By Moïse Manoël-Florisse, Erasing 76 Crimes. (Photo: David Ndao/Unsplash)
By 129 votes in favor and 0 against, the National Assembly of Senegal amended the Constitution, on Monday, June 29, to define marriage exclusively as “the union between a man and a woman”.
The Senegalese Constitution previously had been rather vague on the subject, although same-sex intimacy has been criminalized in Senegal since 1965. The country is in the midst of an anti-gay crackdown that has produced 100s of arrests. In March, the penalty for same-sex intercourse was doubled, to a maximum prison sentence to 10 years, and gay rights advocacy was banned.
Passage of the constitutional amendment is related to the anti-LGBT crackdown, according to a Senegalese political observer.
Dakar-based Sadio (a pseudonym), told Erasing 76 Crimes “there is little doubt that [the ruling PASTEF party] is placing great emphasis on this aspect of constitutional change in order to reassure the Senegalese people that it will pursue an anti-LGBT agenda, following the tightening of the Criminal Code in the spring so ‘unnatural acts’ are now punishable by 5 to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 10 million CFA francs (about 15,000 euros or US $17,460)”.