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State Department urges Ghana to protect LGBTQ rights after activists arrest

Workshop attendees taken into custody after ‘unlawful assembly’

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The State Department on Monday expressed concern over the arrest of 21 LGBTQ activists in Ghana.

Ghananian police on May 20 arrested the activists in the city of Ho. A State Department spokesperson in their statement said the U.S. “promotes efforts worldwide to protect LGBTQI+ populations from violence and abuse, criminalization, discrimination, and stigma, and to empower local movements and persons seeking to advance the rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”

The spokesperson proceeded to say that the situation in Ghana is on the State Department’s radar and called upon the country’s national leaders and citizens to support and preserve the human rights of LGBTQ Ghanaians. 

“We are monitoring the situation closely,” said the spokesperson. “We urge national leaders in Ghana to uphold constitutional human rights protections and to adhere to international human rights obligations and commitments for all individuals. This includes members of the LGBTQI+ community.” 

“We call on all Ghanaians to respect the provisions under Ghana’s constitution that guarantee freedom of speech, expression, and peaceful assembly.”

What caused the arrests?

A training for activists and paralegals on how to advocate for LGBTQ Ghanaians and record any infringements of their human rights took place on May 20. Someone tipped off the authorities, and they arrested event detainees.

Alex Kofi Donkor, founder and director of LGBT+ Rights Ghana, told The Guardian that “the [event] was to train them on paralegal services for vulnerable groups – how we can document issues of abuse, and how best these trained paralegals can provide support.” 

Authorities deemed the event an “unlawful assembly,” and they immediately arrested 16 men and five women. All were denied bail and are due to appear before a judge on June 4. 

Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian human rights group, in a series of tweets said journalists teamed up with the Ghanaian police when they descended on the event, and took people’s belongings.

“Journalists were the first to storm the place, started taking photos, took their notepads, flip charts, puller banner, books, then locked them while calling the police. The worried victims started crying for help, but today a judge has remanded the 21 queer persons #ReleaseThe21,” said Rightify Ghana. 

Rightify Ghana further expressed their disappointment with the Ghanaian media’s actions as it is an entity that has fervently advocated for freedom of press in the West African nation. 

“Ghanaian media, which has for decades been advocating for press freedom in Ghana, are enablers in the promotion of hate and discrimination against minority groups in the country, especially sexual minorities. No wonder Ghana is here,” said Rightify Ghana. 

The activists’ arrest last week in Ho is the latest of a series of anti-LGBTQ events that have taken place in Ghana.

Ghanaian police officers earlier this year raided and shut down an LGBTQ center.

This action prompted Black celebrities in the West to urge President Nana Akufo-Addo in an open letter to work with LGBTQ community leaders. Some of the celebrities included actor Idris Elba, model Naomi Campbell, and British Vogue Editor-in-Chief Edward Enninful.

In reaction to the recent arrests, prominent human rights groups have expressed their disapproval of LGBTQ human rights abuses in Ghana.

“The arrest of LGBTIQ people holding a lawful, private gathering about protecting and supporting LGBTIQ people in Ghana is shocking, and unacceptable,” said OutRight Action International Executive Director Jessica Stern. “The basic human rights to freedom of assembly and association, enshrined in the country’s constitution, should not be limited by anti-LGBTIQ opinions of bystanders or the police.”

“Those detained should be released immediately, and an investigation into how such a blatant violation of rights could take place has to be held,” added Stern.

“I am deeply saddened that the Ghana police can act on false alarm to arrest and detain innocent citizens,” added Davis Mac-Iyalla, executive director of Interfaith Diversity Network of West Africa. “The human rights defenders arrested and jailed did nothing unlawful, they were exercising their freedom of assembly and association.”

Mac-Iyalla in his statement said “this illegal arrest is a reflection of the high level of discrimination against minorities in Ghana.” 

“I call on the government to condemn the arrest and order the release of the human rights defenders,” added Mac-Iyalla. “I also call on religious leaders and all civil society locally and internationally to add their voices to this call.”

Michael K. Lavers contributed to this story.

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Suspension of US aid is ‘catastrophe’ for global LGBTQ rights movement

Washington funds third of international advocacy

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Thousands of people on Feb. 5, 2025, gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the Trump-Vance administration's efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. Activists say the suspension of nearly all U.S. foreign aid has had a devastating impact on the global LGBTQ rights movement. (Courtesy photo)

The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days has had a devastating impact on the global LGBTQ rights movement.

The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, a Washington-based group that championed LGBTQ and intersex rights in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, on Feb. 1 announced it has suspended programming because it lost nearly 80 percent of its funding.

“Despite some limitations we are facing at the moment, we want to share that our commitment is unwavering,” said the organization in an email it sent to supporters on Wednesday. The message also asked them to make a donation.

Outright International, a global LGBTQ and intersex advocacy group, in a statement to the Washington Blade said it has “had to halt direct funding and capacity-building support to LGBTIQ groups in more than 32 countries” in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

“The community-based groups we support with USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) funding carry out critical human rights, humanitarian and development work,” said Outright International. “This includes protecting community members from violence, providing skills training that allows LGBTIQ people to access employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, and essential services, including healthcare services.”

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute works with Caribe Afirmativo in Colombia, Promsex in Peru, VoteLGBT in Brazil, and a number of other advocacy groups outside the U.S. LGBTQ+ Victory Institute President Elliot Imse told the Blade his organization has lost around $600,000, which is two-thirds of its entire global program budget.

“We’re scrambling to secure new funding to restore half of the amount we lost, which would allow us to make a similar impact on LGBTQ inclusion worldwide,” he said.

Equal Namibia and Namibia Pride received a $30,000 grant from USAID. Omar van Reenen, co-founder of Equal Namibia, told the Washington Blade it “was the largest grant and biggest grant on such a scale we have received.

“When we received this grant it was the first time we had substantial funding for our organization,” they said.

Van Reenen said the organizations have lost $10,000 of the original $30,000 they received from USAID.

“This means we do are back to zero funds for the organization and will need to continue our campaigns on a voluntary basis,” they told the Blade. “This comes at the worst time as we will need to challenge the new anti-same-sex marriage act passed by the president in October and the upcoming decriminalization case which the Supreme Court will hear soon.” 

The Center for Integrated Training and Research, a group known by the Spanish acronym COIN that fights the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Dominican Republic and in other countries in the Caribbean, on Feb. 6 said the funding freeze “directly affects the continuity of the free services that COIN provides to more than 2,300 patients who receive antiretroviral treatment” in the Dominican Republic.

COIN said its patients will continue to receive free antiretroviral drugs because the Dominican government provides them; but the funding freeze has forced it to suspend urology, internal medicine, and pediatric services. COIN said it will continue to provide vaccines and general medicine, gynecological, and family planning services, but “with limitations.” COIN also noted its PrEP service will continue, “but with reduced capacity.”

“In light of this situation, we urgently call upon the national and international community, strategic allies, and sectors sensitive to our cause to find solutions that allow us to continue offering these vital services,” said COIN. “The health and well-being of thousands of people depends on the solidarity and commitment of everyone.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze. (The Blade last week reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Feb. 6 protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore PEPFAR funding.)

The Trump-Vance administration is also trying to dismantle USAID.

A statement the White House issued on Feb. 3 said the organization “has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.” The statement also contains examples of what it described as “the waste and abuse” that include:

• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”

• $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia

• $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru

• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala

The statement links to an article the Daily Mail published on Jan. 31 that President Donald Trump “strips millions from DEI foreign aid programs funding Irish musicals, LGBTQ programs in Serbia and more.” The claim that USAID paid for “sex changes and ‘LGBT activism’ in Guatemala” appears to come from an article the Daily Caller published on Sept. 19, 2024.

Sources with whom the Blade has spoken say the White House’s claims are incorrect.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Feb. 2 welcomed efforts to dismantle USAID.

“Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up,” he wrote on X. “While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements.”

Mónica Hernández, executive director of ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans, a transgender rights group in El Salvador, spoke with the Blade last week in San Salvador, the country’s capital. Posters with USAID’s logo were on the wall inside the organization’s office.

Hernández said she learned on Jan. 27 the U.S. had suspended funding that ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans received through Freedom House and other groups that partnered with the State Department. She told the Blade that Washington cancelled the grants the following day.

“The (challenge) is to look for other funds from another institution that is not USAID, or that is not from the United States that has to go through the State Department,” she said.

ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans Executive Director Mónica Hernández in her office in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Feb. 6, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Outright International told the Blade that USAID is not it’s “only source of funding,” but noted “USAID, and the U.S. government more broadly, have in recent years become an extremely important source of funding for LGBTIQ rights around the world, allowing us and our partners to expand our efforts to promote inclusive development and combat pervasive human rights violations.”

Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley told the Blade the U.S. funds roughly a third of the global LGBTQ rights movement. Imse said the global LGBTQ rights movement is set to lose more than $50 million.

“It is a catastrophe,” he told the Blade.

Bromley added it will be “challenging, if not impossible” to fill the funding gap.

“There isn’t a short term way to fill the current funding gap,” he said. “It sets the movement back at least 10 years.”

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Canada

Canadian LGBTQ group cancels WorldPride participation over Trump policies

Egale Canada cites need to ‘safeguard our trans and nonbinary staff’

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Egale Canada, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, announced in a Feb. 6 statement that its members will not be attending any events in the U.S., including WorldPride set to take place in Washington from May 17-June 8, because of policies put in place by President Donald Trump.

The statement says the decision not to come to the U.S. resulted in its cancellation of plans to attend a meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at U.N. headquarters in New York in March, at which it planned to discuss LGBTQ related issues.

“After deep consideration, we have decided not to engage in-person in this year’s Commission on the Status of Women or any other UN, OAS (Organization of American States) or global convergings, including WorldPride, taking place in the United States in the foreseeable future,” the statement says.

“This decision is foremost based on the need to safeguard our trans and nonbinary staff who would face questionable treatment at land and aviation borders to attend such convenings, and to stand in solidarity with global colleagues who are experiencing similar fear around entry to the U.S.,” the statement continues.

“It is also founded in the unique situation that has been thrust on Canadians (and citizens of other countries) regarding economic warfare and threats to our national sovereignty,” according to the statement. “We cannot in good conscience engage in a process of disentangling our organization from the U.S. goods and services (as we have recently released in a statement) and then proceed to travel to the U.S.”

The Egale Canada statement marks the first known time that an international LGBTQ rights organization has declared it will not come to the U.S. to attend WorldPride because of the controversial policies adopted by the Trump-Vance administration, which so far have included a roll back of programs and policies in support of transgender people.   

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Africa

Suspension of US aid forces PEPFAR-funded programs in Africa to close down

Funding freeze is ‘matter of life and death’

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(Bigstock photo)

The suspension of nearly all U.S. foreign aid has forced a number of programs that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funds in Africa to shut down.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue operating after bowing to pressure.

A message on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s website notes “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership, and specially designated programs.” The announcement is scheduled to take place on Friday at 11:59 p.m. ET.

One of the PEPFAR-funded healthcare programs in Kenya still impacted by the funding freeze, despite Rubio’s waiver, is the Fahari ya Jamii (“joy of the community” in Swahili) initiative that began in 2022. The University of Nairobi was jointly implementing the project.

The Sh4.2 billion ($32,558,139.52) project sought to coordinate and manage high quality, cost-effective, and accessible HIV services in Nairobi, neighboring Kajiado County, and other parts of Kenya. Fahari ya Jamii was scheduled to end in May 2026, but it has closed indefinitely because of a lack of U.S. funding.

More than 700 staff, mostly healthcare workers, on Jan. 31 were placed on unpaid leave for three months, or until Washington decides whether to unfreeze funding. More than 150 Fahari ya Jamii clinics that offer HIV treatment to at least 72,000 people on antiretroviral drugs have also shut down.

The initiative’s target groups include children, adolescents, and adults living with HIV; young people, men, and women at risk of HIV; and key populations that include men who have sex with men and female sex workers.  Fahari ya Jamii since 2022 has offered HIV tests to more than 257,500 people, connected 94 percent of those who tested positive to treatment, distributed condoms and lubricants, and disseminated safter sex messages to their target groups.

Faith Ndung’u, advocacy manager for Kenya’s Health NGOs’ Network (HENNET) said the Trump-Vance administration should have used a humane approach to engage with countries that benefit from U.S. funding, instead of abruptly suspending it.

“We are feeling the magnitude of the suspension in the health sector because these are lives; these are people,” said Ndung’u. “When such an abrupt decision is made, we are talking about more than one million people living with HIV being affected.”

HENNET is an umbrella group with 112 members from local and international NGOs, faith-based organizations, and research institutions that focus on health-related issues in Kenya’s 47 local governments.

“This is now a wakeup call for Kenya and Africa to invest in the health sector by funding it more not to be in a similar crisis when a donor pulls out or forfeits his commitment,” Ndung’u said.  

Local governments that also rely on USAID to run PEPFAR programs have suspended their U.S.-funded activities and phased out the stand-alone comprehensive HIV care centers by integrating treatment and care into general health care services. This move has forced hundreds of health care workers to go onto unpaid leave and wait for further guidance.

Pema Kenya, a Mombasa-based queer lobby group, said the decision to suspend funding means “uncertain times” for the LGBTQ community and Kenyans at large who depend upon U.S.-funded groups for their health care.

“Many queer organizations rely heavily on USAID funding for vital services such as HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, mental health support, and legal aid,” Pema Kenya stated.

Pema Kenya noted the suspension of U.S. aid could severely cripple queer organizations and leave vulnerable people with limited access to crucial resources.

“This would be a significant setback in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other health crises disproportionately affecting the LGBTQ+ community,” Pema Kenya stated.   

GALCK, a coalition of 16 Kenyan LGBTQ rights groups, was even more blunt.

“This isn’t just a policy decision; it’s a matter of life and death,” it said in a statement.

OUT and Engage Man’s Health — two South African organizations that provide HIV services to MSM, transgender people, sex workers, and other vulnerable groups through PEPFAR — have also been impacted by the U.S. funding freeze.

OUT and Engage Man’s Health, which provides HIV services to MSM, announced on Jan. 27 that it will stop offering services “until further notice” due to a lack of funding. The organization asked its clients to seek services from the nearest public health facilities.

“We deeply value our clients and remain committed to safeguarding your health,” said the announcement. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and disruption this may cause. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide further details at this time.”

Kenya and most other African countries have said a permanent suspension of U.S. aid will adversely impact progress made in the health sector, particularly the fight against HIV/AIDS. Botswana and some other nations on the continent that use their national budgets to purchase antiretroviral drugs, have assured their citizens the supply of these medications will not be interrupted.

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