isnt their president a proud secular guy with a christian and a muslim wife? he is implementing laws that both christians and muslims in senegal will agree with, W for secularism
RaidBrimnes on
!ping AFRICA&LGBT
Promises made, promises kept. The left-wing nationalist party PASTEF, who won the presidential and legislative elections in 2024 in a landslide, has approved a bill to be forwarded to Parliament for adoption that would double prison sentences – from five to ten years – and multiply fines sixfold – from 1.5 million CFA francs to 10 million ($2,700 to $18,000 – three times the average yearly wage) – in punishment of “acts against nature”, specifically targeting homosexuality.
The legislation comes after a national scandal in which ten people were arrested and accused of voluntarily transmitting HIV through homosexual acts, which unleashed a wave of homophobic violence through the country. Several protests to demand a crackdown on homosexuality took place, and the government endorsed the rhetoric assimilating LGBT+ people to “groomers” and homosexuality to pedophilia.
Homosexuality has been formally illegal in Senegal since the French colonial period, dating to a Vichy regime ordonnance, but the country has recently experienced a surge of homophobic violence matching broader global trends, notably in Africa. In recent years, national legislation to punish homosexual acts and target LGBT+ people have been advanced in Ghana and Kenya, while Uganda introduced the death penalty for homosexual acts in 2023; Burkina Faso also outlawed homosexuality after a long period of de facto tolerance in 2025. Moved by grassroots social conservatism, often animated by anti-West sentiment, and fanned by foreign powers like Russia or US religious organizations, homophobia is steadily increasing on the African continent and finding support in the higher spheres of power, transcending political parties and geopolitical alignments.
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isnt their president a proud secular guy with a christian and a muslim wife? he is implementing laws that both christians and muslims in senegal will agree with, W for secularism
!ping AFRICA&LGBT
Promises made, promises kept. The left-wing nationalist party PASTEF, who won the presidential and legislative elections in 2024 in a landslide, has approved a bill to be forwarded to Parliament for adoption that would double prison sentences – from five to ten years – and multiply fines sixfold – from 1.5 million CFA francs to 10 million ($2,700 to $18,000 – three times the average yearly wage) – in punishment of “acts against nature”, specifically targeting homosexuality.
The legislation comes after a national scandal in which ten people were arrested and accused of voluntarily transmitting HIV through homosexual acts, which unleashed a wave of homophobic violence through the country. Several protests to demand a crackdown on homosexuality took place, and the government endorsed the rhetoric assimilating LGBT+ people to “groomers” and homosexuality to pedophilia.
Homosexuality has been formally illegal in Senegal since the French colonial period, dating to a Vichy regime ordonnance, but the country has recently experienced a surge of homophobic violence matching broader global trends, notably in Africa. In recent years, national legislation to punish homosexual acts and target LGBT+ people have been advanced in Ghana and Kenya, while Uganda introduced the death penalty for homosexual acts in 2023; Burkina Faso also outlawed homosexuality after a long period of de facto tolerance in 2025. Moved by grassroots social conservatism, often animated by anti-West sentiment, and fanned by foreign powers like Russia or US religious organizations, homophobia is steadily increasing on the African continent and finding support in the higher spheres of power, transcending political parties and geopolitical alignments.