Why was being gay illewgal

The bill is being sponsored by 10 lawmakers from both major parties, "an unusual bipartisan effort in Ghana's polarised political landscape", said The Africa Reportand comes "despite international outcry and warnings from Ghana's key development partners". Escape your echo chamber.

Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. It follows similar laws passed last year in Mali, to protect "traditional and moral values"and in Burkino Fasowhere an amended "family code" now outlaws homosexuality.

Uganda also passed a law making identifying as gay "punishable by prison time", upping "the ante" in a country where gay sex was already illegal, said The Washington Post. There are 64 countries worldwide that still criminalise homosexuality, with 12 countries — IranNorthern Nigeria, Saudi ArabiaSomalia, YemenAfghanistanBrunei, Mauritania, PakistanQatar, United Arab Emirates, and Uganda — imposing a possible death sentence for private, consensual same-sex sexual activity, said Statista.

Here are the countries where homosexuality is still criminalised:.

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Gay rights are constitutionally enshrined in most of South and North America. However, there are exceptions, mostly in the "conservative Caribbean", said AP. In recent years, more and more countries in the region have "struck down colonial-era" laws. Barbados, and St Kitts and Nevis repealed their laws infollowing similar moves by Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Most countries in Europe have no laws preventing homosexual activities. Hungary does not recognise same sex marriagehas banned same-sex couples from adopting why was being gay illewgal and passed a law preventing people from legally changing their gender.

Last November, the European Court of Justice began hearing a case over Hungary's law, brought by 16 of its 27 member states. They believe the law is "modelled after a similar piece of legislation enacted in Russia " and it has already been "declared unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights", said Al Jazeera.

The ruling, which is still not expected for months, "could further determine the already tense relationship between Hungary and its EU partners", said Euronews. Homosexuality carries a sentence of capital punishment in Mauritania, Sudansouthern Somalia and northern Nigeria.

Amnesty International has warned that "legal rights are diminishing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people across the African continent". Asia and the Middle East. In the overwhelmingly Islamic Middle East, it is quicker to highlight the countries that do not currently have anti-gay laws than those that do.

In several nations, same-sex relations are punishable by death. Bahrain, Israel and Jordan are the only countries in the region that do not outlaw homosexuality. Even in these countries, police protections offered to sexual minorities are minimal and vigilante justice often prevails.

Asia has a mixed record on gay rights. Many countries on the continent have never passed any form of anti-gay legislation, including Cambodia, South Korea, Taiwan, Laos and the Philippines. Japan decriminalised homosexuality almost years ago. Oceania is a continent of sharp contrasts when it comes to anti-LGBT laws.

Six of the 14 countries of the continent have passed anti-gay legislation. Kiribati and the Solomon Islands are the harshest enforcers of these laws, with sentences of up to 14 years for homosexual acts. The Cook Islands repealed its anti-gay laws inhaving "rarely, if ever" enforced them, said Reuters.

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