June 18, 2026
Neighbouring francophone countries
under military rule, Burkina Faso and Mali, also recently
criminalised homosexuality
The West African nation
of Niger
has enacted a law criminalising consensual same-sex intimacy
for the first time in its history.
The new Penal Code
of Niger is understood to introduce a provision
criminalising ‘indecent or unnatural acts’ and ‘sexual
relations with a person of the samesex’, though the
Code is not yet publicly available. It is also understood to
contain other wide-ranging provisions such as criminalising
‘LGBTQIA+ practices’ and involvement in organisations
‘for homosexuals or LGBTQIA+’. Imprisonment terms are up
to 20 years and are accompanied by heavy fines.
‘In
criminalising private, consensual same-sex intimacy and
using the coercive power of the state to repress other basic
freedoms, Niger’s military regime has shown a blatant
disregard for fundamental human rights law,’ says Téa
Braun, Chief Executive of the Human Dignity Trust. ‘Niger
now joins 65 other countries that use these laws to expose a
vulnerable group of their own citizens to fear, violence,
and state-sanctioned hatred,’ she added.
This legal
development, which is believed to have taken place in
February 2026, was not picked up by news outlets until
recently. A ‘large-scale crackdown’ against LGBT+ people has
reportedly already started in Niger.
This brings the
total number of countries that criminalise consensual
same-sex acts to 66. Thirty-three of these are in
Africa.
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