Parliament passes sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ law, and people begin to disappear from public life

Ghana's Parliament approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, a law that criminalises identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer and punishes what it calls the promotion, sponsorship or funding of LGBTQ+ activity. Reuters reported the approval on 29 May 2026; the Guardian reported days later that queer Ghanaians described panic, with prison terms of up to three years attached to identity alone.

For the people we work with, the law does not begin at the prison gate. It begins with landlords, employers, family members and neighbours who now believe the state has given them permission. In the weeks after the vote we heard from people who left rented rooms overnight, stopped attending clinics, and cut contact with the friends who had been their only support.

Provisions that criminalise 'promotion' also reach the people who help. Paralegals, health workers, counsellors and journalists who document abuses can all be read into the offence, which is precisely how such laws silence the record of what is being done.

Why Not Rights records these cases, connects people to lawyers and safe accommodation where we can, and keeps a public account of what the law does in practice rather than what it claims to do.