FACTBOX-Gabon joins latest countries to allow same-sex relations

Gabon has voted to decriminalise gay sex, making it one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa to do so by reversing a law that punished sexual relations between people of the same sex. On Tuesday, 48 members of the lower house of the country's parliament backed a proposed initiative to revise an article of a 2019 law that criminalised homosexuality, while 24 voted against and 25 abstained.

Gabon has voted to decriminalize gay sex, making it one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa to do so by reversing a law that punished sexual relations between people of the same sex.

On Tuesday, 48 members of the lower house of the country's parliament backed a proposed initiative to revise an article of a 2019 law that criminalized homosexuality, while 24 voted against and 25 abstained. Gabon in central Africa became the 70th country to ban gay sex when it passed a law last year with penalties of six months in prison and a fine of 5 million CFA francs ($8,500), with many of the countries banning same-sex relations in Africa.

In May last year, a Kenyan court upheld a law criminalizing gay sex dating back to British rule. Advocates are challenging that ruling. Here are the latest 10 countries to remove bans on same-sex relations:

1. Gabon - Lawmakers in Gabon's lower house of parliament voted to decriminalize homosexuality on June 23, 2020. "Forty-eight lawmakers have shaken an entire nation and its customs and traditions," said one member of parliament, who voted against the revision.

2. Botswana - Gay sex was decriminalized in a high court ruling on June 11, 2019, although the Botswana government said it would appeal. 3. Bhutan - On June 7, 2019, Bhutan's lower house of parliament voted to decriminalize gay sex. 4. Angola - In January 2019, Angola removed a ban on "vices against nature" from its penal code, which had been interpreted as criminalizing gay sex. 5. India - A colonial-era law ban on gay sex was ruled unconstitutional by India's Supreme Court in September 2018, decriminalizing same-sex relations in the country of 1.3 billion people. 6. Trinidad and Tobago - The Caribbean state's high court overturned its law against "buggery", which criminalized sexual relations between consenting same-sex partners, in April 2018. 7. Seychelles - In 2016 the Indian Ocean island state repealed the parts of its penal code that criminalized same-sex relations. 8. Nauru - Homosexuality was legalized by the Pacific Island country in 2016 after it accepted recommendations made by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2011. 9. Belize - The former British colony's criminalization of "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" was ruled unconstitutional in 2016. 10. Mozambique - Two articles in Mozambique's Portuguese colonial-era penal code criminalizing "vices against nature" were repealed in 2014.

Sources: International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), Reuters