Sodomy Law: Laws criminalising certain sexual acts
A sodomy law makes certain sexual acts a crime.
Very often, the law mentions the term sodomy, but doesn't say precisely which sexual acts are covered. If the sexual acts are not spelled out, courts usually understand this to mean sexual acts that are "unnatural" or "immoral". Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced against heterosexual couples, and have mostly been used to target homosexual couples.
As of December 2022, 65 countries as well as four sub-national jurisdictions have laws criminalizing homosexuality. In 2006 that number was 92. Among these 66 countries, 42 criminalize not only male homosexuality but also female homosexuality. In 11 of them, homosexuality is punished with the death penalty.: 15
In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed an LGBT rights resolution, which was followed up by a report published by the UN Human Rights Commissioner which included scrutiny of the mentioned codes.
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