From the United Nations to African activists, a swift and outraged response has followed the passage of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill that will double prison sentences for LGBTQ people in Senegal. Critics are urging President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to reject the legislation.
On Wednesday, the country’s National Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill increasing penalties for same-sex intimacy – defined to include homosexuality, bisexuality and “transsexuality” – to up to ten years in prison and fines of more than US$17,000.
The bill also seeks to criminalise the funding and so-called “promotion of LGBT ideology”, clamping down on free speech and effectively outlawing any advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights under threat of three to seven years’ imprisonment.
MPs cheered and clapped as the legislation passed unopposed. “Here in our Africa, here in our Senegal, we don’t accept this homosexuality. It is not in our culture, it is not in our tradition,” railed MP Fama Be while waving her finger in the air during the debate on the legislation.
Fellow lawmaker Diaraye Ba told the Assembly to applause, “Homosexuals will no longer breathe in this country. Homosexuals will no longer have freedom of expression in this country.”
The passage of the bill follows a wave of queerphobia sweeping the country, with public protests against homosexuality and a spate of arrests of people accused of same-sex relationships. President Faye supports the legislation and is expected to sign it into law.
Hillary Innocent Taylor Seguya, a Ugandan human rights defender based in the US, described the passage of the bill as “a dark day in the history of Senegal and Africa”, adding that “the notion that homosexuality is un-African ignores Africa’s diverse sexual histories.”
Omar van Reenen, co-founder of Equal Namibia, expressed defiance, writing on X: “We’re still going to exist. African queers are not criminals in their homelands. None of these laws existed before colonisation came to erase our histories. What a shame on lawmakers who couldn’t spend an ounce of their energy passing laws that actually matter.”
Ugandan human rights activist Frank Mugisha wrote that Senegal is following a dangerous and well-worn path of state-sanctioned hate against LGBTQ+ people in Africa. “Doubling jail time for people simply for who they love is absolutely vile in 2026. This is the same shameful playbook of persecution we have seen in Uganda, and we know its devastating cost. We will not be intimidated, we will not be erased, and we WILL continue to resist.”
Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the bill was “deeply worrying” and “flies in the face of the sacrosanct human rights we all enjoy: the rights to respect, dignity, privacy, equality and freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”
Türk noted that these rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as human rights treaties to which Senegal is a party. “This law exposes people to hate crimes, abuse, arbitrary arrests, blackmail and widespread discrimination in education, health, employment and housing. Furthermore, it restricts the legitimate work of human rights defenders, the media and freedom of expression of everyone in Senegal.”
He called on President Faye “not to sign this harmful law into effect, and for authorities to repeal the existing discriminatory law and to uphold the human rights of all in Senegal, without discrimination.”
In a Facebook statement, Pan Africa ILGA and ILGA World said President Faye should not sign the “outrageous law” and must instead “uphold the values of respect for individual liberty and the human person at the core of the Constitution and all the people of Senegal.”
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, agreed and also urged Faye to reject the proposed legislation, highlighting its potential impact on the fight against HIV/AIDS.
“Such laws drive people underground and away from life-saving services, deepen stigma and fear, and endanger lives. Laws should protect people’s dignity and health – not punish them for who they are,” she added. “Leave judgement to God.”
