gay life and death in prisons

June 9, 2004: For the first time in Ghana's prison service, clinical psychologists have been employed to counsel prisoners on life in the prisons and matters relating to their health. The move is intended to stem the spread of HIV among prison populations but prejudice, intolerance, violence and corruption still run high.

In addition to the introduction of clinical psychologists, the service will soon acquire more television sets for prisons in the country to help with education. These measures are in response to what some are calling, "a belief that some prisoners cannot close their zips or lock them and have become homosexuals and lesbians who put themselves and other inmates at risk of contracting dangerous diseases such as HIV/Aids."

While these improvements are likely to bring many benefits for inmates they are part of a basically homophobic response to the problem of disease prevention among prison populations and homosexual activity is greeted with derision and often violence with no protection for gay inmates from authorities.

According to the BTM correspondent in Ghana, investigations have revealed that some prisoners work in the cells as gay prostitutes in order to raise some money to meet their personal needs. A source in the prisons service claims that some homosexuals influence the other inmates with money and other things in order to have sexual relations with them.

"Those who are into it before coming to prison are known as predators. They usually find it difficult to control their sexual passions and sometimes attempt to coerce other people to sleep with them. Some inmates who felt threatened by the activities of the predators expressed their indignation by slashing the predators with sharp objects."

The source said that when inmates see other prisoners engaged in a homosexual act, they shout "kpei, kpei, kpei" to notify the prison officers on duty, as well as the rest of the prisoners that something "unholy" is going on. When caught, they sometimes molest them out of sight their officers. The source admitted that most of the people in the prisons are young men and women likely to be sexually active.

The source revisited suggestions made by some sections of Ghanaian public that arrangement should be made for prisoners to have their sexual relations with their spouses periodically, saying they were worth debating. The source could not confirm or deny reports that some prison officers made arrangements for some influential and wealthy prisoners to have sexual relation with their partners.

Meanwhile, statistics available show that HIV/Aids is the number one killer of prisoners in Ghana. It accounts for 17.5 % of all prisoner deaths in the country; about 22 of the 125 deaths last year were caused by the disease. In the light of this, the service is encouraging HIV/Aids voluntary testing to stem the spread of the disease in the prisons.

There have also been suggestions that all convicts should be tested before they are admitted to the prisons since some come in with the disease.

The statistics shows that tuberculosis is another killer. It claimed 26 lives in 2002, representing 20.6 % of the total deaths. The other killer diseases in prison include anaemia, 15 %; pneumonia, 13 %; septicaemia, 11 %, hepatitis 6 %, and dehydration, 5 %. Others are malaria fever, 4 %; congestive cardiac failure, 4 %; meningitis, 3 %, hypertension renal failure and respiration failure, 2 % each; asthma, cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes, epilepsy, haemoptisis, hernia, paralysis and cachexia each accounted for 1 % of prisoners deaths.

Contact: gaytourghana@yahoo.com or cpehr_ghana@yahoo.com
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