African Nation Believes Curriculum Can 'Reduce Homosexuality'

The HIV/AIDS secretariat for Ghana's Ministry of Education recently said that the organization has trained teaches to educate students about "homosexuality and its adverse consequences," which includes HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, the Accra Mail reported.

"We are very optimistic that things will change and the incidence of homosexuality in the country will be a thing of the past," Paul Krampah, the Education Ministry's public relations officer, said.

The Domestic Violence and Victim Unit of the Ghana Police Service reported, "more teenage boys in junior high and senior high schools are becoming victims of sexual abuse."

It is also believed that a number of these boys and their families are worried about reporting the incidents to the authorities.

"I will agree that homosexuality and lesbianism started with single-sex schools," Stephen Adu, the deputy director general of the Ghana Education Service, told Citi News. "It has become prevalent and so more people have become aware of it. This is just one of the many problems we have in our educational system."

Last June, the National Commission on Civic Education said they would "fight homosexuality in senior high schools" by using civil education clubs.

Several Ghanaians believe that individuals are not born gay, but that it is "made," the LGBT Asylum News reported in a Dec. 13 article.

Kwaku Adu-Gyamfi, writes in a Modern Ghana article that he believes children are brainwashed in schools and colleges, where they start to develop the urge to sexually experiment with the same sex.

"In the case of the Ghanaian homosexuals, it's an acquired lifestyle which is mainly derived from boarding schools and the importation of the sexual trade by our open-door hospitality," he writes.

Unfortunately, the LGBT community in Ghana does not have many rights. For instance, male same-sex acts are illegal but female same-sex activity is legal.

Ghana's constitution guarantees the protection of all human rights for Ghanaian citizens "whatever his race, place of origin, political opinion, color, religion, creed or gender," it leaves out, however, sexual orientation. In addition, same-sex marriage is not recognized in Ghana.

EDGE reported in a July 22 article that Paul Evans Aidoo, a minister in Ghana, issued an order that all gays in his region be rounded up and arrested.

Aiddo is in charge of Ghana's Western Region. Ghana itself is a former British colony tucked into the huge bulge that is northwest Africa. It is a member of the British Commonwealth, a loose organization of former colonies that nominally consider the queen a head of state. The organization has struggled recently with the question of how to deal with homophobic member-states.

The minister asked the Bureau of National Investigations and all security agencies to find individuals who "suspected to be engaging in same sex."

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2011, President John Atta Mills said he would never support or attempt to legalize homosexuality.