In Article 631, homosexuality performed on minors is punishable:ġ. Homosexual and other indecent acts performed on minors The punishment shall be rigorous imprisonment from three years to fifteen years. The punishment shall be imprisonment for not less than one year, or, in certain grave cases, rigorous imprisonment not exceeding ten years.
The Article 630 defines the punishments into two ways:ġ. Whoever performs with another person of the same sex a homosexual act, or any other indecent act, is punishable with simple imprisonment. Under Article 629 of the Criminal Code, both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Ethiopia. Gender roles in Maale culture ĭonald Donham suggested that a small minority of Maales who are apparently male occasionally adopt feminine societal roles, donning typically female attire and occasionally having sex with men. These policies of censorship have yet to be enacted into law. In the early 2010s, some media outlets with the cooperation of the government imposed restrictions over the discussion of " LGBT ideology". In the same year, an unofficial gay marriage took place in Sheraton Addis. However it became blocked en route to the prime minister's office. In 2008, LGBT people became increasingly visible in Ethiopia when hundreds of homosexuals petitioned for equal rights and appealed to the prime minister Meles Zenawi. The book is the first requiring in "queer reading" style in earliest Ethiopian literature. Walatta Petros (1592–1642) and her fellow student Ehete Krestos from Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, were friendly nuns "lived together in mutual love, like soul and body" until death whereas other nuns depicted as lustful each other.
Notable reference of same-sex activity in Ethiopia was in hagiography The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672).