A court in Senegal has handed down the country's first conviction under a recently toughened anti-LGBTQ law, sentencing a 24-year-old man to six years in prison and a fine of two million CFA francs — equivalent to just over 3,000 euros. The ruling was delivered on Friday by a tribunal in Pikine-Guédiawaye, a suburb of the capital Dakar, which found the man, a manual labourer caught in the act, guilty of "acts against nature and public indecency." He had been arrested earlier this month.
The law underpinning the conviction was adopted overwhelmingly by Senegal's parliament on 11 March — with 135 of 165 deputies voting in favour — and signed into law at the end of March by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, despite calls from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to abandon it. The legislation doubles the maximum prison term for same-sex relations, raising sentences to between five and ten years, and extends criminal liability to anyone deemed to be "promoting" or "financing" homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender identity. This means that organisations supporting sexual and gender minorities can themselves face prosecution.
Homosexuality has been a criminal offence in Senegal for decades, as it is in more than 30 of Africa's 54 countries — with Uganda, Mauritania, and Somalia among those where it can carry the death penalty. What has changed under the new government is both the severity of the penalties and the intensity of enforcement. Since February, around 60 people have been arrested according to some counts, with other reports citing at least 300 arrests in recent weeks — many following denunciations by neighbours or the searching of suspects' mobile phones. The names of those detained are being made public, exposing them to further risks.
Human Rights Watch researcher Larissa Kojoué has described the law as having created a "climate of constant fear," with arrests becoming more aggressive because they now have "the backing of the state apparatus." Some detainees have also been charged with the deliberate transmission of HIV. Several additional cases are already before the courts, with suspects held on remand in recent days.
The crackdown is prompting an increasing number of LGBTQ Senegalese to seek refuge abroad. The French NGO STOP Homophobie has received nearly 200 requests for assistance in just a few weeks, a figure its director says has become unmanageable. France has classified Senegal as a risk country for LGBT+ people since 2021, but asylum procedures remain lengthy and uncertain, leaving many in a precarious position. The conviction marks a significant escalation in what rights groups warn is a state-sanctioned campaign of persecution.