In Senegal, the debate surrounding the rights of LGBTQ persons has reached a new threshold with the announcement of a bill aimed at tightening the criminalisation of homosexuality, including prison sentences for what is described as the “promotion” or “apology” of homosexuality. The proposal was sent to the National Assembly after cabinet approval last week, after a wave of arrests over alleged same-sex relationships. Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said the “acts against nature” would be punished with prison sentences ranging from five to 10 years, compared with the current one- to five-year terms.
This initiative emerges within a political climate marked by strong sovereigntist rhetoric amid an economic crisis, in which the defence of “cultural values” is presented as a response to external pressures. The government claims to protect Senegalese socio-cultural realities against what it portrays as a Western imposition. Yet this legislative hardening targets vulnerable citizens without addressing the country’s structural challenges: youth unemployment, governance, institutional reform, and social justice.
The bill enlisted support from many within anti-neocolonial discourse in Francophone Africa. For instance, Nathalie Yamb, a Cameroonian-Swiss national, former advisor to Mamadou Koulibaly, former President of the National Assembly of Côte d’Ivoire, posted on X, “Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has introduced a bill tightening the criminalisation of homosexuality in Senegal. The promotion of homosexuality will also be punishable by 3 to 7 years in prison. Those who are too angry should emigrate to Côte d’Ivoire or to Europe.”
Each episode of tension surrounding sexual minorities becomes a political intervention space where the proclaimed defence of cultural sovereignty translates into the legitimisation of hostility toward queer people. This consistency reveals not only an assumed ideological line but also a positioning strategy in which anti-LGBT rhetoric becomes a marker of authenticity and a tool for populist mobilisation. Over the last few years, West Africa has experienced a sharp rise in anti-LGBTQI+ mobilization as political actors in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana have weaponized the concept of “African values” to dehumanize the community and justify harsh discriminatory laws. By 2024, state-sanctioned hostility and new legislation triggered a surge in violence, exploiting moral panics to destabilize even historically tolerant nations like Côte d’Ivoire.
Two things can be true at the same time. Africa’s pursuit of economic, religious, and cultural independence is legitimate. Yet the intensification of anti-LGBTQ legislation in Senegal and countries like Burkina Faso does not constitute liberation. It is a political strategy that targets vulnerable citizens while leaving fundamental questions of governance and development unresolved.
Across the continent, the aspiration for sovereignty is real.
African societies claim the right to define their own economic models, moral frameworks, and cultural references without external prescription. This demand is rooted in a long history of domination and in the persistent sense of unfinished independence. It expresses a call for dignity and self-determination that deserves to be taken seriously.
Yet sovereignty cannot be reduced to punishment. And this sovereignty should not remain at an abstract nationalist level; it calls us to interrogate how every individual’s freedoms are guaranteed.
The proposed tightening of Senegal’s anti-homosexuality legislation does not expand economic freedom. It does not restructure asymmetric trade relations. It doesn’t offer a way out of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency- the CFA Franc, which Senegal still uses and, like other African former French colonies, is still chained to. It does not strengthen public institutions or reduce youth unemployment. It does not prevent migration tragedies that are taking many lives of young Senegalese or reform the education system.
This doesn’t bring solutions to the immense challenges of discrimination against Senegalese women through the family code that denies equal parental authority for women, high violence against women, a rising rate of femicide, an overwhelmingly male-dominated cabinet, and the replacement of the Ministry of Women’s affairs, which activists have campaigned for so long, with little progress. Instead, it increases criminal penalties against queer people and seeks to silence even what is termed the “apology” of homosexuality.
This is not structural transformation. It is moral posturing.
The contradiction becomes even clearer when considering the words of Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who publicly acknowledged in May 2024 that homosexuality “has always existed” in Senegal, while asserting that it had historically been “managed” according to the country’s socio-cultural realities. This recognition undermines the recurring claim that homosexuality is purely a Western import. It raises a simple question: if a social reality is acknowledged as historically present, on what basis does it suddenly become a threat to be eradicated?
The paradox is evident. The state recognises historical presence while strengthening repression. It affirms cultural continuity while consolidating a penal framework inherited from French colonialism. Decolonisation is invoked while colonial legal architecture is preserved and intensified. Authenticity is proclaimed through normative instruments that are not of endogenous origin.
The vocabulary of “management” also deserves scrutiny. To speak of “management” suggests social regulation, moral negotiation, and community-based mechanisms. Criminalisation, by contrast, reflects punitive and carceral logic. It transforms a social reality into a criminal offence. It replaces social mediation with state coercion. Behind the language of tradition lies a shift toward codified juridical repression.
It is here that intellectual honesty becomes central.
Intellectual honesty demands coherence. If homosexuality has always existed in Senegal and the rest of Africa, if social categories such as the góor-jigéen (Wolof literal translation “man-woman”) belong to local history before being turned into a pejorative, then one cannot simultaneously claim it is a foreign deviation. African scholarship has documented throughout West Africa in “Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Senegal, the existence of indigenous (and sometimes pejorative) terms for people who did not fall into the gender binary system (goorjigéén, tchié tè mousso tè, ‘yan daudu) that such people were visible and tolerated in their communities.” One cannot invoke tradition to justify a colonial law. One cannot speak of sovereignty while reinforcing a penal framework inherited from an imperial order. The criminalization of queer identities in Africa is an act of colonial mimicry. African governments are not resisting Western influence—they are entrenching the very carceral logic to pretend to “resolve” the social complexities.
Intellectual honesty requires telling the truth even when it unsettles one’s own camp. It means accepting that sexual diversity does not destroy Africanness; it is part of it. It requires recognising that criminalisation is not a political response to economic, institutional, and social challenges. It demands courage: the courage to refuse the comfort of a scapegoat.
It would nevertheless be naïve to ignore the strategic dimension of this posture. Politicians and media personalities’ continued public alignment with anti-queer waves is not merely a matter of moral conviction; it fits within a logic of influence-building. In a context where hostility toward sexual minorities is politically profitable, anti-LGBT rhetoric becomes symbolic capital. It consolidates a populist base by transforming social frustration into an identity crusade. The rhetoric is effective: it simplifies economic grievances, diverts attention from institutional shortcomings, and channels resentment toward a vulnerable group.
This instrumentalisation is not neutral. It produces support, visibility, and media centrality. But it does so at the expense of queer Africans, whose existence becomes a rhetorical tool, a mobilisation lever, a political sacrifice in a strategy of personal consolidation. When the dignity of a minority is converted into ideological currency, we are no longer in the realm of defence of sovereignty; we are in the realm of populist exploitation. Today, Senegal’s public-sector debt is estimated at approximately 132% of GDP, following the discovery of previously undeclared debt by the previous government. Recent demonstrations by university students over unpaid financial aid expose the deep impacts of this debt crisis. The high-handed response by police that led to the death of one student, injuring many, and resulting in more than 100 arrests, leaves many questions for a government that came to power on the shoulders of youth struggles.
For queer Senegalese, this renewed anti-queer mobilisation compounds their plight. Beyond categories and concepts, there are lives.
There are young people living in constant fear of arrest. There are families fractured by shame and symbolic violence. There are bodies turned into ideological battlegrounds. One cannot claim African dignity while denying the dignity of some Africans. One cannot invoke collective freedom while withdrawing the most basic security from a minority.
Two truths can coexist. Africa’s aspiration for self-determination is legitimate. Yet the expansion of anti-queer legislation strengthens neither the economy, nor institutions, nor social cohesion. It narrows the horizon of sovereignty rather than expanding it.
Being anti-Western is not enough to be pro-African. A genuinely pro-African project requires lucidity, coherence, and responsibility. It requires confronting internal contradictions with the same determination applied to external pressures. It requires recognising that the strength of a continent lies not in exclusion but in its capacity to integrate its own complexity.
Two things can be true at the same time. The desire for independence is legitimate. But a sovereignty built on exclusion remains fragile. A sovereignty built on honesty and justice has a chance to endure.
Feature photo via Wikimedia
Ballet Djedje is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Madrid and a queer theologian and LGBTIQ activist specialising in Côte d’Ivoire. His research and advisory work focus on queer life in African contexts, with particular attention to religion, sexuality, urban cultures, and community organisation. He advises LGBTIQ organisations across Africa and explores the intersections of homosexuality and Christianity. He is the author of three self-published works, including a gay self-help guide, a dictionary of Woubikan (Ivorian queer vernacular), and a collection of Ivorian queer narratives.