Majority Leader in Parliament Alexander Afenyo-Markin has pointed to the Accra Central prison as a place where sodomy is practised among inmates.
According to him, he has experienced instances when Police officers have advised him to ensure that his clients who are on remand, are not detained at the Accra Central cells because they risk being sodomised.
“Sodomy takes its roots from the prisons, people get sodomized in our prison and in our cells. I am a practitioner of the law, I have done criminal cases for many years and sometimes when your clients are being sent to cells, the Police themselves will tell you that Counsel, make sure ‘sɛɛ omu nfanu nkɔ’ Accra central (make sure that he is not taken to Accra central), you ask why, and they tell you ‘ehɔ diɛ ɔmu bɛ yɛnu saasaa, ɔmu bɛ yɛnu sei’ (they will do this and that to him). They tell us, why are we pretending that we don’t know the everyday story on our streets?” he quizzed during an interview with Berla Mundi on the New Day Show, February 29.
Mr Afenyo-Markin cited this instance to buttress his point about the need for non-custodial sentence for persons who will fall foul of the law when it is assented to by President Akufo-Addo.
Ghana’s Parliament on Wednesday, February 28 passed the anti-LGBTQI bill after successfully going through all three reading stages.
The Promotion of Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, prescribes, “A minimum custodial sentence of three (3) years and a maximum of five (5) years for individuals found to be willfully promoting, sponsoring, or supporting LGBTQ+ activities. Person guilty of engaging in activities of LGBTQ+ will face a minimum custodial sentence six (6) months and a maximum of three (3) years.”
However, the Majority Leader asked, “How does conviction and incarceration solve the problem? For me, on balance, since it is a behavioral challenge, engage some clinical psychologists on it. I engaged them prior to my views publicly and three of them I engaged, they told me clearly that when dealing with issues of behavioral addictions, you don’t play the hard ball to get solutions. Do you incarcerate a drug addict? You create a space for rehabilitation, that rehabilitation will require some therapy or some procedure to get the person out of that behaviour, you don’t put the person in a situation where that behaviour will be reinforced.
“So you say the person is gay, or lesbian and you throw the person in jail, will you get the result that you want? I beg to differ,” Mr Afenyo-Markin stressed.
Prior to the passage, a human rights coalition, comprising of CDD Ghana, “the big 18” and others had called on President Akufo-Addo not to assent to the bill in its current state.
Prof Audrey Gadzekpo who is part of the group, at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, February, 27, 2024 noted that the Bill will infringe on the fundamental human rights of many including the media as enshrined by the 1992 Constitution.
Professor Gadzekpo said “We observed that proposals to amend the Bill to substitute community services for in castration that was made by the Member of Parliament for Effutu, Mr. Afenyo-Markin was unfortunately rejected. Although his amendments were opposed by the majority of the house leading to a removal of the proposed amendments, we appreciate his effort aimed at reforming our justice system.”
