[ 2021-02-12 ]

LGBT legalization: Ayorkor Botchwey sends message to Joe Biden
The Minister-designate for Foreign Affairs and
Regional Integration has reacted to United States
(US) President, Joseph Biden’s decision to
sanction countries yet to make laws that
accommodate homosexuals.

Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, when answering a
question during her vetting on Thursday, said
Ghana’s laws clearly criminalise the practice.

Her statement comes after President Biden on
Thursday, February 4, issued a memorandum aimed at
expanding protection of the rights of lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender and queer and intersex
(LGBTQI) people worldwide, including potentially
through the use of financial sanctions.

According to President Biden, all human beings
should be treated with respect and dignity and
should be able to live without fear no matter who
they are or who they love.

The memo further directs U.S. agencies working
abroad to work harder to combat the
criminalisation by foreign governments of LGBTQ
status or conduct, and directs the State
Department to include anti-LGBTQ violence,
discrimination and laws in its annual human rights
report.

But Miss Botchwey said Ghana is a sovereign
country and has its own laws that its citizenry
must abide by regardless of the relationship the
country has established with other countries.

“Ghana is a sovereign country but as part of our
foreign policy we engage countries all over the
world; America is one of our strongest friends.
But in this country we have laws. And our laws
work and must work.

“So in spite of what somebody will say and in
this case President Biden, the laws of Ghana
criminalises unlawful carnal knowledge and
therefore the laws of Ghana definitely are supreme
and that is what we all adhere to,” she noted.

Source - Happyfm

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