That’s the worrying message from UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, who says that more than one in three countries still criminalize consensual same-sex conduct and several also maintain the death penalty for it.

“The trend is worsening. Over the past year, Burkina Faso criminalized consensual same-sex relations,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights insisted. “Senegal increased prison terms for same-sex sexual acts from five to 10 years. Similar laws are being considered in other countries, including Ghana.”

Repression trend

These countries also have discriminatory laws that penalize the dissemination of information about LGBTIQ+ issues, with similar legal restrictions in operation in Belarus and Kazakhstan, Mr. Türk continued. “We denounce these trends and we commit to reversing them…History has shown that when societies normalize hate and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people, itlays the groundwork for broader repression.”

The UN’s top rights official highlighted how Cameroon, Hungary, Indonesia, Morocco, Tunisia, Türkiye and other countries “have arrested and targeted LGBTIQ+ people and activists”, amid divisive rhetoric “by some politicians and leaders” that is driving online abuse, especially against transgender people.

“Elections have become battlegrounds of hate,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights said, referring to a study from NGO Outright International into the near-90 elections held worldwide in 2024 which found that approximately 85 per cent of countries surveyed contained anti-LGBTIQ+ messages.

Despite this growing negative trend, some progress is being made in the struggle “to live and love freely”, Mr. Türk noted.

He pointed to St. Lucia which has now decriminalized consensual same-sex relations and Botswana, which has decriminalized same-sex conduct. And Nepal, where the country has elected a transgender woman as a Member of Parliament for the first time in its history.

The High Commissioner also welcomed other positive developments including the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 21 April this year that Hungary’s 2021 ban on content for children about sexual orientation and gender identity violated fundamental rights.

“States need to end violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people by repealing biased laws, investigating all violations, and holding perpetrators to account,” Mr. Türk said, in comments to mark the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia on Sunday.

“Both States and technology companies need to take meaningful action against online hate and abuse.”