Mahama Ayariga, a member of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, has said that the Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021 needs to be looked at again because “there are a number of issues” with it.

This comes after a group of 18 prominent Ghanaian citizens rejected the bill, saying it constitutes an “impermissible invasion of the inviolability and human dignity” of the LGBTQI community.

Ayariga, who called into The Asaase Breakfast Show to express his views on the topic, said portions of the anti-gay bill should be revised.

“Definitely there are a number of issues that need to be flagged, academic freedom, the professors have raised it,” the MP for Bawku Central said.

Ayariga added: “It is so fundamental that our constitution has gone out of its way to guarantee the set up for academic freedom, and that is one issue that we need to respond to and respond to properly as a committee. People have raised right to healthcare and how a bill like that will go a long way to undermine access to healthcare by people in the gay and lesbian community.”

Sponsors
The bill was initiated by eight Members of Parliament (MPs), seven of whom are from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), with one being a New Patriotic Party (NPP) legislator.

The NDC MPs are those for Ningo-Prampram, Samuel Nartey George; Kpando, Dela Adjoa Sowah; Ho West, Emmanuel Bedzrah; Tamale North, Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini; Krachi West, Helen Adjoa Ntoso; La Dadekotopon, Rita Naa Odoley Sowah, and South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, while the NPP MP is for Assin South, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour.

Motivation
They said it was their ardent belief that the passage of the bill to deal with LGBTTQQIAAP+ was apt, considering the 2017 report of the Science Research Council, communicated at the 4th National HIV and AIDS Research Conference in Accra, which showed that about 18.1 per cent of people living with AIDS were gay.

On the issue of advocacy and other promotional activities, they said there was currently no legislation that specifically criminalized advocacy for, funding, promotion or encouragement of LGBTTQQIAAP+ activities, except the inchoate provisions in Act 29, namely, preparation for committing certain criminal offences, abetment of a criminal offence and conspiracy.

“This gap in the law creates opportunities for advocates of LGBTTQQIAAP+ activities to sponsor and promote the proliferation of those sexual activities. The effect of these sponsorship and promotion is that young persons are lured to assimilate the otherwise unacceptable forms of sexual expressions.

“Credible reports from the Coalition for Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values indicate instances when young persons are promised travel opportunities, allowances and other gifts to cause them to engage in or advocate LGBTTQQIAAP+.

“In some instances, young persons, mostly students in colleges, are awarded commission for luring other young persons to join LGBTTQQIAAP+ groups,” they stated.

A memorandum accompanying the bill showed that it contained 25 clauses that would be subjected to amendment during consideration by the committee to which it was referred.

Clauses
Clause 1 of the bill, among others, prohibits a person from holding him or herself out as a lesbian, a gay, a bisexual, a transgender, a transsexual, a queer, an ally, a pansexual or a person of any other socio-cultural notion of sex or sexual relationship that is contrary to the socio-cultural notions of male and female or the relationship between male and female, as well as a person who may be questioning that person’s sexuality, among others.

Clause 4 prohibits a person from engaging in acts that undermine the proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values provided for in the bill. In particular, persons must refrain from instigating, commanding, counselling, procuring, soliciting or purposely aiding, facilitating, encouraging or promoting, whether by a personal act or otherwise, either directly or indirectly, any activity that undermines the proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values stipulated in the bill.

“A person who undermines these proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values commits an offence and is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of not more than 2,000 penalty units or a term of imprisonment of not less than two months and not more than four months,” the memorandum said.

Clauses 6 to 11 deal with LGBTTQQIAAP+ and related activities. Under Clause 6, a person commits an offence if he or she engages in sexual intercourse between or among persons of the same sex or between a man and an animal, a woman and an animal, among others.