Country Conditions Reporting for Asylum Seekers

By Melanie Nathan, Oct 24, 2025.

This week, Ghana’s opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), took to national television to announce that the controversial bill known as the Proper Human Rights and Family Values Bill had mysteriously disappeared from Parliament. The bill had appeared on the official Order Paper (Parliament’s agenda) for debate—then suddenly vanished.

The bill, commonly referred to as the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill (originally titled the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021), was re-introduced into Parliament on 25 February 2025.

The initial bill had already passed Parliament in February 2024. However, then-President Nana Akufo-Addo refrained from signing it into law, citing ongoing litigation challenging its constitutionality. After nearly a year in the court system—and amid the bill’s weaponization as a campaign issue during the presidential race—the court ultimately dismissed the case. The judges ruled that they could not issue a decision on a bill that had not yet been enacted, creating a perfect catch-22: it wasn’t law, therefore not justiciable.

Following the 2024 elections, the opposition NPP lost power, and the new National Democratic Congress (NDC) government reconstituted Parliament. The defeated party’s MPs re-introduced the measure in February 2025 as a ten-member-sponsored Private Members’ Bill.

When the bill disappeared from the Order Papers, just this past week, (Oct 20, 2025) the opposition took to Ghanaian television, accusing the NDC government of deliberately burying it.

For nine months—from 25 February to 24 October 2025—the bill appeared to be progressing quietly through parliamentary committees. But transparency about its trajectory has been nonexistent. Now, the opposition insists the reintroduced bill had cleared committee stages and was ready for a vote when it suddenly disappeared.

Read what happened to it HERE

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The Political Stakes and Human Toll

This ongoing tug-of-war reveals the deep tension between domestic populism and global condemnation. The bill enjoys overwhelming popularity at home—estimated at 98% parliamentary support and approval from more than 90% of Ghanaians, according to Afrobarometer surveys. Yet, if enacted, Ghana risks billions of dollars in lost international aid, investment, and loans, as key partners have vowed to reconsider financial relations with any state criminalizing sexual orientation or advocacy.

International condemnation of the Bill has been swift and sustained, and the government’s current hedging appears aimed at delaying the inevitable, an economic backlash that could strip Ghana of billions in aid, loans, investment, and trade opportunities.

Meanwhile, this legislative limbo has dire consequences for Ghana’s LGBTQI+ community. Each new wave of political theater further endangers lives, emboldening mob attacks, family expulsions, and arbitrary arrests. The community remains trapped in the crossfire of populist politics and moral panic, scapegoated, vilified, and unprotected.