Ghana Is Waiting on One Signature: What Uganda's Law Should Tell President Mahama

On 29 May 2026, Ghana’s parliament passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill by voice vote. It now needs one thing to become law: President John Dramani Mahama’s signature.

Mahama has been clear about his intentions. In November 2025 he told church leaders: “So if Parliament endorses the Bill and it comes to me, I’ll sign it.” Four and a half months after the vote, he has not yet done so.

The date of the vote is worth noticing. Uganda’s President Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act on 29 May 2023, three years to the day earlier. Ghana does not need to guess what a law like this does. Uganda has already shown it.

What Ghana’s bill would do

Same-sex intimacy is already a crime in Ghana under a colonial-era law. The bill goes much further. As reported, it would:

• create a new offence of identifying as LGBTQ+, with up to three years in prison
• raise the maximum sentence for same-sex intimacy from three years to five
• ban organisations that serve LGBTQ+ people, even partly, with up to five years for those involved
• punish supporting LGBTQ+ people or promoting their rights, including online, with up to ten years
• create a duty for families and community members to report people to the police

Late amendments added exemptions for lawyers representing clients, journalists reporting on the issue, and health workers giving care. Human Rights Watch says the bill still exposes parents of LGBTQ+ children, teachers and human rights defenders to prosecution.

The vote itself was disputed. It skipped the usual waiting period before a final reading, the Speaker said he was surprised by it, and some of the bill’s own supporters have called for it to be recalled.

Uganda’s three years

These are some of the results documented since Uganda’s Act came into force:

• Cases. In the first 32 months, the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) recorded 969 cases targeting LGBTIQ people because of who they are, affecting 1,296 individuals.
• Policing. Human Rights Watch found police posing as LGBTQ+ people on dating apps to make arrests, demanding bribes for release, and subjecting people to forced anal examinations, which it describes as torture.
• Homes. Landlords used the law to evict LGBTQ+ people, and the shelters and offices that served them.
• Health. Groups providing mental health and other services were shut down, and people stopped seeking care for fear of being exposed.
• Families. Parents told Human Rights Watch they live in fear for their children’s safety.

Laws like this do not only work through the courts. They tell neighbours, landlords, police and relatives that turning on someone is acceptable. In Uganda, that has included people being filmed and outed for others to watch.

What it cost Uganda as a country

• The World Bank halted new lending in August 2023 and did not resume for nearly two years, until it was satisfied with “mitigation measures” across its projects. We have written about what that return means.
• The United States removed Uganda from AGOA, its duty-free trade scheme, from January 2024.
• Freedom House rates Uganda “Not Free”, and cites the Act as one of the reasons its score fell.

Ghana has been warned about this before. In 2024, its own finance ministry said the earlier version of the bill could cost $3.8 billion in World Bank funding.

Even Uganda’s court drew a line

In April 2024, Uganda’s Constitutional Court upheld most of the Act, a ruling we do not accept as justice. But it struck down four sections as unconstitutional. One made it a crime to fail to report homosexuality to the police. Another made it a crime to let premises to LGBTQ+ people.

Ghana’s bill contains a duty to report. Uganda’s judges found theirs unconstitutional. Ghana’s parliament has just voted for one.

Mahama still has a choice

When parliament passed the previous version in 2024, President Akufo-Addo did not sign it, and it lapsed. Mahama himself has not always spoken as he does now. In January 2025 he told Catholic bishops that the bill should be government-sponsored rather than a private member’s bill, and said: “If we are teaching our values in school, we won’t need to pass a bill to enforce our family values.” He also said that, had he been president when the 2024 version passed, he would have sought a detailed review and advice from the relevant bodies.

That review is still possible. Ghana’s own human rights commission has warned that the bill would infringe citizens’ fundamental rights, and Cardinal Peter Turkson has called for dialogue. A disputed vote, a court ruling next door, and the evidence from Uganda are all reasons to stop.

Signing would not make Ghanaian families safer. It would make parents, teachers, landlords and neighbours responsible for policing each other, as it has in Uganda.

What you can do

• Support Ghanaian groups doing the work. Rightify Ghana is training young queer leaders in Ghana, as we described in our round-up of people still standing up for LGBTQ+ Africans.
• Share accurate information. The arguments used for Ghana’s bill are the same ones used for Uganda’s. Our myths article sets out what the evidence says.
• Raise it with your representatives. If you live in the UK or elsewhere, ask your MP or representative what your government is saying to Ghana about the bill before it is signed.

Uganda’s experience is on record. Ghana does not have to repeat it.