Mixed signals for LGBTI community

The Ivory Coast does not explicitly criminalise homosexuality, but its public indecency law singles out homosexual acts and relations. At a gay bar in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan, a group of men embrace and laugh. ‘Some of the guys who come here don't feel comfortable displaying their sexuality outside of these walls,’ said Michel, the owner of Sass Bar. A report on the allAfrica site notes that the establishment is one of many gay venues in Abidjan, a relatively tolerant city for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in a region where homosexuality is mostly illegal, and sexual minorities face persecution, discrimination and violence. Ivory Coast is one of a minority of African countries – about 20 of the 54 nations – which do not explicitly criminalise homosexuality or same-sex acts. However, says the report, the recent jailing of two gay men for three months under a public indecency law that carries a harsher prison sentence for ‘an indecent or unnatural act with a person of the same sex’ has worried the LGBTI community.