Senegal: Conservatives keep pushing for tougher anti-homosexuality law
Latest proposals call for longer prison sentences and a ban on ‘promotion of homosexuality’.
The parliament of Senegal is once again debating whether to stiffen penalties for homosexual activity in the West African nation.
An earlier attempt to tighten Senegal’s anti-homosexuality laws was defeated in 2022, when parliament declined to vote on a bill to make homosexual activity punishable by up to 10 or 15 years in prison.
At present, under Paragraph 3 of Article 319 of Law No. 65-60 of 21 July 1965, anyone who commits an “unnatural act with an individual of the same sex” is liable to imprisonment for 1 to 5 years and a fine of between 100,000 and 1,500,000 CFA francs (€150 to €2,200).
The Islamist collective And Samm Djikko Yi (“Together to Protect Values” in the local Wolof language) is pushing for adoption of the tougher penalties plus a provision to prohibit “promotion of homosexuality” through social media, digital platforms, and other broadcasts, SeneNews reported.
Parliamentary leaders “reassured us that their position on the criminalization of homosexuality has not changed. They simply asked for time to study the proposal with their legal experts before officially introducing it,” Sylla told L’Observateur.
Pressure from Islamists
This government response followed numerous demonstrations and media appearances by Sylla, who represents the main nationalist and religious social organization that has decided to make the “fight against homosexuality” a political mantra in order to influence public debate.
Indeed, after the renewal of parliament last November, some in Islamist circles were indignant that no new anti-LGBT+ bill was on the parliamentary agenda.
That has now changed, even if there is still a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the details of the bill under consideration.
The battle over LGBTQ rights has been prominent in Senegal for nearly a decade. This is parliament’s fourth anti-homosexuality initiative, following those of 2016, 2021 and 2024.
A previous text, inspired by ‘And Samm Djikko Yi’ last year, provided for sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years in prison by creating “offences of bisexuality, transsexuality, necrophilia and zoophilia “, accompanied by a fine of up to 5 million CFA francs (€7,600), in a country where the average monthly income is less than €200 per month.
For Mouhamadou, a senior executive in Dakar with pan-African leanings, “this is nothing more than hypocrisy,” he rails, weary of the political mores of his country, which he says disgust him.
For Sadio (pseudonym), an observer of local politics, ‘the Pastef (the ruling political party) must manage a subtle political exercise by giving assurances to the most fiercely conservative faction among their supporters, without tipping Senegalese democracy into a form of anti-LGBT+ state terrorism, with policies of terror aimed at the social eradication of homosexuals.
The regime sends a signal to European diplomacy
‘In this context, the initiative of the Dutch embassy in Dakar to screen a film dedicated to LGBT+ communities was considered particularly unwelcome, even though it does not constitute foreign interference in the parliamentary debate,’ he adds.
‘However, once again, this type of incident, accompanied by diplomatic protests from Senegal, is causing a stir among homophobes,’ he laments.
