Mini-Post: It Is World Wide

All around the world LGBTQ+ people are being persecuted, Russia, Hungary, the middle-east countries, and Africa.

Prison time, fines and ostracisation: anti-gay law shocks community in African country seen as relatively safe

Jail terms of up to five years for ‘promoting homosexuality’ in Burkina Faso is latest in push for ‘family values’ sweeping the continent

The Guardian

Sat 6 Sep 2025

For my own safety I’ve become much more distrustful, I’ve shut myself off and try not to talk to certain people,” says Paul*, a young Burkinabé. “How will we go to health centres? Will doctors and nurses protect us? Or will they report us?”

On 1 September, Burkina Faso’s minister of justice and human rights, Edasso Rodrigue Bayala, announced an amendment to the Code of Persons and Family (CPF) which came into force in 1990, establishing for the first time a prison sentence of between two and five years and a fine for those who “promote homosexuality”.

The amendment is “a historic reform linked to a legal innovation, respect for cultural values and the will to build a Burkinabé family”, says Bayala. He says homosexuality will be detected in people who show “bizarre behaviour”.

First approved by the president, Ibrahim Traoré, in July 2024, it was unanimously passed by the transitional legislative assembly, which has replaced parliament since a coup d’état in September 2022.

The new law has sent shock waves through the country’s queer community.

It is spreading like a virus, like a plague, like a slime.