Human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) has warned of increasing legal discrimination against LGBTQ people in several African countries. The English abbreviation LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.
Last year, LGBTQ organizations were banned and meetings were dissolved in many African countries, AI's African consultant in Germany, Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft, explained today.
“Assaults on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people, as well as arrests, are the order of the day,” said Ulm-Düsterhöft. According to AI, 31 African countries criminalize consensual sexual acts between people of the same sex.
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The organization cited Uganda as an example, where one of the world's strictest laws against homosexuals was approved in May. But even in countries like Ghana, LGBTQ people “are already exposed to a whole range of human rights violations.” There too, parliament could soon approve “one of the most severe bills” against LGBTQ “on the entire continent”.
According to Amnesty, there is also a bill in Kenya that aims to prohibit homosexuality. Kenya is Germany's largest trading partner in East Africa. In December, the country signed a free trade agreement with the European Union.
According to Ulm-Düsterhöft, support for homosexuals in African countries is increasingly criminalized, causing them to lose their jobs, “their apartments and access to medical care”. The situation is so precarious in many places that many LGBTQ people “have gone into hiding or are trying to escape.”