 My name is Wisdom Kwamibebli. I'm from Ghana and because the LGBT community in Ghana is very vulnerable I diverted my specific human right defending into human rights of LGBTIQ people. My work started around health intervention programmes. People didn't know how to assess healthcare services in terms of their sexuality and also their sexual behaviour. And if I'm able to bring this to them then it means that I'm going to be saving life. And this is where it all started for me. Human rights in general in Ghana is when you are, a typical example is when you are working for, I mean human rights that everybody knows that it's human rights, it is accepted. But when you are an LGBT human right defender then you have an issue. So the environment is hostile, is risky, is dangerous to you, the individual, to your family, to your friends that you have around you and to people that engage you. So you will be tagged in a certain way that you can't be able to work comfortably, move around comfortably because you get people moving away from you just because you are tagged. It takes a lot of strength and courage to be an LGBT human right defender. I get my strength from people calling me and telling me about how engaging with them, help them also about solving their situations most especially when people are attacked. There are many obstacles faced by LGBT IQ human right defenders. I mean you can't operate as an LGBT rights organization, you can't register your organization with the full name that you have chosen for your organization. And also LGBT human rights organizations cannot fully operate and openly operate in wherever their office is situated or even in a country. They always have to work on the low and not expose and endanger themselves in the community in the work they do. In Ghana if anybody gets fitical with you and they attack you, before people will come to your help, they will either scream that you are gay or you are LGBT activists who support gay people and then the people around will attack you more. And sometimes even you even go to the police report the case is rather turned against you because of the name calling of you being gay. Immediately hear gay then it means look this is illegal in Ghana. We've seen some form of improvement with our advocacy that we are doing in terms of engaging allies such as the police in terms of how to address issues of violence and attack of people, human rights and not the perceived sexuality of people that they hear them when they come to the police station to report about issues of rugby or blackmail. So we've done some form of advocacy and engagement with this police. Some of them are understanding the issues and helping out. We've done a lot of engagement with health care services. We've done a lot of engagement with some agencies that supports our work and most especially we've done work with Shratch. The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, we work closely with them in terms of seeking justice for the community when there is also violence. Ghana is signed onto the UN treaties and all of that. We had a meeting like activists in Ghana and then we had a meeting, online meeting to discuss some of the mandates how the UN can help. Then the Office of Human Rights also helped in engaging the African Commission also to release a statement. So we thought that for the first time it is okay that we hear the various human rights commissions release statements on issues of LGBTQ in Ghana which would cut the attention of the government agencies to know that the LGBT community is not in this alone but the international community is also on the lookout for the human rights of people regardless of their agenda, regardless of their sexuality. The family values bill has impacted the LGBTQ community positively and negatively. Positively we've seen a lot of academia professionals who have come against the bill and who are speaking against the bill. We've seen mainstream human rights organizations coming together to fight against the bill which we have not seen in a very long time since our advocacy or human rights work in Ghana for LGBTQ people. That we applaud very well because it's not easy to see mainstream human rights organizations against LGBTQ bill that has been presented in parliament. Negatively there is because there is a lot of violence and attack just because of the introduction of the bill and then it has been discussed and debated in the country. The lay people are attacking community members and they are violating their rights. There are a lot of videos on social media that you can find that you will see a lot of attacks on various LGBTQ people in various regions of Ghana where you see people are attacked just because they are perceived to be LGBTQ people or gay people because of the introduction of the bill and because our leaders are talking and are fuming hate against LGBTQ people so people feel that they can take blows into their own hands and do anything immediately here you are gay. I mean while they are not educated about what really the law says about even when you are raised somebody to be gay what you should do. I mean a lot of lay Ghanians do not know what to do. All they know is attack. LGBTQ persons in Ghana are not fighting for any rights but they are human rights. They are liberty to be able to move freely, they are liberty to be able to express freely, they are liberty to be able to work freely in Ghana. That is what I want my fellow Ghanians to know what LGBTQ people in Ghana need from them. I believe that one day even if not me my next generation to come the work that I will do and then my next generation comes to continue but when they see light at the end of the tunnel where we will see freedom and liberty for human rights of LGBTQ people in Ghana I will not be alive to see the light at the end of the tunnel but to see people continue the work where we have left off and the work that we have done continue is one of the things that I will be happy about.