Gay rights activists from Commonwealth countries are demanding that laws banning homosexuality should be overturned. Campaigner Peter Tatchell has said people face violence and imprisonment just because they are gay. The British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, promised the Olympic diver Tom Daley that he would raise the issue at the Commonwealth summit.

So, where is homosexuality still outlawed? There are 53 countries in the Commonwealth and most of them are former British colonies. Out of those, 37 have laws that criminalise homosexuality.

That number will fall by one after a court ruling in Trinidad and Tobago this month found that laws banning gay sex were unconstitutional. However there may be an appeal.

Many of the laws criminalising homosexual relations originate from British colonial times. And in many places, breaking these laws could be punishable by long prison sentences.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (Ilga) monitors the progress of laws relating to homosexuality around the world. According to its research, there have been arrests for homosexual acts in 15 Commonwealth countries in the last three years. For instance, in 2017 the BBC reported that 40 men in Nigeria had been arrested during one weekend for performing homosexual acts.

Some observers note that the risk of prosecution in some places is minimal. For example, a 2017 report on Jamaica by the UK Home Office said that Jamaica was regarded as a homophobic society but that the "authorities do not actively seek to prosecute LGBT persons". On the other hand, some countries' existing laws have been tightened, including Nigeria and Uganda.