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A Ghanaian journalist and LGBTQI + activist has for the very first time openly declared that he is gay.
According to Ignatius Annor, he had kept his alignment with the community a secret for fear of losing his job and the stigma that this could engender.
“This will be the very first time that I have used your medium to say that not only am I an activist for the rights of sexual minorities in Africa, what you will call the LGBTQI community, but that I am gay.
“Obviously I denied it because I was afraid of losing my job, I was working in an amazing TV station in Accra and also out of fear of what would happen to me personally,” Annor said on JoyNews via Zoom.
Speaking on PM: Express Monday, the pro LGBTQI + activist said members of his community are upset “because you are not allowed to openly say who you are.”
“What my community is asking for is the opportunity for love like all the love of humanity, especially in the case of heterosexuals in Ghana,” he told Ayisha Ibrahim.
There was a broad debate following the opening of an office in Accra by the group in Ghana.
It has since sparked a resurgence of concerns about community activities with calls from a cross-section of Ghanaians, including appropriate human sexual rights and family values and the Pentecostal and Charismatic Council of Ghana (GPCC) for the group’s activities cease.
But according to Mr. Annor, it would be a violation of their human rights.
“I don’t feel like I’m a human being who deserves the right to employment, the right to education and normally the basic rights to be able to walk, drive wherever I want to go in Ghana as a gay man it’s wrong, it feels dehumanized and horrible.
The journalist who currently works with Euronews English, sharing his story on the show, said he was saddened to return to Ghana to work only to be denied employment opportunities due to suspicion about his sexuality “and it’s just because of the stigma that surrounds my community. “
Although his mother mentioned in January 2017 that such a community was “demonic”, the activist believes his mother’s position was due to “what was repeatedly nurtured in the mind and ultimately in the heart people”.
Designated Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the country should consider passing a law that attacks the promotion of such a group, as this practice is culturally unacceptable and contrary to Article 104. of the 1960 Penal Code.
But Mr. Annor hopes that “these laws [that exists currently] could be removed from the books of the Republic of Ghana so that people like me who have life, who work and contribute to the socio-economic fabric of the Republic of Ghana can be accepted as human beings deserving of respect, kindness and dignity. “
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