The government of Senegal, led by Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, this week introduced in Parliament in Dakar a draft law that would drastically raise the penalties for consensual same-sex activities. The proposal seeks to lift the current penalty range for so-called “unnatural acts” between people of the same gender from a maximum of five years to a potential ten years in prison. In addition, the draft contemplates substantial fines and, for the first time, would criminalize not only the acts themselves but also their “promotion.”
Sonko, who has been in office since 2024 and was formerly known as an opposition figure, told the National Assembly that any “act against nature” would fall under this new penal framework. The maximum sentence would be mandatory in cases involving individuals under the age of 21. The draft also aims to criminalize anyone who accuses another person of same-sex acts “without evidence.”
For activists and organizations advocating for queer rights, the proposal would impose prison terms of three to seven years under a provision addressing the support of homosexuality. A date for the parliamentary vote on the bill has not yet been set.
Arrests, mobs and demonstrations
Human rights groups warn that this could trigger a wider escalation of discrimination and violence. Human Rights Watch criticized the bill as contravening international human rights obligations and as further endangering an already stigmatized LGBT community.
Religious and conservative groups have, in recent years, sometimes held demonstrations calling for a tougher law, presenting it as a defense of “Senegalese values” against perceived foreign influences. In October 2023, a mob in Kaolack, about 125 miles southeast of Dakar, exhumed the body of a man believed to be gay, dragged it through the streets, and burned it in front of a large crowd at the market square. Footage of the incident spread rapidly online.
In the past weeks, several arrests of presumed gay individuals have occurred nationwide, including several high-profile men. In Dakar, police detained twelve men on charges that included “unnatural acts” and the deliberate transmission of HIV. Investigators reportedly examined chat transcripts from a man and arrested his suspected sexual partners.
