The Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has described LGBTQI+ as an abomination that will never be accepted.

His comments come after the Australian High Commissioner to Ghana, Gregory Andrews urged Ghana’s Parliament not to pass any legislation that will discriminate against the rights of the LGBTQI+ community.

The Australian High Commissioner made the comments when he paid a courtesy call on the Speaker of Parliament on Thursday.

“We believe that to protect human rights sometimes our culture needs to adapt and that doesn’t mean being a different culture, it means accepting people for who they are especially when they are not causing harm to anyone else.”

“That is why on the LGBTQ+ issues, Australia will really encourage Ghana’s Parliament not to pass legislation that would discriminate the LGBTQ+ community or remove their rights or to make it illegal for people to advocate for their Human Rights.”

In a response, Alban Bagbin said “Our laws abhors any forms of discrimination. We also have the decision of the European Court on Human Rights to guide us in whatever we do…and so on the issue of LGBTQI+ definitely we already have a legal framework within which to work. We will not legislate to infringe on the Human Rights of people, but we will legislate to ensure that culture and traditions are not violated.

“This is something that we see as an abomination, it is something that we abhor and therefore, we will continue to go according to their culture.”