Around 400 gay people in Ghana will reportedly take part in a gay ‘cure’ therapy forum in the country.
The attendees, who have all allegedly signed up voluntarily, will receive ‘counselling’ and ‘reformation’ at the anti-gay conference, which has the theme: “Exploring the myths surrounding LGBT rights.”
The National Coalition for Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values (NCPHSRFV), which is running the forum, said in April that Prime Minister Theresa May’s pro-LGBT+ speech to Commonwealth leaders was part of a Western plan to reduce the continent’s population.
PinkNews reports that the leader, Moses Foh-Amoaning, said that the “400 men and women voluntarily surrendered themselves and registered with the coalition to undergo a sexual evangelism programme recently.”
The event will take place in an undisclosed location in the country.
Foh-Amoaning then announced plans to open a ‘Holistic Sexual Therapy Unit’ at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra which will also attempt to ‘cure’ queer people of their sexuality, according to the state-owned Daily Graphic.
He said that religious leaders and people versed in ‘traditional medicine’ would ‘treat’ people alongside medical staff.
He also revealed plans to make the law, which currently criminalises homosexuality with a maximum prison term of three years, force queer people to undergo gay ‘conversion’ therapy.
Foh-Amoaning said that “a bill known as ‘Who is on the Lord’s Side’ will then be introduced in Parliament for subsequent passage into law.
“We will make our punishment corrective instead of punitive.”
The head of the NCPHSRFV has a long history of anti-gay campaigning, having previously insisted gay people shouldn’t have rights and that pro-LGBT+ activism was a form of neocolonialism.
Foh-Amoaning has also stated that “the anus was not created for sex” and compared it female genital mutilation.
His group campaigns against any political party which supports homosexuality in the country.
In 2015, he said that churches would end up being “dominated by homosexuals” if the clergy didn’t stage a “blistering crusade” against homosexuality.
The law lecturer said the “dormant posture” of the Ghanaian clergy would see the “houses of God being ruled by evil homosexuals.”
Earlier this month, the country’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said he had “no plans” to change the country’s laws on homosexuality.
This represented a disappointing shift from the President’s comments last year, when he said that the legalisation of homosexuality in Ghana was “bound to happen” eventually.
He rowed back his position in a speech to the 2018 Synod of the Global Evangelical Church, insisting that he would not support such a change in the law.
The President said it was “important that we do not debase the principles we purport to uphold.”
He added that Ghana’s government has “no authority” to make leaps forward in legislating for LGBT+ equality, “and we will not seek any authority to do so.”
