The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values

This project documents the passing of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill in Ghana using portraits and collage to show the contrast between expression and repression.

This project documents the passing of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill in Ghana using portraits and collage to show the contrast between expression and repression. It aims to bring global attention to these human rights violations, advocating for social change and protections for the LGBTQ+ communities in Ghana and beyond.

February 2021: Accra’s first LGBTQIA+ community space opens. Two weeks later, it is raided and forcibly closed down by local law enforcement. These events represent years of institutionalised homophobia, anti-LGBTQ+ and religion-based rhetoric. Culminating in ‘The Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values’, a private members bill that aims to establish a system of state-sponsored discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ persons and their allies. In 2024, Ghana voted in favour of the bill. Once passed, LGBTQ+ activities and allyship will become a criminal offense, punishable by prison terms of 3-5 years. Simply identifying as LGBTQ+ will become a crime.

My initial project in 2022 aimed to show proud portraits of Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community. Despite facing a bill that denied their human rights, all my subjects chose to show their faces and share their names (the original photo titles). The series was exhibited in Germany, Paris, and across the Netherlands. Once the bill had passed, I realized this exposure was dangerous. All my subjects asked that their photos be taken down in fear of persecution and prosecution.

This project has now taken on a new form. A second chapter in this evolving story. From portraits that originally aimed to give visibility to the courage and strength of the community, these faces and the people behind them have become ghost-like figures, hidden behind a bill that denies and criminalises their existence as Ghanaians, Africans, and human beings (the photo titles have also changed from the subject’s name to a “Provision number” within the proposed bill to hide their identity). It is my responsibility to respect their wishes for anonymity while at the same time keeping their presence and impact very much alive. The development of the series shows the reality for Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community; the repression of their dreams, desires, and futures.

They may be in hiding, for now. But the LGBTQ+ community in Ghana and beyond remains powerful, united, creative, and hopeful for a future where they can live a life without fear, and to one day reemerge from the shadows imposed on them by this draconian bill.