LGBTQ+ Bill: There is a lacuna in the existing law - NDC MP

Member of Parliament(MP) for South Dayi constituency in the Volta Region, Hon. Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor says there is the need for Parliament to come up with a substantive Act of Parliament to address the lacuna in the provision of unnatural carnal knowledge in the Criminal Offenses Act in the 1992 Constitution.

According to him, the existing law that criminalises homosexuality or unnatural carnal knowledge has created room for the prosecution to be difficult as the current provision means that the perpetrators must be caught in the act before it can be proven that they are engaging in unnatural carnal knowledge as enshrined in the Criminal Offenses Act.

“We have realised that there is a lacuna in the existing law that prevents unnatural carnal knowledge. The existing law makes it difficult to punish people who are engaging in unnatural carnal knowledge because the law is such that you have to catch them in the act with a photograph or video to prove the act,” he noted.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Hon. Dafeamekpor indicated that the existing law is such that it is difficult to prove that homosexuals who are in a conference to promote the activities of lesbians and gays are engaging in an act that is termed as unnatural carnal knowledge.

"But we know that in criminal law when you are dealing with offences, we have what we call equate offences which means that when two or three people meet to conspire to commit a crime, that is also against the law and that is why we normally hear conspiracy and abetment in the prosecution. It means that maybe the person was not in the act but he was part of the people who plotted to commit the crime," he explained.

" . . those people can be charged with abetment or conspiracy to go and engage in activities leading to unnatural carnal knowledge and that is why we have realised that there is a lacuna in the existing law and so we have to come up with a substantive Act of parliament in order to explain these things and then we can proscribe the entire activities,” he stressed.

He feared that there are some NGOs in the country that are hiding behind public advocacy to promote the activities of homosexuality in schools to indoctrinate children into accepting lesbianism and gay as a way of life.

“If we don’t pay attention to such activities, it will be very deadly; they will pollute our children and by the time they attain majority, the whole country is gone. They know that those of us at the top are matured enough to resist their doctrine and so they are polluting from the ground up,” he cautioned.