Ivory Coast reels from surge of homophobic attacks fuelled by online influencers

Ivory Coast has traditionally been a safe haven for LGBTQ+ communities in West Africa, but a recent surge in homophobic attacks fuelled by social media has "shaken that sense of safety", said Elian Peltier in The New York Times.

Since September, there have been more than 45 assaults on gay men and transgender people in its largest city, Abidjan. In one incident in Yopougon, a working-class neighbourhood in Abidjan, a mob targeted a beauty salon run by transgender women. A broader rise in homophobia was on display during this September's Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers when several groups of Ivory Coast fans unfurled banners bearing homophobic messages and slogans including "No to woubi", a derogatory term for gay men.

The spike in homophobia and homophobic violence has led Ivorian gay communities and human rights groups to express concerns that the hostility could endanger the country's reputation for comparative tolerance.

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Anti-gay 'hunts'

The recent flare-up of violence appears to have been linked to homophobic rhetoric by high-profile social media influencers. Ibrahim Zigui, who has over 230,000 followers on TikTok "stoked the flames" by posting criticism of the "overexposure" of gay people in Ivory Coast, said Entrevue. Another TikToker, Camille Makosso, made several posts encouraging followers to "hunt" gay men and "stop the plague of woubisme and the advances of Aids in Ivory Coast". In fact, the United Nations has reported a steady decrease in new HIV infections in the country, with primary transmission occurring from heterosexual contact.

"LGBTQ+ people in Abidjan have stopped meeting in public and go out only at night", wrote Peltier, citing testimonials gathered by human rights organisations in Ivory Coast. Brice Donald Dibahi, founder of Ivorian LGBTQ+ nonprofit Gromo, told AFP there "has always been homophobia, whether in the street or on social media, but I have never seen this type of escalation". A transgender woman who runs a pro-transgender human rights group in Abidjan said she had been forced to shut down the organisation's headquarters, fearing "a movement of this magnitude".

Government is 'neutral'

Same-sex orientation is "neither legal nor illegal in Ivory Coast", a nation that "takes pride in its culture of hospitality", said Peltier.

The country's official stance on sexual orientation continues to be a matter of contentious debate. In 2021, the US State Department's global Human Rights Report noted that while "homosexuality is not criminalised" in Ivory Coast "the law does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation". And even as the country's National Human Rights Council condemned violence and said it "firmly believed" in the protection of LGBTQ+ rights, it also asked the gay community to "avoid any behaviour that could be perceived as provocative or ostentatious", said AFP.

Homosexuality is currently illegal in 30 out of 54 African nations, with Ghana, Ivory Coast's neighbour, recently announcing some of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world. Earlier this year, the "ripple effects of conservative Africa" were seen in Ivory Coast after the country decided to split from the United Methodist Church, following its decision to repeal a longstanding ban on LGBTQ+ clergy, said AP. With the 2025 presidential election on the horizon, political analysts and rights groups, said Peltier, "now fear that a candidate or a foreign power could stoke homophobic hatred to garner support during the campaign".