“No Choice but to Deny Who I Am”
Violence and Discrimination against LGBT People in Ghana
In mid-September 2009, the District Chief Executive in my town called me for a meeting…I was taken to the conference room and made to sit in the middle of about 50 people. They asked me if I was a lesbian, and I said no.
One police officer kicked me with his boot on my mouth, said I shouldn’t talk. I started bleeding. Then everybody started to beat me. They took me outside, dragging me and beating me at the same time. A youth boy put a car tire around my neck
and poured petrol over my body, ready to burn me.
The pastor said I should confess everything before I die.
-Pearl, 30-year-old woman, January 2017, Kumasi, Ghana
Click Human Rights Watch Report on LGBT in Ghana to Download