WHEN two weeks ago, the alleged president of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana, named as Prince MacDonald, made a request on an Accra private radio station asking for public recognition and announced that the group would be hosting an international conference of homosexuals and lesbians in Ghana, he surely did not imagine what controversy he was stirring.
The request for recognition of homosexuality and lesbianism and the announcement of their proposed conference has sparked off an unprecedented furore in the country.
Phone-ins to radio stations have largely condemned homosexuality and they have asked the government to intervene, citing the country’s cultural norms and beliefs as frowning on the practice. However, some have expressed support for gay and lesbian rights, saying they should be allowed to practise openly to avoid the spread of HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).
The hostile reaction to the proposed gay and lesbians conference, later this month, appears to have forced Mr. MacDonald to swallow his words. He denied on phone that he never gave out any such information. When he was contacted by the Times, he retorted “I have not said anything and I do not know what is happening. Go and find out the source of your information,” and hung up.
In a press release issued on Thursday, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Kwamena Bartels said: “The government would like to make it absolutely clear that it shall not permit the proposed conference of international gays and lesbians to take place anywhere in Ghana”.
“Ghanaians are a unique people whose culture, morality and heritage totally abhor homosexual and lesbian practices and indeed any other form of unnatural sexual acts”, he added.
Mr. Bartels stated that under the country’s criminal code, “unnatural carnal knowledge is illegal. Homosexuality, lesbianism and bestiality are therefore offences under the laws of Ghana”.
He said the Minister of the Interior had been directed to investigate, through the security agencies, officials who gave permission for the conference to be held at the Accra International Conference Centre.
“The Minister is further directed to institute disciplinary action if they are found to have acted in contravention of our laws”, the release said, adding that having taken note of the unequivocal condemnation of the proposed conference “government does not and shall not condone any such activity which violently offends the culture, morality and heritage of the entire people of Ghana”.
Commenting on the government’s statement, Professor Sakyi Awuku Amoa, Director General of the Ghana Aids Commission, said since the practice was against the norms of society, the government’s decision could not be contested.
Tracing the history of HIV/AIDS which started among a group of gays in the United States he said, the commission’s worry was the increase in the pandemic that the practice of homosexuality could lead to.
“This is not a practice that the country position would support and asking for rights will only create the environment that will spread the AIDS pandemic,” he said. “If we want to manage the practice, we will have to be cautious. It is not just a matter of individual rights.”
Edmund Amarkwei Foley, a Project Coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said although people could ask for their rights, it must fall within a society’s rules and norms.
Citing Article 12(2) of the constitution, he said, the public’s interest was vital in acceding to the demands for rights which he said in this case, was the right to freely associate.
Article 12(2) states: “Every person in Ghana, whatever his race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, religion, creed or gender, shall be entitled to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the individual contained in this chapter but subject to respect for rights and freedoms of others and for the public interest”.
Mr. Foley said that the wide public condemnation of the proposed conference, as expressed on radio over the last few of days since the announcement, showed clearly that public interest had limited the exercise of these rights.
Interesteingly, a research study report published in March 2004 by the late Dr. Dela Attipoe, then the Greater Accra Research Coordinator for HIV/AIDS, showed that the phenomenon of ‘men who have sex with men or MSM,’ in medical parlance, “is real in Ghana with Ghanaians fully involved. It is not a recent phenomenon being visited on Ghana and Ghanaians by ‘whites’ or foreigners”.
The report said reasons that people gave for engaging in homosexuality included economic, pleasure, curiosity and adventure while some claimed that by their biological make-up, they were only attracted to people of the same sex.
Of the 150 gay respondents cited in the report, 43 claimed to have one regular male sex partner while 82 had between two and four regular partners with a few having five or more regular partners.
In order to encourage homosexuals to report cases of STIs for treatment, a number of health-related NGOs have put in place interventions to provide information to MSMs and treat their infections to avoid the spread such infections.
The West Africa Project to Combat AIDS and STI, one of such NGOs, has set up special clinics in some hospitals to cater for the health needs of MSMs, lesbians and HIV persons.
At these clinics, education on ways to prevent the spread of infections and the provision of health services forms an integral part of such special clinics.
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