Mauritius’ highest court had in the past week, decriminalised gay sex, stating that the ban exhibited the colonial-era, rather than the indigenous values.
Note that British colonialists had originally criminalised “homosexual relations” in 1898, but the law had not been enforced in recent years.
The verdict is coming at a time of increasing homophobia and tougher anti-gay laws in some African states.
The most recent law being when Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed a contentious Anti-Homosexuality law in May 2023, imposing the death penalty for “vexed homosexuality”, which means to have sex with children or rape.
Many people in Uganda and other African states argue that homosexuality is “un-African”, and contradicts their religious beliefs.
The case in Mauritius was brought by Abdool Ridwan Firaas Ah Seek, who argued that the “offence of sodomy” breached his basic rights, including the right to liberty.
The ruling essentially means that people will no longer be nabbed for having gay sex, but the parliament still has to revoke the law to make it legal.
At present, there are 64 countries across the globe that have laws that criminalise homosexuality, and more than half of these countries were in the African continent.
