT community, one such incident happened at my workplace.

The fact is some of these guys are my childhood friends that I grew up with and I cannot distance myself because of their sexual orientation. The truth is I am not ashamed of providing protection for them. I have reported the incident to the relevant institutions and unfortunately, nothing has been done to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice.

It has become more dangerous to belong to these group (LGBT) or to be seen associating yourself with them in Ghana because at the moment there is a bill in parliament that intend to criminalize their activities. The truth of the matter is there has not been any concrete effort from the state to protect the right of these individuals.

Unfortunately, the discrimination against the LGBT community is across sub-Saharan Africa and an example is what has been captured in the research carried out by Dorah P Amorey which was originally confirmed by the International Gay Lesbian Human Right Campaign.

In sum, the LGBT community has rights and must be protected. As a country, the focus should be on how to bring in some reforms to make it possible for these individuals to be accepted in our communities.