Human Rights Watch submits evidence to Parliament against the 'family values' bill

Human Rights Watch submitted a written memorandum to the parliamentary committee considering the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Act, drawing on sustained field research and documentation of conditions in Ghana.

The memorandum sets out what documentation, rather than rhetoric, shows: that criminalisation drives people away from HIV testing and treatment, that it licenses blackmail and mob violence, and that vague 'promotion' offences are used against human rights defenders and health workers.

Submissions like this matter to our work because they create a public record inside the legislative process. When a harm was foreseen, evidenced and ignored, that fact belongs in the history of the law.