Senegal lawmakers reject push to raise anti-LGBT punishments
Senegal lawmakers have rejected a bill that would increase the current punishment for homosexual acts from five years to ten years.
The lawmakers in a parliament committee rejected a move to have the bill approved by the full legislative body.
Homosexual activity in Senegal is illegal, punishable by imprisonment of one year to five years. Same-sex relations is legal in only 22 among the 54 countries in Africa.
Senegal lawmakers and the anti-LGBTQ bill
The Senegal legislators were members of the bureau of the national assembly, which decides what draft laws will be sent for the parliament’s vote.
This group of lawmakers had decided to reject the proposed bill because the existing legislation is already sufficiently clear and resultant penalties severe, the bureau said.
Introduced last December, the bill proposed to increase jail time to ten years for those caught committing an “act against nature” with those of the same gender.
AFP reported that the bill would have targeted “lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality, bestiality, necrophilia, and similar practices.”
Despite the rejections, Assembly Depity Alioune Souare– who helped to draft the update of the anti-LGBTQ law– told Reuters: “We hope to present the proposal to the parliament before the end of the week.”
Anti-LGBTQ bill widening its scope
Aside from stretching the imprisonment, there were other aspects of the bill targeting the LGBTQ community.
For one, 76 Crimes reported that the bill would make advocating for LGBTQ a punishable offense, up to three to five years in prison and a fine of of CFA500,000 to five million.
Likewise, the bill would also criminalize intersexuality with up to ten years in jail, citing them as “being adept at all imaginable sexual orgies.”
Activists warned this bill has been in the pipeline for the last two years.
Senegalese LGBTQ activist Djamil Bangoura urged the international community to pressure the Senegal government to reject the new legislation.
“When individual freedoms, in particular the most sacred– privacy between consenting adults– are attacked, then there is little time left to realize that democracy is in danger,” Bangoura said.
Senegal LGBTQ community to face persecution
A 2020 survey by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), an LGBTQ activist group, reported that prosecutions in Senegal are rare but this is on the rise.
Meanwhile, the international rights group Amnesty International warned that LGBTQ activists in Senegal have to deal smear campaigns and death threats.
The US State Department in their March 2021 international human rights report criticized Senegal for “violence or threats of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex persons.”
Likewise, it slammed the Senegal government for the “existence or use of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults.”
In 2016, Senegal president Macky Sall had promised: “Never, under my authority, will homosexuality be legalised in the Senegalese lands.”