The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference has asserted that the imprisonment of homosexual could increase lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) and related activities and not necessarily eliminate them.
In this regard, the President, Reverend Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi has called for a review of the anti-gay bill which proscribes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activities and criminalises their promotion, advocacy and funding.
“We think that in the case of this particular law and the way it is being implemented, being placed in prison as the punishment that they have chosen, it is not going to solve the problem. Because you see if you round up same-sex people and you know our prisons, they are going to end up in the same room and what is going to prevent them from going through these activities in the prison?
“And you are not going to put them there forever because they are going to be there for three months to six months. And then they practice this and come out as more experts at it than when you sent them there. Then you release them back into society. So, what is going to happen?” he quizzed in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM.
Reverend Gyamfi’s comment comes after Parliament on February 28 passed the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values bill to criminalizes LGBTQ activities, their promotion, advocacy, and funding.
Individuals found guilty could face a jail term ranging from six months to three years, while promoters and sponsors of these activities could face a three-to-five-year jail term.
The passage has however been met with mixed reactions from groups and individuals both in Ghana and abroad while Ghanaians wait on President Nana Akufo-Addo to assent it into law.
There have also been several threats of legal action should the President go ahead to assent to the bill.
Acknowledging the church was not against the bill, he stressed reformative and corrective sanctions will be better.
“That is why we were concerned about a punishment that will correct them, that will reform them. So if the government is going this way or if the parliament is going this way that is why we are suggesting that in the prison there, they should add more of the corrective and reformative measures,” he said,
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