An investigating judge in Louga, a city in northwestern Senegal, has sent 32 people to trial on charges that include “acts against nature,” the penal code’s term covering same-sex relations, and deliberately transmitting HIV, Louga’s public prosecutor said Oct. 30.
“LGBT people are being forced to curb their normal activities and to keep from exercising their rights for fear of arrest and increased stigma,” Larissa Kojoué, an LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in an Oct. 12 report on the crackdown.
PressAfrik and Le Soleil, Senegal’s national daily, published the prosecutor’s statement that day. It says the case “sera enrôlé à une audience spéciale,” going on a special hearing’s docket.
“In Senegal, lawyers are associated with the cause they represent,” a lawyer in Dakar told HRW. Colleagues and relatives had urged him not to take these cases, he said.
Senego and the news portal Seneweb put that hearing on Thursday, Nov. 12. Le Soleil and AFP reported that the statement gave no date.
“How can we represent people arrested without being accused of promotion,” one lawyer told HRW. “That’s why there is such strong reluctance.”
How the Louga Case Reached a Correctional Court
The investigation opened April 23, Le Soleil reported. On Oct. 12 prosecutors asked for “le renvoi de tous les inculpés devant le tribunal correctionnel pour les infractions précitées,” and on Oct. 15 the investigating judge signed “une ordonnance de renvoi” against “les trente-deux (32) personnes inculpées,” PressAfrik reported.
A social worker at Rebeuss, Senegal’s largest detention facility, in Dakar, told HRW that people held on suspicion of homosexuality are kept apart from other prisoners. “In some cases, they are even compelled to perform domestic labor,” he said.
The six charges include “association de malfaiteurs,” or criminal conspiracy, and “transmission volontaire du VIH/sida,” deliberate transmission of HIV. The rest are “acts against nature,” endangering others’ lives, illegally collecting personal data and sexual harassment.
A 23-year-old man, one of five arrested in the Thiès region in December 2025, told HRW that he and the others “were beaten, whipped, and slapped, and called homosexuals.” The charges were dropped a month later for lack of evidence, HRW reported.
What Senegal’s ‘Acts Against Nature’ Law Now Says
President Bassirou Diomaye Faye signed a tougher law March 30, after lawmakers passed it 135-0 with three abstentions, AFP reported.
“The longer it takes, the more complicated it will be,” Imam Babacar Sylla, who leads the religious and civil society network And Samm Jikko Yi, said as he urged Faye to sign, Reuters reported.
The law raised prison terms from one to five years to five to 10 years, doubling the maximum, and set fines of 2 million to 10 million CFA francs, about $3,400 to $17,000. Its definition of “acts against nature” covers homosexuality, bisexuality and “transsexuality,” along with zoophilia and necrophilia, Reuters reported.
U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk called it “deeply worrying,” according to AFP. “Further tightening repression will only fuel violence, fear, and impunity,” Drissa Traoré, secretary general of the International Federation for Human Rights, or FIDH, said in a February statement.
Promoting or financing same-sex relationships now carries three to seven years in prison, AFP reported. ILGA World, the global LGBTQ+ federation, had urged Faye to refuse the bill, calling for “respect for individual liberty and the human person.”
HIV Charges and Forced Testing in Senegal’s Crackdown
RADDHO, a Dakar-based human rights group, counted at least 212 arrests from February to July, HRW reported. Authorities “forced most detainees to undergo HIV testing,” HRW wrote, citing RADDHO and the HIV Justice Network.
The network counts more than 376 arrests, with at least 100 people charged with voluntary HIV transmission “on the sole basis of their HIV status.”
“One-third no longer come in for appointments to seek HIV treatment,” a doctor in Dakar told HRW.
A court in Pikine-Guédiawaye, in the Dakar region, threw out voluntary HIV transmission charges on Aug. 7, HRW reported, while sending 71 men to trial for “actes contre nature,” according to AFP.
“Prosecutions based on real or perceived HIV status exacerbate marginalisation and isolation,” the FIDH said in February.
Louga Hearing Falls During Dakar’s Youth Olympic Games
The Nov. 12 date lands during the Youth Olympic Games, which the IOC bills as the first Olympic event in Africa. The Games “officially opened on Saturday 31 October” in Diamniadio, near Dakar, for “14 days of sport and cultural exchange,” the International Olympic Committee said.
In Niger, a February penal code criminalized same-sex relations, and arrests and halted HIV services followed, Gayety reported. Ghana’s parliament speaker, Alban Bagbin, is pushing an anti-LGBTQ+ bill back to a vote.
“Senegal’s government should call a halt to this crackdown, which threatens everyone’s rights,” Kojoué said.
