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Indicator
This page was last updated on 26th April 2024
Meets Criteria:
Yes
Partly
No
No evidence
N/A
Multiple jurisdictions
Ghana’s sexual offence laws are in the Criminal Code 1960 (CC) as amended. The Evidence Act 1975 (EA) contains the rules of evidence which apply to sexual assault offences.
Very few elements of the sexual offences provisions in the CC meet good practice and human rights standards. For example, the CC criminalises consensual same-sex sexual activity as ‘unnatural carnal knowledge’ and does so in the same provision as the offence of bestiality. Laws that criminalise consensual same-sex sexual activity should be repealed and all non- consensual sexual acts, including anal ‘rape’, should be included in the general sexual assault provisions, such as ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’, as well as in child sexual offences. All of these crimes should be gender-neutral.
In relation to the sexual assault provisions, ‘rape’ is limited to penile penetration of a vagina, and there is only one child sexual assault offence with no close-in-age exception or defence to child sexual assaults. Close-in-age defences are necessary for good practice sexual offences laws. They avoid criminalising young people and children who engage in consensual sexual activity with their peers. The legislation also criminalises sexual intercourse with a woman who has an intellectual disability regardless of capacity to give free consent, using the derogatory terms ‘imbecile’ and ‘idiot’.
Ghana is a state party to relevant international and regional human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is also a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol).
Read more about the criminalisation of LGBT people in Ghana.
The full assessment of Ghana is also available here.
This report examines the status of sexual offences legislation in Commonwealth Africa, assessing good practice and identifying where there are gaps in protection, with a particular focus on women, children, LGBT+ people and people with disability.
This report lays out criteria for good practice human rights compliant laws across four areas of sexual offences legislation, namely rape/sexual assault, age of consent for sexual conduct, treatment of consensual same-sex sexual activity between adults, and sexual offences in relation to people with disability.
Since 2015, the Trust's legislative reform programme has been analysing the need for the reform of sexual offence laws and delivering technical assistance to support such reform. Find out more about our Changing Laws, Changing Lives programme.
