In June 2026, the nation of Niger became the first nation in the world to criminalise asexuality, as part of a wider crackdown on the LGBTQIA+ community. The country, currently run by a military junta, broadened its anti-LGBTQIA+ laws, increasing the criminalisation of LGBTQIA+ ‘practices’ to include anyone who ‘attempts to’ participate.
The ILGA database says the newly passed laws, Article 25 and 390, are already having life-threatening implications on LGBTQIA+ people in Niger.
Ace people in Niger, alongside people of all LGBTQIA+ identities, can now face 5-10 years in prison and fines worth up to £130K.
The change was significant as it makes Niger the first country to name the asexual community in its law books. However, it begs the question: how does one ban an asexual “practice”, other than to punish people who are not married and those who don’t have babies? To understand, we should see this law as part of a bigger – and growing – global trend among conservatives.
Niger’s crackdown on asexual “practices” is not isolated to the West African nation; it’s part of a greater trend of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric, enforced monogamy and anti-abortion movements worldwide.
In 2026, Niger (alongside Burkina Faso and Mali) has strengthened diplomatic ties with Russia, while their military juntas are at war with insurgent groups. This move comes at a time when Russia instituted a ban on “propaganda” that promotes childfree lifestyles. But this rhetoric is not isolated to countries we tend to associate with deep-rooted conservative laws.
Meanwhile, conservatives in the U.S. have been shaming childfree women as “childless cat ladies”. This builds on previous campaigns from the religious right in America, which stated the Respect for Marriage Act would lead to asexual marriages, which they believed would lead to a marriage “inferno”. Groups like the Heritage Foundation equated asexual marriages to “selfishness”.
Zoom out a little, and it's easy to see the hypocrisy of conservative religious people demonising asexuality, considering how much abstinence was preached to me growing up in a conservatively religious home.
Asexuality stands in direct contrast to the religious right’s shaming of ‘childfree’ people, which also often ignores other routes to having children like adoption, and family models that show you can be asexual and a parent. Instead, the decreasing birth rate has been a talking point of right-wing politics for years.
And yet, conservatives do not care to address the many concerns related to raising a child – such as rising costs of childcare, affordable housing, and lack of reproductive justice. They only seem to care about making everyone become a parent.
This change in the law in Niger should be seen in the context of attacks on everyone’s freedom to be their true self and design their life however they wish, free of societal, religious, or political pressure.
If they attack and pressure those who feel little to no sexual attraction or interest in sex, that is a gateway to attacking anyone who does have sex in any way that’s not “approved” or “acceptable”.
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