Human Rights Watch Urges Senegal to End LGBT Crackdown Ahead of Youth Olympics
In mid-October 2026, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch issued a report alleging a severe escalation of persecution against LGBT people in Senegal and urging President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to halt the crackdown ahead of the 4th Summer Youth Olympic Games in Dakar. Scheduled for October 31 to November 13, 2026, the upcoming competition will mark the first Olympic event hosted on the African continent.
According to a report by the South African publication MambaOnline, rights monitors documented a sharp increase in arbitrary arrests and human rights violations following the tightening of Senegalese criminal law in March. The report indicates that between February and July 2026, law enforcement authorities detained more than two hundred individuals on suspicion of homosexual relations. Detainees were subjected to involuntary HIV testing without informed consent, after which positive test results were used by prosecutors to prolong detention and bring additional charges of endangering public health.
Human Rights Watch LGBT rights researcher Larissa Kojoué noted that the ongoing campaign has forced many queer people into hiding, into exile, or away from vital medical care. Fearing denunciation and arrest, HIV-positive citizens have stopped attending public clinics for antiretroviral therapy (ART), threatening national public health gains. Furthermore, local defense lawyers have widely refused to represent suspects out of fear of professional harassment and prosecution under the new statute.
Rights advocates submitted appeals to the Senegalese government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), citing Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter, which prohibits any form of discrimination. The Senegalese administration has not formally commented on the Human Rights Watch findings. Previously, government officials, including Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, repeatedly stated that maintaining criminal penalties for same-sex relations reflects the country’s traditional religious and cultural values.
In March 2026, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye signed revisions to Article 319 of the Senegalese Penal Code, doubling the maximum sentence for consensual same-sex conduct from five to ten years in prison and criminalizing public support or promotion of LGBT initiatives with up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Uránia previously reported on the consequences of the March criminal code revisions in the West African nation, including the trial of 71 men rounded up in mass raids in the suburbs of Dakar.
