Gay man stabbed by intruder who tried to force him into having sex
A man broke into a house to demand a gay man have sex with him. (Rightify Ghana)
A gay man was stabbed by an intruder who tried to force him into sex in Cape Coast, Ghana.
Warning – violence.
The victim was staying in a rented property belonging to a friend (who was out of town) on 3 July when he was awakened by the sound of someone trying to force his bedroom door open.
After checking outside – only to find nobody there – he was resting on a chair in the bedroom, struggling to fall back asleep.
“While sitting quietly, I saw someone jump from the ceiling into the corridor,” he told the LGBTQ+ group Rightify Ghana.
“It was a man with a small torch light and a pair of scissors. Then I quickly went outside and asked him: ‘What do you want here?'”
The man replied: “I am coming to do gay.”
A struggle ensued after the victim refused to have sex with the man, with the two wrestling until they were outside of the property. The victim desperately shouted ‘thief’ as he pleaded for someone on the street to help him.
The perpetrator fled as two people walked towards them.
“That is when I realised that I was bleeding and saw that he had stabbed me multiple times with his scissors,” the victim recalled.
He blacked out only to wake up at a hospital on Cape Coast. He had suffered multiple cuts across his shoulders and arms.
The victim has since reported the incident to the Kotokuraba District Police Headquarters.
Anti-LGBTQ+ violence is rising in Ghana – and it’s about to get even worse, say activists
Rightify Ghana noted that homophobia is becoming all too common in the western African country, fuelled partly by anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric coming from the government.
A new piece of legislation, the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, is currently being considered by lawmakers. It would strengthen Ghana’s already homophobic laws.
The country already considers gay sex a crime. If passed, the bill would criminalise actions from two people of the same sex holding hands to non-LGBTQ+ people supporting queer rights.
Supporters of the bill have even urged lawmakers during public hearings to introduce state-sanctioned conversion therapy as part of the legislation.
Rightify Ghana says: “The attacks we are witnessing make it clear that Ghana is not safe for LGBTQI persons.
“People are living in fear as groups promoting homophobia continue to ignore how their actions are encouraging discrimination and violence against LGBTQI Ghanaians, who are also citizens of our beloved country.
The increasing violence is stretching already over-worked LGBTQ+ organisations that have to make do with next to no supplies and limited access to support services, the group adds.
And it’s about to get even worse as the bill progresses.
“We continue to call on the parliament of Ghana and the president Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo-Addo to reject the far-reaching anti-LGBTQI bill,” Rightify Ghana says.
“Its passage will worsen an already bad situation for the LGBTQI community in Ghana.”
