The Senegalese Parliament rejected on December 25, 2021 a bill aimed at toughening the repression of homosexuality, with sentences of up to ten years in prison compared to five years currently. The LGBT question has become an electoral lever for traditionalists and populists who denounce “the modernists, under Western influence”.
The bill, on the initiative eleven deputies (paying link), mostly from the opposition, foresaw “a sentence of five to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of one to five million FCFA (1,500 to 7,625 euros), without the possibility of granting mitigating circumstances (for) anyone who has been found guilty of acts against nature”. This text was supported by associations and religious leaders, influential in this 95% Muslim country where homosexuality is considered a deviance. severely repressed. It aimed to criminalize homosexuality a little more and also to widen it to “other deviations”, according to its initiators: “lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality and other related practices.”
“Senegal’s legislation dating from 1966 (…) is clear and clear on this subject. There is no need to add or remove a comma”, the majority deputies said in a statement. The acts covered by the proposed law “are already clearly banned and punished by law in Senegal”, said the president of the majority parliamentary group Aymérou Gningue. The fifteen deputies carrying the bill are suspected “political instrumentalisation” before the municipal and departmental elections scheduled for January 23 in the country. They want “to set up a false debate in this pre-election period” and “hide hidden political objectives”, said Aymérou Gningue.
President Macky Sall, whose country is often cited as an example of the rule of law in Africa, has always invoked “Senegalese cultural specificities” to refuse a decriminalization of homosexuality, including in front of foreign leaders, as during the visit Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, February 12, 2020.
Out of 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 28 still have laws prohibiting or repressing homosexuality. The weight of culture and religion largely explain this dramatic situation for LGBT people.
In predominantly Muslim countries, homosexuality must remain hidden. In Côte d’Ivoire, where homosexuality is not penalized, the spokesperson for the Higher Council of Imams, Mosques and Islamic Affairs, Imam Sékou Sylla declared in 2019 that “Islam provides the supreme sanction – stoning to death – for anyone practicing homosexuality”.
In Mauritania, even if it has not been applied for several years, the death penalty is still provided for, “in accordance with Sharia”, for homosexuals. This principle of capital punishment is also present in Sudan and in northern Nigeria (Muslim). In the South, a law adopted in 2014 provides for sentences of up to 14 years in prison. In southern Somalia, homosexuals are being put to death in territories controlled by radical Islamist Shebabs, affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Tanzania also punishes homosexuality with a minimum sentence of 30 years in prison, up to life imprisonment.
However, we can note some progress on the continent where several countries no longer repress homosexuality. These include Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Botswana and Lesotho.
Since the end of apartheid, the South African constitution prohibits all discrimination based on sexual orientation and same-sex marriage was legalized in 2006, a first in Africa.