In Senegal, anti-LGBT forces seek longer prison time for gay sex
Homophobes want 15-year prison sentences rather than the current 5-year penalty.
Since 2020, Senegal has been debating the effectiveness of its repression of homosexuality. Abuses of all kinds against LGBT+ people are commonplace in the West African nation, which current imposes prison sentences of up to five years for consensual same-sex intimacy.
A further outburst of homophobia came in June, after new Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko alleged that homosexuality is tolerated in Senegal.
In the confusion that followed Sonko’s remark, MP Cheikh Abdou Bara Dolly Mbacké, an ally of Sonko, proposed a new anti-homosexuality bill that would toughen Senegal’s already-strict penalties for homosexuality.
Making life worse for LGBT+ people
The proposed provisions, which largely mirror those of an unsuccessful anti-LGBT initiative in January 2022, which would have increased sentences to a ranage of 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment for “offences of bisexuality [including homosexuality], transsexuality, necrophilia and zoophilia”, together with a fine of up to 5 million CFA francs ($8300 or €7600). In Senegal, the average monthly income was €146 in 2017.
Under Senegal’s current law (Paragraph 3 of Article 319 of Law No. 65-60 of 21 July 1965), anyone who commits an “unnatural act with a person of his or her own sex” is liable to between one and five years’ imprisonment, as well as a fine of between 100,000 and 1,500,000 CFA francs ($166 to $2,500 / €150 to €2,200).
Often-homophobic African context
This legislative offensive comes at a time when 64 nations worldwide have laws against homosexuality. Senegal has now joined the company of other sub-Saharan African countries that are considering proposals to criminalize or increase penalties for homosexuality. For example, Burkina-Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo are currently drafting legislation to punish homosexuality, while in Ghana, a law passed in February this year wiil take effect if the Ghana Supreme Court and president don’t block it. Uganda approved a tougher law against homosexuality in 2023.
Those nations’ actions contrast with the situation in most other parts of the world and in southern Africa. There, Namibia recently decriminalised homosexuality.
As of mid-June, 30 of Africa’s 54 countries had anti-homosexuality law and 24 did not.
In addition to Namibia, African nations that have decriminalized homosexuality included Gabon, Mauritius, Angola, Lesotho, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Botswana, and Mozambique all decriminalizing since 2012.
However, parliaments in Ghana and Uganda, where gay sex was already illegal, approved tougher laws against homosexuality in 2023 and 2024.
