Homosexual sex is penalized in 31 African countries

GAYLES.TV.- La Superior Court of Gaborone has considered two articles of the criminal code of Botswana that criminalize consensual homosexual activities between adults. With this decision he decriminalizes homosexuality in this southern country of Africa.

The sections have been invalidated 164 y 165 of the penal code of Botswana, approved in 1964. Specifically those that criminalized the «carnal knowledge against nature" Y "indecent acts between people«.

One of the three magistrates of the case, Michael Leburu, has stated that in his opinion «164 and 165 sections undermine the plaintiff's right to dignity, privacy and freedom and, ultimately, are discriminatory in practice«.

The plaintiffs had requested review the constitutionality of laws that criminalize sexual acts between people of the same sex, currently punished with penalties of up to seven years in jail.

LGTBI persecution in Africa

Botswana The group of 21 nations on the African continent thus joins, as Rwanda, Cote d'Ivoire o Seychelles, that do not criminalize homosexual relations, either because they have been decriminalized or because of a legal vacuum.

This is good news for the LGTBI community (Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual and Intersex) in Africa, after the coup suffered this May 24 in Kenya, when the Nairobi Superior Court declared constitutional articles of the Criminal Code that criminalize homosexual relations.

According to 2017 data of the International Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Trans and Intersex (ILGA) homosexual sex is penalized in 31 African countries.

But the situation of the continent is different depending on the area, while South Africa is the only country that allows gay marriage from 2006, to other places such as the north of Nigeria where there is the death penalty governed by Islamic law.