Ghana

Ghana bans same-sex relations under Section 104(1)(b) of the Criminal Offences Act of 1960. Following a constitutional challenge to this colonial-era law, the court in 2024 declined to decriminalize same-sex intimacy in a ruling riddled with queerphobic language.

In February 2026, 10 members of parliament from both the ruling and opposition parties—the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party—sponsored and reintroduced a controversial bill, the “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill,” first introduced in 2021. Using the acronym “LGBTTQAP+,” this bill seeks to prohibit merely identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, “transsexual,” queer, an ally, pansexual, nonbinary, or “a person of any other sexual orientation or in a sexual relationship that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female.” It also prohibits benefitting from or providing gender affirming care, although it exempts procedures for “correcting a biological abnormality, including intersex,” thus sanctioning intersex genital mutilation.

In a bid to silence diverse voices, the bill seeks to prohibit LGBTIQ human rights advocacy and includes a provision that any organization seeking to promote any of the activities under the bill is disbanded. It prohibits disseminating information on sexual and gender diversity issues to children, and proposes amending the Extradition Act of Ghana to include “LGBTTQAP+ offences” to make people who commit so-called offences under the Act extraditable. Furthermore, it imposes a duty to report “offences” and explicitly names parents, guardians, teachers, places of worship, creative and media personnel, members of government bodies, and other constitutional bodies. As it requires landowners to act as watchdogs against same-sex relations taking place on their property, it could also impact the renting of property to LGBTQ people. It further prohibits same-sex marriage and adoption by queer people and allies.

The bill’s trajectory has been lengthy and convoluted. Following its introduction in 2021, Outright documented how its mere introduction led to increased human rights violations against LGBTIQ people in Ghana and the rise in anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric by politicians and religious leaders. Despite vocal opposition from human rights defenders, Ghana’s parliament passed a version of the bill in 2024. Although it faced challenges to its constitutionality, the Supreme Court allowed the bill to proceed. Meanwhile, Ghana held general elections in December 2024. Leading up to the elections, leaders from both major parties expressed consistently queerphobic sentiments and utilized misinformation for political gain, causing an activist to describe the election rhetoric as “a competition of who was the most homophobic.” LGBTIQ people nevertheless participated in the elections, insisting that LGBTIQ people’s voices and their votes matter.

Following a change of government, members of parliament reintroduced the bill in March of 2025, but it did not advance. Supporters of the bill in parliament were vocal in their criticism of President John Mahama for not prioritizing the bill.

In January 2026, backlash arose from political and religious leaders against the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) and the Education Ministry over the contents of a teacher’s manual for senior high schools in Ghana, which contained definitions of gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexuality. The Minister for Education directed the NaCCA to revise the manual, and NaCCA issued a statement declaring that “The Ministry of Education and NaCCA state unequivocally that the Government of Ghana has no intention to promote, endorse, or introduce LGBTQ content at any level of the educational system.”

Although the criminalization of intersex status was removed from an early version of the Family Values Bill, there are reports of the murder of intersex infants, as well as bullying and other forms of violence against intersex children. As Ghana embarks on a constitutional review process, proposals to protect intersex children on the grounds of children’s right to bodily integrity have been described as “LGBTQ+ provisions,” causing proponents to restate the need for intersex people’s rights while distinguishing them from LGBTQ advocacy.

In May 2026, Ghana is scheduled to host the fourth African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on “Family, Sovereignty and Values,” part of an anti-gender initiative aimed at developing an African Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values. Activists have expressed concern that the conference could “deepen regional coordination of anti-LGBTQ laws [and] restrict sexual and reproductive health and rights.”