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The famous lesbian South African runner Caster Semenya effectively objected to policies focused on policing ladies’s bodies by World Athletics, eventually winning her case at the European Court of Human Rights in 2025. Credit: Shutterstock
DAKAR, Oct 30 2026(IPS) -Senegal is inviting professional athletes and visitors from around the world as part of the 4th Summer Youth Olympic Gamesthe first-ever Olympics in Africa. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) African professional athletes, consisting of from Senegalhave actually consistently taken part in and won competitors– while promoting their rights to complete and speaking up versus discrimination
In 2024, Cindy Ngambaa freely lesbian fighter born in Cameroon, made history at the Paris 2024 Olympics by winning the very first medal for the Refugee Olympic Team.
The famous lesbian South African runner Caster Semenya effectively objected to policies focused on policing females’s bodies by World Athletics, eventually winning her case at the European Court of Human Rights in 2025. Along the method, she won an overall of 6 medals throughout the Olympics and World Athletics Championships and unmasked approximate meanings of womanhood and racial stereotypes dealt with by African professional athletes.
In 2020, Phuti Lekoloane established the African Pride Gamesproducing a safe platform for competitors no matter one’s identity and showing that sport “can drive equality, addition, and unity” After coming out openly in July 2015, he was among Africa’s very first freely gay male footballers.
The environment of hatred and persecution developed by the brand-new law puts LGBT individuals, consisting of professional athletes, personnel, and fans at the Dakar Youth Olympics, at threat of human rights abuses
Senegal’s hosting of the Youth Olympics, nevertheless, reveals the requirement to keep defending the rights of LGBT individuals in Africa.
In March 2026, Senegal‘s parliament modified its chastening codedoubling to 10 years the optimum jail term for consensual same-sex conduct and criminalizing “promo” of, or assistance to, LGBT individuals and companies. In between February and July, numerous individuals were detained in connection with the modification of the chastening code, according to the African Forum for the Defense of Human Rights (Rencontre Africaine put la Défense des Droits de l’Homme, or RADDHO. Senegalese federal government authorities have actually regularly utilized incendiary rhetoric versus LGBT individuals.
The environment of hatred and persecution developed by the brand-new law puts LGBT individuals, consisting of professional athletes, personnel, and fans at the Dakar Youth Olympics, at danger of human rights abuses.
Senegal’s then Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko stated in April 2026 that, “any professional athlete coming exclusively to practice their sport is welcome and can easily pursue their activity. If somebody comes for factors other than sport, the law of the nation will use to them, as it uses to everybody.”
The Senegalese federal government’s hostility to LGBT rights runs contrary to the Olympic Charterwhich forbids discrimination of any kind, consisting of based upon sexual preference. Olympic hosts are needed by their agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to avoid, examine, and solution human rights abuses associated with the Games, consisting of by engaging with afflicted groups.
Senegalese authorities, through the Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee, have actually presented procedures to promote human rights securities, which they referred to as an essential sign for the success of the competitors. These securities have actually so far left out the rights of LGBT individuals.
A number of professional athletes have actually currently pressed back versus Senegal’s heavy-handed law. Jérémy Clamy-Edroux, a freely gay, previous expert rugby gamer, and Brahim Naït-Balk, a honestly gay football coach, were amongst 29 African leaders who signed a May 2026 letter requiring the Senegalese federal government to open restored discussion on the law.
In their letter, they raised issues about abuses dealt with by LGBT individuals and asserted that Pan-Africanismformerly welcomed by Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye himself, ought to advance freedom for all Africans, no matter their sexual preference or gender identity.
The Dakar Youth Olympics ends November 13. Before then, Senegal’s federal government ought to reverse its anti-LGBT laws and complimentary anybody still apprehended under the previous changes. Senegal needs to utilize the Youth Olympics to safeguard LGBT individuals and totally accept Olympic worths.
Vincent Sima Olé is a senior program and sport and human rights planner and Larissa Kojoué is an LGBT rights scientist, both at Human Rights Watch.
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