US-based lobbyists known for calling homosexuality a public health threat reportedly advised Senegal officials on how to push an anti-LGBTQ+ law which increased maximum sentences for LGBTQ+ people.
Senegal’s National Assembly garnered international condemnation earlier this month after passing a bill that doubles the maximum penalty for same-sex relations.
While homosexuality has been illegal in the African nation since the mid-1960s, the newly passed law makes openly identifying as queer punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Senegal lawmakers supportive of the new bill declared that LGBTQ+ citizens would no longer be able to “breathe in this country” adding to applause that they planned to strip all their freedoms.
A report from Reuters over the weekend revealed that US lobbyist organisation MassResistance, which describes itself as “pro family,” worked with Senegalese campaigners to push for the legislation’s passage.
The Massachusetts-based organisation, which claims that LGBTQ+ rights are an attack on so-called “cultural norms,” reportedly worked with Senegalese Islamic and civil rights network Samm Jikko Yi to outline a campaign strategy supporting further restrictions on homosexuality.
Samm Jikko Yi, a collective of anti-LGBTQ+ activists, has been campaigning for tougher sentences on LGBTQ+ relations since at least 2020. In 2024, the group allegedly contacted MassResistance to discuss the most effective way to lobby for harsher anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
Officials representing both groups reportedly discussed ways to raise awareness, garner support for their cause, and mobilising alongside Senegalese authorities, according to Samm Jikko Yi’s former coordinator Ababacar Mboup.
It is not known whether the collaboration had impacted the Senegal Parliament’s vote to expand article 319 of the Penal Code on consensual same-sex conduct. The 11 March vote passed by a staggering 135 to zero, with just three abstentions.
It is the first known case of a US lobbying organisation attempting to shape anti-LGBTQ+ laws in an African nation after US president Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025.
MassResistance’s field director, Arthur Schaper, told the news outlet that there was a “renewed push” to begin influencing LGBTQ+ rights and implementing stricter bans overseas given the Trump administration’s stance on such matters.
He said the organisation had also begun attempting to influence LGBTQ+ rights in Ghana, where homosexuality is partially illegal for men, by supporting a newly proposed anti-LGBTQ+ law which would punish anyone who identifies as, or supports, LGBTQ+ people with up to three years in prison.
Ghanaian human rights NGO, Freedom International, confirmed that MassResistance had been in touch regarding plans to curtail LGBTQ+ rights, adding that the organisations had exchanged “educational materials” during the discussion.
Medical experts routinely warn that laws banning homosexuality pose a significant health risk to all citizens by deterring men who have sex with men (MSM), who are at increased risk of catching the disease, from undergoing HIV tests.
Government figures suggest that MSM in Senegal are much more likely to have HIV than any other group. Health workers in the country have warned that harsher punishments for homosexuality will make HIV prevalence much worse.
Following campaign pledges from both the president and prime minister in Senegal’s latest elections, the country’s Parliament on Wednesday passed a bill doubling penalties in the far West African nation for homosexuality, described in the measure as “acts against nature.”
The revised law is just the latest attack on “degenerate” Western values by government and religious officials.
Same-sex acts in Senegal will now earn 5-10 years in prison. Acts committed with a minor are subject to the maximum penalty, France 24 reports.
“Homosexuals will no longer breathe in this country. Homosexuals will no longer have freedom of expression in this country,” lawmaker Diaraye Ba told colleagues in the National Assembly to applause.
The bill, passed overwhelmingly with three abstentions and no opposing votes, awaits President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s signature.
In addition to doubling prison terms and fines for homosexual acts, the measure includes criminal penalties for those found guilty of promoting or financing same-sex relationships.
Passage of the bill comes amid a veritable gay panic in Senegal, with a wave of arrests and anti-LGBTQ+ protests by religious groups in the Muslim-majority country demanding tougher penalties.
Social media has been flooded with homophobic messages outing gay people, and the media has fixated on the government arrests with headlines like “Big homo clean-up” and “Bisexuals, walking dangers.”
Adding to the hysteria, the gay sweep has been conflated with a child sex ring investigation that detained gang members accused of sexual violence against minors.
“The majority of Senegalese do not accept homosexuality. Our culture rejects it, and we are firmly opposed to it,” said Amadou Moustapha Ndieck Sarré, the government’s Minister of Employment.
Over 90% of Senegalese oppose acceptance of gay people, according to Equaldex, the LGBTQ+ collaborative knowledge base. The country ranks 4 out of 100 on the site’s Equality Index. More than half of the 53 countries in Africa impose penalties for homosexuality, from caning and fines to death.
Charles Dotou, head of the Senegal LGBTQ Association, has resigned over the new legislation.
“Most of the same-sex relationships were hidden anyway. There are even people who are married in the society and who are still entertaining a same-sex relationship because of the norm and the cultural norm in that society,” Dotou told the BBC.
“People will be hiding more, it will create more fear, and people will be scared to live normally in that community. So there will be an exodus of people, particularly people who were already exposed, so that that creates a bit of chaos in society,” he added.
Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has introduced legislation that could double the maximum penalty for same-sex relations, making them punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The proposal was sent to parliament on Tuesday after cabinet approval last week, after a wave of arrests over alleged same-sex relationships, already banned under Senegal law.
Addressing lawmakers, Sonko said the bill would punish what it describes as “acts against nature” with prison sentences ranging from five to 10 years, compared with the current one- to five-year terms.
“If an act is committed with a minor, it will attract the maximum penalty,” he said. The bill has been criticised by rights advocates.
Debate over LGBT rights has long generated tension in Senegal, a conservative country where some groups portray pro-LGBT activism as foreign interference.
Religious organisations have held demonstrations in recent years calling for harsher punishments.
Earlier this month, police detained 12 men, among them two public figures and a prominent journalist, under anti-LGBT laws. Local media outlets say around 30 people have been arrested in total this month.
Sonko explained that the draft law defines any sexual conduct between two people of the same sex as an “act against nature”.
The bill proposes prison terms of three to seven years for anyone found to be promoting or advocating same-sex relations.
It also prescribes separate punishment for those who accuse others of homosexuality “without proof”.
Those found guilty of crimes in the bill could also face fines up to 10 million CFA francs (about $18,000; £13,000), Sonko added.
Sonko said the revised law would keep the offence at its current misdemeanour level.
“We can achieve the intended objectives without going so far as to elevate the acts to the level of more serious crimes,” he added.
A date has yet to be set for parliament to vote on the bill, in a chamber controlled by Sonko’s Pastef party.
Sonko, a former firebrand opposition leader appointed prime minister in 2024, had pledged to criminalise same-sex relations in the Muslim-majority country.
Human Rights Watch said the recent anti-LGBT crackdown violated “multiple internationally protected rights,” including equality and nondiscrimination.
Several African countries have also introduced similar sanctions against the LGBT community in recent years. In September last year, Burkina Faso’s transitional parliament approved a bill banning homosexual acts, following its neighbour Mali in 2024.
In 2023, Uganda voted in some of the world’s harshest anti-homosexual legislation meaning that anybody engaging in certain same-sex acts can be sentenced to death.
Two of Senegal’s highest-profile celebrities were among 12 people rounded up and charged with committing “unnatural,” or homosexual, acts, among other crimes, police in the capital of Dakar announced Sunday.
Pape Cheikh Diallo, a widely admired TV and radio presenter, and Djiby Dramé, a popular musician, were two of the men charged in the case linked to an individual who has admitted to knowingly spreading HIV, according to The New York Times.
An HIV-positive individual “confessed to knowingly infecting about ten people he had contacted, primarily through WhatsApp groups,” authorities said.
Police didn’t elaborate on who the individual is or his connection with the other men, but all 12 men were remanded to prison while a judge investigates the case.
A preliminary indictment from prosecutors added a charge of money laundering to the evidence used to initially round the men up, Senegal news site Seneweb reports. All of the men broke down in tears as the judge announced their pretrial detention.
“A lot of what’s being said in the media about Pape Cheikh is not true,” said a lawyer for TV presenter Diallo, Abdou Dieng, after the hearing. Other lawyers in court declined to comment.
Diallo, 42, is best known for interviewing celebrities on TV and radio, and enjoys a large fan base of young people on TikTok, with about three million followers.
Dramé, also in his 40s, appeals to older Senegalese and is well known for duets with his wife that feature prominently at weddings in the country. They host an annual high-society gala that celebrates Bazin, the luxurious damask cotton fabric with roots in West Africa.
Stop Homophobie, a Paris-based LGBTQ+ rights group with ties to Senegal, condemned the arrests. The state action will further expose the community to stigma in the devoutly Muslim country, the group’s director told Seneweb.
Senegal earns a score of 4 out of 100 on the Equaldex Equality Index.
The Senegal Penal Code states, “whoever will have committed an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years.”
As well as Diallo and Dramé, one of West Africa’s most iconic artists has been swept up in the controversy surrounding the arrests. TFM, the country’s most-watched television channel and Diallo’s employer, was founded by Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, described by Rolling Stone as “perhaps the most famous singer alive” in Senegal and much of Africa.
Islamist critics of “degenerate” Western values are implicating N’Dour in the scandal over his connection with Diallo as his “boss” at TFM.
“Whoever plays games with Islam will suffer the wrath of God,” said one reply to Seneweb’s story of the arrests.
Morocco: Morocco has been under a long-term project to revise its legal system, and this year published reforms to the code of criminal procedure that ought to at least make the justice system more fair and limit pre-trial detention. Then again, we’ve also heard reports this year of continued crackdowns on queer people for pro-LGBT expression on the internet. [See “Coalition demands release of Morocco LGBT activist after 100 days in prison” (November 2025)]
Morocco also intends to revise its penal code, and some campaigners have been pushing to delete its sodomy and extramarital sex provisions when that happens, but no progress was made this year. I think the likelihood Morocco actually deletes its sodomy law is very slim.
Meanwhile, in October, the UN Security Council backed Morocco’s plan to resolve the dispute over the Western Sahara/Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which would make it autonomous under Moroccan rule. The UN called on both sides to negotiate an actual settlement, but this seems like a big step toward eliminating an entire country from the map (which would decrease by one the number of states that criminalize homosexuality).
Chad: The government launched a commission on reinstating the death penalty, which was abolished in 2020.
West Africa
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger: These three states run by military juntas following coups over the past half-decade took steps to deepen their integration into the Alliance of Sahel States (yes, the ASS), which is something between a supranational organization and a proto-state in its own right. They all withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and they announced their intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. The states are motivated in part by antipathy to France and the West, Islamic faith, and support for and from Russia, all of which is exemplified in their pursuit of anti-LGBT policies.
Burkina Faso is also considering reinstating the death penalty as it overhauls its penal code, which ought to be a worrying sign. The new code also includes a crime of “promotion of homosexual practices and similar acts.”
Niger held a national conference that voted to extend the junta’s rule by five years and also to oppose any effort to legalize same-sex marriage.
Worryingly, some other neighbors, Chad and Togo (which both criminalize gay sex) have publicly mused about joined the ASS and have even taken some steps to integrate with them.
Of course, if the ASS ever does replace these three to five states, it would at least reduce the number of criminalizing states on the chart.
Ghana: A draconian anti-LGBTQ bill modelled after Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act was reintroduced to parliament after a previous version lapsed without the president’s signature before the end of the term. This one is sponsored by a group of opposition MPs, but the government has said it intends to introduce its own version at some point. The current president has strongly suggested he will sign it.
Ghana also ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Trump administration used Ghana and Togo as places to deport asylum seekers, including at least one who was seeking asylum due to his sexual orientation.
The constitution review committee proposed an amendment to specifically bar the use of the death penalty. Ghana abolished the penalty in 2023 for ordinary crimes only, and the repeal was not retroactive, so those on death row still face execution.
Liberia: The government undertook a review of its laws for gender discriminatory effects – particularly around marriage, citizenship, rape, and children’s rights – but the review did not take sexual orientation or gender identity into account. I haven’t heard of further action being taken on this file.
The government intervened in the United Methodist Church over its support of same-sex marriage, including a senate investigation and even police detention. The local church has made clear its opposition to same-sex marriage.
A lawmaker was removed from a session of parliament after he disruptively attempted to introduce an anti-LGBT bill that would have imposed criminal penalties on same-sex marriage. Watch out for this to come back.
Nigeria: In a climate of regular violence against queer people, the governor of Kano state submitted a bill to the legislature to criminalize same-sex marriage. It’s already criminalized federally.
The senate was also considering a bill to expand the use of the death penalty.
Gabon: A constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, passed in 2024, took effect in 2025.
Eastern Africa
Kenya: In August, the high court directed the government to protect transgender peoples’ rights, including recognition of their chosen gender and dignified treatment in government custody. The court ordered the government enact a specific Transgender Protection Rights Act or add amendments to that effect to the Intersex Persons Act.
Meanwhile, an MP vowed to bring forward a bill to criminalize LGBTQ advocacy, but he hasn’t done so yet. Parliament was also considering a bill to abolish the death penalty.
Uganda: The World Bank has ended its suspension of lending to Uganda, which was imposed in 2023 after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The Bank now claims it has put in place mitigation measures to ensure its funds won’t be used to discriminate, which, frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Tanzania: The government has announced it is moving forward with toughening existing criminal laws banning same-sex intercourse to further ban same-sex relationships and marriages, but I haven’t actually seen legislation come forward yet.
Rwanda: Parliament passed a new health care law that specifically excludes same-sex couples from accessing surrogacy and assisted reproduction.
Mauritius: The UK and Mauritius finalized and published a treaty on the handover of the British Indian Ocean Territory, with the UK maintaining sovereignty over the military base on Diego Garcia. While the treaty hasn’t yet been ratified, once it does the BIOT will cease to exist as a separate jurisdiction where same-sex marriage is legal – unless the UK recreates it in some form to cover Diego Garcia only.
Comoros: Joined the Biological Weapons Convention.
Eritrea: Ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Southern Africa
Botswana: A lesbian couple filed a constitutional challenge seeking the right to marry, saying the current ban violates various sections of the constitution guaranteeing the right to equality. The high court struck down Botswana’s sodomy law in 2019, in part after finding that the constitutional prohibition on sex discrimination included sexual orientation discrimination, a decision that was upheld by the court of appeal in 2021.
Namibia: We’re still waiting on a ruling from the supreme court on the government’s appeal of 2024’s lower court decision decriminalizing sodomy.
The former president officially vetoed a bill that aimed to criminalize same-sex marriage and LGBT advocacy before leaving office (he signed a different bill late in 2024 that banned same-sex marriage, however). His successor – the country’s first female president – says she’ll fight for equality for everyone but has avoided saying anything about LGBT people. Meanwhile, Equal Namibia was seeking couples who want to challenge the country’s ban on same-sex marriage.
South Africa: The government continued to work on a unified marriage act which will combine several marriage laws for different religious communities and the same-sex Civil Union Act into a single law. It has not yet cleared parliament.
Eswatini: The leading LGBT advocacy group Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities went back to court to challenge the government’s decision to deny them a company registration. The supreme court had ordered the government to reconsider their application back in 2023, but the minister’s decision remained the same.
Malawi: The Minister of Justice said the country is committed to abolishing the death penalty, having already completed public consultations, but no bill has been brought forward yet.
Zambia: The constitutional court dismissed a challenge to the country’s sodomy laws, ruling that the court lacked jurisdiction as the challenge needed to be filed before the country’s high court first. The Zambia Civil Liberties Union says they will refile the case.
Zimbabwe: In July, the government launched a legal reform process to recognize the rights of intersex people. We’ll see what comes of this.
The ruling party’s national conference also vowed to intensify and enforce laws banning homosexuality in late 2024, though no new legislation has been put forward.
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