Homosexuals are “psychologically disordered” people, Ghana’s Chief Psychiatrist Dr Akwesi Osei has told Morning Starr host Kafui Dey.
“They are psychologically disordered in some way for which they need to be corrected,” he said Wednesday February 11, 2015.
“That psychological disorder needs to be corrected,” Dr Osei insisted adding: “The point is that if we take it that way, it becomes easier for us to give all our sympathy and our empathy to such persons and attempt to bring them online medically rather than for people now to look at them as criminals and morally weak people…which lead to people wanting to lynch them, wanting to harm them.”
Dr Osei’s comment comes on the heels of recent homophobic attacks on some suspected gays in Ghana. Just recently, a popular entertainment personality in Accra was beaten to a pulp after he was allegedly caught attempting to have sex with a fellow man.
Kinto, as the young man is popular called, was reportedly attacked at New Town in Accra after Sunday’s AFCON finals between Ghana and Ivory Coast.
Also students of St Paul’s boys’ senior high school attempted lynching two colleagues they suspected were having gay sex in school.
The irate students bayed for the blood of their colleagues as they vanderlised school property and surged on their Teachers whom they accused of protecting the alleged gay students. One student was accidently shot by a Police Officer’s stray bullet during attempts to quell the chaos on campus. The two suspected gay students were arrested by the Police and later released. The school has been closed down temporarily pending investigations.
Ghana’s laws frown on sodomy and “unnatural carnal knowledge.” The Criminal Offences Act 29 of 1960 § 104, 3 Laws of Ghana (rev. ed. 2004), says a “person who has unnatural carnal knowledge of … another person of not less than sixteen years of age with the consent of that other person commits a misdemeanor,” an offence punishable on conviction by a maximum three-year prison term.
The Criminal and Other Offences (Procedure) Act 30 of 1960, § 296, 3 Laws of Ghana (rev. ed. 2004), defines “Unnatural carnal knowledge” as involving “sexual intercourse with a person in an unnatural manner” and requires “the least degree of penetration.”
The criminal laws do not, however, specifically mention homosexuality as unnatural carnal knowledge even though some lawyers extend the definition to include homosexuality.
Dr Osei, however, argued on Morning Starr that the laws must clearly define what homosexuality is so as to avoid ambiguity.
