Lawmakers in Gabon Vote to Decriminalise Homosexuality
A bill to decriminalise homosexual activity is making headway in Gabon, as lawmakers in the lower house of parliament on Tuesday voted to decriminalise homosexuality, making it one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa to reverse a law that punishes sexual relations between people of the same sex.
The central African country’s National Assembly voted late Tuesday to adopt an amendment to criminal legislation to remove a paragraph which prohibits “sexual relations between persons of the same sex”, a source close to parliament has been confirmed as saying.
The text had been introduced by the Senate, the upper house, into a draft law in July 2019. It stipulated that having homosexual relations in Gabon was considered “an offence against morality”, punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine of five million CFA francs ($8,600, 7,600 euros).
On Tuesday however, 48 deputies reportedly voted in favour of decriminalization, 24 against and 25 abstained.
“Forty-eight lawmakers have shaken an entire nation and its customs and traditions,” one member of parliament who voted against the revision told Reuters.
For the bill to be passed, the text must still be adopted in the same terms by the Senate.
The criminalisation of homosexuality had gone almost unnoticed in this country of less than two million inhabitants when it was adopted last year. The amendment voted by the National Assembly on Tuesday, meanwhile, caused a stir in the local press and on social media networks on Wednesday.
Homosexuality is widely criminalised in sub-Saharan Africa, with more than half of its countries banning or repressing homosexual relations – in a few places, with the threat of the death penalty.
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5 Comments
Black Dynasty
June 25, 06:33I hope this goes through! Let other west/central African countries see that society doesn’t suddenly break down because homosexuality is decriminalised.
Fred
June 25, 10:43If the small (but not so small) countries of Sub-Sahara Africa keep taking giant leaps like this, aren’t they going to fly higher than the so-called giants of Africa?
I hope this goes well for Gabon
Mandy
June 25, 13:49Nigeria, see your junior brother ooo. Change must come for us, however much my country people kick and scream against it.
I hope Gabon gets to the place of recognition of the rights of its citizens
Edwin
June 26, 08:28Now at least we have Gabon ?? to run to. Let me go and check their economy. Who knows, I might start a family ???? there after all, cos boys are not getting any younger. ??♀️
Gabon takes another step further in the decriminalisation of Homosexuality – KitoDiaries
July 01, 06:16[…] women was illegal. The government did not explain why it decided to revise the law. The bill won the support of the lower house last […]