As Pride Month draws to a close, a series of developments across Africa demands attention beyond the usual debates about LGBTQI+ rights. What is at stake is also the health of democracy, the meaning of human dignity, and the future of rights on the continent.
The contrast is stark. In Botswana, the law has moved toward greater constitutional protection. In Ghana, Senegal, Niger, and Uganda, governments are hardening criminal penalties, widening the reach of prosecution, and giving political force to exclusion.
From our work at Sonke Gender Justice and MenEngage Africa, alongside governments, civil society organisations, community leaders, and young people across the continent, one lesson is clear: attacks on LGBTQI+ rights rarely stand alone. They are often part of a wider politics of control, one that restricts rights, narrows civic space, and reinforces unequal power.
Recent developments across Africa illustrate this pattern.
Botswana: advancing constitutional protections
Botswana has continued a path that strengthens constitutional protections and affirms human dignity.
In March, the government formally removed the colonial-era “unnatural offences” provisions from its Penal Code. For decades, these provisions carried sentences of up to seven years in prison for consensual same-sex intimacy.
The repeal completed a legal process set in motion by landmark court rulings, including the 2019 High Court decision later upheld on appeal. Although the provisions had been declared unconstitutional, they remained in the books for years, continuing to fuel stigma, discrimination, and fear.
Public debate continues, including a case now before the High Court seeking to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Even so, Botswana’s experience demonstrates that African institutions can confront discriminatory colonial legacies while remaining firmly rooted in local constitutional values.
Elsewhere, the trajectory has been markedly different.
In Ghana, Parliament has passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, which now awaits presidential assent. The bill would impose a minimum three-year prison sentence for consensual same-sex acts and up to five years for anyone found to “promote, sponsor, or support” LGBTQI+ rights. Its reach extends to journalists, healthcare workers, and human rights defenders, and it would create a duty for citizens to report suspected violations to the police.
In Senegal, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has signed legislation doubling the maximum penalty for same-sex relations to ten years in prison. The law also introduces criminal penalties for “promoting” or financing same-sex relationships. It followed a wave of arrests and a campaign by a local organisation claiming to hold a list of more than 600 people it accused of being gay, reportedly to support efforts to shut down LGBTQI+ rights organisations. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights described the law as flying in the face of fundamental human rights.
Most recently, Niger’s military government adopted a revised Penal Code that criminalises homosexuality for the first time in the country’s history. Taking effect on 11 June, the new code punishes same-sex acts with five to ten years in prison and a fine. It also imposes prison sentences of ten to twenty years on anyone who officiates, witnesses, or helps organise a same-sex marriage, or who manages, finances, or participates in an LGBTQI+ association. This marks a significant shift in a country where same-sex relations, while heavily stigmatised, had not previously been criminal offences.
Niger now joins more than thirty of Africa’s fifty-four countries that criminalise same-sex conduct, a small number of which, including Uganda, carry the death penalty. Viewed separately, these developments may appear to be domestic policy choices shaped by local politics. Viewed together, they point to something larger: the growing influence of organised anti-rights movements across the continent.
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 was a watershed. It introduced life imprisonment for consensual same-sex acts, ten years for attempted same-sex acts, twenty years for the vague offence of “promotion of homosexuality,” and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.” Uganda’s Constitutional Court upheld the law in 2024. Its consequences for LGBTQI+ Ugandans have been devastating, but its political effect has reached further: it helped legitimise a strategy that recasts the rollback of rights as the defence of culture, religion, and sovereignty. That script is now being used elsewhere.
That should worry far more than LGBTQI+ communities alone.
In our work, we have seen the same arguments turned against women’s rights organisations, sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates, comprehensive sexuality education, and independent civil society. The vocabulary shifts from place to place, but the logic is consistent: some people are cast as less deserving of rights, less entitled to protection, and less welcome in public life.
The danger is not abstract.
As practitioners working on gender justice and violence prevention, we know these struggles are connected. The rigid gender norms that fuel hostility towards LGBTQI+ people also drive violence against women and girls. Efforts to control bodily autonomy affect women, young people, and sexual minorities alike. Attempts to silence dissent weaken communities’ ability to organise, advocate, and hold governments to account.
Across Africa, our work has shown that inclusion does not weaken societies. Communities are safer when people can live without violence and discrimination. Democracies are stronger when rights are protected consistently, not selectively. Social cohesion is built through belonging, not exclusion.
That is why the recent moves in Ghana, Senegal, and Niger matter beyond the communities immediately targeted. They are part of a wider contest over the kind of societies African countries are becoming. Will constitutional protections apply to all citizens, or only to those deemed acceptable by political majorities? Will governments protect diversity and dissent, or narrow the boundaries of belonging? Will democratic institutions expand rights, or help restrict them?
Botswana points to another path. It shows that African countries can advance rights through their own courts, democratic institutions, and constitutional traditions. It also rejects the false claim that equality and dignity are imports. These values are already present in many African constitutions and in long-standing traditions of community, ubuntu, and justice.
As anti-rights movements gather strength across the world and on the continent, defending these principles has become urgent. This is not only a debate about LGBTQI+ rights. It is a test of whether societies still uphold the basic promise that every person is entitled to dignity, protection, and justice.
Responding to this moment requires more than statements of concern after each new law is passed. African governments that have committed to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and to other regional and international human rights instruments, must be held to those commitments, including through the African Commission and African Court systems created for that purpose. Regional bodies such as the African Union and the Southern African Development Community should speak clearly when member states adopt laws that violate shared human rights standards; silence too easily reads as consent. Donors and international partners must not abandon the civil society organisations, journalists, and human rights defenders now exposed to prosecution for doing their work. Funding, legal support, and protection must reach those most at risk. Those of us working in gender justice and violence prevention must also keep making the connections plain: LGBTQI+ rights, women’s rights, and civic space are not separate struggles. They are part of the same fight over whether rights in Africa will be applied equally or selectively.
The future of LGBTQI+ rights in Africa matters. But the larger question is whether the continent’s circle of rights and freedoms will expand or contract. The answer will shape the lives of sexual and gender minorities. It will also shape the future of democracy, gender justice, and human rights for everyone.
The authors are Mabel Sengendo Nabaggala, Regional Programs Manager, and Mpiwa Mangwiro, Policy, Development, and Advocacy Manager at Sonke Gender Justice.
