What can creativity do in the face of Ghana’s Anti-LBGTQ+ Bill

A conversation with Creativity Pioneer Nana Akosua Hanson. Nana is a journalist, activist, and co-founder of Moongilrs Live.

Edited by Lwando Xaso.

 

In 2023, it was reported that in as much as LGBTQ+ rights were gaining momentum globally, many countries, from the United States to Uganda, are pushing back with draconian legal measures. This alarming pushback gained increased momentum when on 28 February 2024, Ghana’s parliament passed the controversial and stringent ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill’ that increases criminal penalties for consensual same-sex conduct and criminalises individuals and organisations who advocate for LGBTQ+ people.

 

Ghanaian feminist creative, journalist and activist, Nana Akosua Hanson, who is part of the Creativity Pioneers community, has felt the impact of this Bill quite acutely. Akosua Hanson is also the creator of Moongirls, an African graphic novel series which is part of her broader work to alter sociocultural conditions that are oppressive towards women, queer people and other marginalised identities in-between.  We reached out to her to find out more about the origins of the Bill, how it impacts her, her community and the public at large and how creativity can be a tool for resistance.

 

Here is her overview of the landscape.

From your vantage point, what are the origins of the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill (the Bill), and how supported is it by the general population?

 

I believe the formation of what has culminated in becoming this hate Bill started in 2018. In this time, a local anti-LGBTQ+ organisation calling itself The National Coalition for Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values (the Coalition) had been thrust into the spotlight. They had reportedly camped 400 people to be ‘treated for homosexuality and this made Ghanaian mainstream news. The Coalition openly declared its use of conversion therapy which has been designated by the United Nations and the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims as torture. Perversely this is when the Coalition began gaining popularity and local support in an already homophobic climate.

 

After this, the Coalition sustained a strong campaign against LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms in Ghana, whipping up hate and thereby increasing the violence against the LGBTQ+ community and anyone simply perceived to be so. This sustained campaign included a campaign against an attempted governmental introduction of a more comprehensive sex education curriculum, tagging it as part of a ‘LGBTQ agenda’. It also included a workshop run by homophobic health professionals training other health professionals in conversion therapy and generally whipping up disinformation in the local media.

 

Ghana, before this, had already been quite homophobic under the guise of religion. Extremist local religious groups are the main proponents of anti-LGBTQ+ hate, legitimising their hate using a divinity and a higher power, which makes it much more difficult to establish any rationality when dealing with these religiously radicalised minds. Every year, there are reported cases of gay men being lured, beaten up and robbed by homophobic vigilantes. Thus, in such a climate, all it took was a spark to set everything aflame.

 

In 2019, the World Congress of Families, widely considered a hate group, aided by local actors (including members of the Coalition) organised an anti-LGBTQ+ conference in Ghana. It was well attended by a wide cross section of religious leaders, high ranking health professionals, lawyers, the media, and more.  Soon after this conference, the Bill was introduced in parliament to fully erase Ghanaian queer and trans existence, and to push Ghana further into religious conservatism.

 

Unfortunately, I would say that this Bill is generally not an important issue to the average Ghanaian who is crumbling under our worst economic turmoil in years and struggling for basic resources. In the last 5 years, Ghanaians have been suffering under the yoke of economic breakdown with high inflation, high unemployment rates, deepening poverty, general mismanagement of the country’s resources, frequent power outages, heavy taxation, high cost of goods and services, with a corresponding decline in income due to a foreign exchange crisis. All this has meant that more people have been pushed into poverty.  The growing concerted effort of fundamentalist religious forces, hoping to deepen their societal power and to take advantage of an increasingly impoverished people, has drawn strong attention to the Bill. It has become a tool for politicians to discredit their opponents, the impact felt even greater in this election year.

What are the effects of this Bill on your work and you personally?

 

The Bill targets all forms of advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms. This is unprecedented as it not only silences a minority group by criminalising a person’s identity, it also silences any form of allyship or advocacy on behalf of that person’s rights. For instance, if this Bill officially becomes law, a lawyer representing an LGBTQ+ person in court can also be jailed just for doing their job. In my work as a journalist, if I present any other fact or knowledge about gender and sexuality which opposes the Bill’s definition of gender and sexuality, I will be jailed.

 

The Bill targets freedom of expression in the creative arts industry which includes cultural sites, visual arts, performing arts, music, publishing and literary arts, audio visual and new media design. Any form of art that is contrary to the law of ‘promoting ‘Ghanaian family values’ will be seen as ‘promotion of the LGBTQ+’.

 

My work as a sex educator and artist will be criminalised as prohibited advocacy. I have been dedicated to creating art, creating spaces and a sex education curriculum which contributes to a re-education against homophobia and transphobia. It is precisely because of this suppression of education that this Bill can dare to exist.

 

Proponents of the Bill have publicly admitted that its intent is to target advocates and have displayed a blatant abuse of state machinery to perpetuate violence against citizens. If this Bill becomes law, Moongirls, my speculative fiction series and graphic novel, will be banned literature and I will be liable to be imprisoned for advocacy.

 

The freedom of creative expression is a very basic human right which enables artists to create and produce new knowledge and never in our history has it ever been criminalised.

I know this Bill isn’t law just yet- but since its passing by Parliament, have there been any adverse consequences that you have noted which are only to escalate if it becomes law?

 

Whenever LGBTQ+ discussions trend in Ghana, as they have since the introduction of this Bill in 2021, violence against LGBTQ people increases. There are reported incidents of community beatings and public shaming of people purported to be homosexual. Using state machinations, twenty-one activists were arrested and imprisoned for up to 3 weeks for simply attending a workshop. It took harnessing global outcry for them to be released.

 

The Ghanaian media has even been complicit in perpetuating violence against the LBGTQ+ and women who have spoken up against the Bill. By presenting malicious clickbait headlines, misquotation and misrepresentation of facts, the media has exposed them to public ridicule, verbal abuse and threats.

 

The Bill has also had traumatic effects on the mental health of LGBTQ+ persons, whose very identities have been criminalised. As mentioned earlier, Ghana is going through economic turmoil where more and more people are being pushed into poverty and now added to that bleak reality for queer and trans people is the trauma of navigating threats to their freedom of movement and livelihood. I know of and have heard of queer people losing their jobs in this time due to this hateful climate. The effects of this trauma on the LBGTQ community will only escalate when the Bill is passed.

 

What is being done by the Ghanaian creative communities to oppose this Bill?

 

Creatives and artists who are also activists are quietly resisting. We are continuing to create in spite of this Bill and its dangers.  Education and re-education are some of the work being done by some creative communities. Artists are using film, visual art, animation, fiction, music and more to challenge the reality of Ghana we see today to inspire a collective imagination of a free and fair society we could become instead.

 

A few prominent artists with societal influence are speaking against this Bill and by doing so, are transforming and changing minds while risking cyber and media attacks.

 

At this stage of Bill’s life, the main arena is in parliament and the courts, and thus any work by artists in opposition may largely feel peripheral but it does have an impact.

What are the less obvious effects of the Bill for Ghana and its people across the board?

 

In the popularity of this Bill amongst Ghanaians, Ghana is destroying its international reputation as a beacon of African democracy. In a period of the initiative of the ‘Year of Return’ where the African Diaspora is encouraged, by our government, to visit Ghana after 400 years of slavery, this Bill has tarnished Ghana’s hospitable reputation.

 

 

What can the Creativity Pioneers community and anyone else who is concerned about this Bill, do to influence the matter constructively?

 

 

It is critical that as many people as possible raise awareness about what is happening in Ghana. Unfortunately, due to our internal homophobic climate, voices of reason are drowned out. Therefore, voices from outside Ghana are needed to draw attention to this issue.

 

It is also important to lift up the voices and the work of Ghanaian artists and activists whose advocacy will be criminalised if this Bill becomes law.

 

Our parliamentarians and lawmakers must be challenged to uphold the tenets of democracy over personal prejudice and must be held accountable for acting contrary to their mandate,

 

The fundamentalist religious hold on the people of Ghana is fed by conservative forces from countries around the world.  It would be incredibly impactful if the Creativity Pioneers and anyone who wants to join the fight, challenge extremist views and voices in their own countries. Reducing the global strength of extremist movements will go a long way to disenfranchise the growing fundamentalist voices in Ghana.

 

This struggle is interconnected.