From Senegal to Uganda: The rise of anti-LGBT+ legislation on the continent

In recent months, several West African countries have enacted laws condemning homosexuality, a first for some states, which is part of a general trend towards the repression of the LGBT+ community on the continent.

Only about twenty out of 54 African countries do not criminalize homosexuality.

What laws?

Uganda adopted an anti-LGBT+ law in 2023 considered one of the most repressive in the world, according to which the crime of "aggravated homosexuality" is punishable by death, a sentence which has not been applied for years.

In September 2025, Burkina Faso passed a law providing for sentences of up to five years in prison for "perpetrators of homosexual practices", a first for this country.

Neighbouring Niger followed suit last February by promulgating, for the first time, a new penal code criminalizing homosexuality and including heavy penalties.

And in March, it was Senegal's turn to pass a law doubling the penalties for homosexual relations, from five to ten years in prison. Since the beginning of the year, more than a hundred people have been arrested and a young man was sentenced to six years in prison for "unnatural acts," under the new law.

Last month, the Ghanaian Parliament decided to sentence anyone who has had homosexual relations to up to three years in prison, and anyone who engages in the "intentional promotion, sponsorship or support of LGBT+ activities" to between three and five years.

A "Charter for the Family, Sovereignty and African Values," advocating ultra-conservative values, is also being discussed on the continent. Its content was debated again at the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference in early June in Accra.

What are the causes?

In Uganda, the anti-LGBT+ law is primarily driven by electoral considerations, argues human rights defender Agather Athuaire. Political figures "know that their society is very homophobic, so they want to curry favor" with voters, she explained to AFP.

Marame Kane, a French-Senegalese expert in advocacy on LGBT+ and feminist issues, shares this view. According to her, "LGBT+ people are scapegoats for political maneuvering," used to "divert attention from pressing issues."

In the spring of 2026, after two years at the head of Senegal, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his former Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko were expected to "deliver at least some results because other areas are proving to be a little more complicated" and "slower," adds El Hadj Souleymane Gassama, known as "Elgas," a Senegalese writer and doctor of sociology.

The country is heavily indebted and has experienced the beginnings of social unrest.

"The authorities have ultimately fallen back on the subject which, regardless of political divisions, creates a form of transcendent unanimity," Elgas notes.

According to Marame Kane, "potential funding" from American conservative movements may also have "precipitated" the new law.

The question of religion, in African countries with a large Muslim or Christian majority, also comes into play.

Why now?

Homosexuality is often denounced as an instrument used by Westerners to impose values ​​supposedly foreign to a local culture.

At a time when the West, particularly France, is losing ground in West Africa, these laws resonate with a desire for "sovereignty claimed by many African countries," notes Ivorian anthropology researcher Ballet-Brice Stéphane Djedje.