OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Burkina Faso’s parliament has handed a regulation banning homosexuality with offenders dealing with two to 5 years in jail, the state broadcaster reported late Monday.
The amended household code was permitted by the parliament on Monday in an unanimous vote that places the code into impact greater than a 12 months after it was permitted by the navy authorities of Capt. Ibrahim Traore.
Burkina Faso joins the checklist of greater than half of Africa’s 54 international locations which have legal guidelines banning homosexuality with the penalties starting from a number of years in jail to the loss of life penalty. The legal guidelines, although criticized overseas, take pleasure in recognition within the international locations the place locals and officers have criticized homosexuality as habits imported from overseas and never a sexual orientation.
The brand new regulation goes into impact instantly with people in same-sex relationships risking jail sentences in addition to fines, Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala stated throughout a briefing broadcast by the state TV. He described gay acts as “weird habits.”
Officers touted the brand new regulation as a recognition of “marriage and household values” in Burkina Faso.
“You’ll go earlier than the choose,” the justice minister stated, addressing offenders.
Burkina Faso has been run by the navy following a coup in 2022 that the troopers stated was to stabilize the nation amid a worsening safety disaster and supply higher governance.
Rights group, nonetheless, accuse the junta of clamping down on human rights with the rampant arrest and navy conscription of critics.
Since coming to energy in September 2022 after Burkina Faso’s second coup that 12 months, the junta chief Traore has additionally positioned himself as a pan-African chief with rhetoric of independence from the West — a message that always resonates with Africa’s younger inhabitants.
