Junta-run Burkina Faso has passed a law banning homosexuality and instituting punishments of up to five years in jail, the latest in a clutch of African nations to pass anti-gay legislation.
“The law provides for a prison sentence of between two and five years as well as fines,” Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala said on national broadcaster RTB.
“If a person is a perpetrator of homosexual or similar practices, all the bizarre behaviour, they will go before the judge,” he said, adding that foreign nationals would be deported under the law.
Extremely disappointing. As others have said, hopefully they go the way of Cuba and correct this dramatic error.
From hero to zero.
Huge fucking L if true, maybe Cuba can talk them around
worst news ive heard this year
unfortunately any revolutionary government has to deal with the reality on the ground
It really pisses me off that anyone says this. If anything, the reality on the ground should mean there is fighting against this
This is an idealist position. Pursuing progressive social policy beyond what the public demands is not the priority for any revolutionary movement. We are talking about a country where al Qaeda controls half of the territory. The fact is that LGBTQ identities are seen as western decadence by many people in the global south.
The criteria for success for the revolution is whether they can consolidate political power or not. Everything else is secondary. How long did it take Cuba to come around?
That doesn’t justify bigotry and persecution, and the 1950’s were a much less progressive and educated time on topics like this.
I should point out that Al-Qaeda’s beliefs are in the same category as the supposed revolutionary government’s, and it’s because of shit like this that neoliberals run with the claim that communists hate LGBT people. You can’t call yourself a revolutionary and support this fascist horseshit.
It’s not idealist when people’s lives are at stake, you tool.
what do you mean we can’t just immediately throw everyone to the right of Mao or who has incongruous WrongThought incompatibile with the Hexbear line straight into a pit?? what do you mean there are material and logistical concerns with that on top of the generous assumption that like, you can even overcome right wing violence in order to do that??? i’m just shocked. my pit was all ready to go, too
I’m still on the side of the pit tbh
Massive L if true but I can’t find any anti-imperialist media reporting this. The way the imperialists have been frothing at the mouth and gunning for BF I can’t trust anything western media say.
I have done some looking RTB’s website for the supposed statements by Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala but my very limited french comprehension is not getting me very far.
If you still have the link send it to me I’ll take a look
This is another source -> https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8992825
The bill is highly influenced by the religious conservatives of society. The bill itself is causing tensions and debates.
This puts the critical in critical support. Bad move Burkina Faso, bad move.
Yeah really frustrating given all the good news coming out of there until this.
Sadly, this is true. However, this didn’t sit well with great part of the population as reported by this other source.
This bill thus appears as a dividing line between two visions of Burkinabe society: one attached to the preservation of ancestral cultural references, the other turned towards greater openness and diversity of lifestyles.
This is a fight that the Burkinabe diaspora and the non-conservative/non-religious have to do to change this. I have plenty of hope that Grasroot orgs are already fighting this bill in Burkina Faso.
there’s zero reason to be doing anything like this
its one thing if the country already has these regressive laws and the material conditions arent in a place where they can prioritize changing them. but to create these laws at this moment in time? terrible move
This bill is influenced by the religious and conservative elements of society. Sadly, they are in great number in Burkina Faso and have influence in the laws.
This will be one of their internal contradictions that they have to overcome through mass movements and Grassroot orgs.
The accelerated contradictions they will experience and degradation of any socialist movement will be apparent in that they are still using ID politics
Which just leads to degraded conditions and a power vacuum usually
People aren’t being ruled by consent with this measure
They have ditched working for every working class person in face of quick political concessions to reactionary forces
Like with Cuba it will probably take decades of reflection of the violence they will inflict on each other for no good reason.
Someone came over, enslaved them, setup up orthodox churches and beat it into them as slaves over 100s of years, same applies to here. Ripping out colonialism roots requires ripping out the legacy of colonial homophobia, and it seems they haven’t managed that
People aren’t being ruled by consent with this measure
Sadly, this is part of the will of the majority. The majority of Burkina Faso are religious. However, this will change if three things happen:
- Strong Grassroot orgs move to educate the masses against the typical lies
- The civilization moves to study science in great numbers which will then destroy the unscientific and religious thinking within society.
- There has to be a separate and strong Grassroot org without any funding from the imperialist American and French that furthers LGBT+ cause while bolstering the revolution. In other words, they have to be part of the revolution and not to be confused with the imperialists.
One example of the first point is this org that tackles some common lies about homosexuality that links it to HIV/AIDS:
this hits very close to home for me and reading it felt like the same copium that i had the displeasure of learning from:
The activists were particularly worried that Mushingi could undermine their efforts to put a stop to the anti-gay law through behind-the-scenes advocacy.
the queer liberation we have now in the global north and it’s periphery took root during the brief period when the ruling class hadn’t yet developed countermeasures against progressive protests of the 1960’s and 1970’s and it later became solidified by hollywood via popular culture in the following decades. now-a-days that the ruling class has significantly better countermeasures to any revolutionary or progressive movement.
in the united states, specifically, it came as a result of members of the ruling class pushing for it in episodes like lawrence vs texas in 2003 and obergfell vs hodges in 2015. and they had to do it through the courts because americans also took behind-the-scenes advocacy that culminated with bill clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. every single grass roots organizations between act-up to the log-cabin-republicans expended their entire political capital and focused all their efforts to expend them on clinton and it ended up with clinton instigating don’t-ask-don’t-tell (which banned queers from the military) and defensive-of-marriage-act (which banned gay marriage as well as invalided all other behind-the-scenes efforts across the country up until then).
Despite the absence of legal sanctions in Burkina Faso, Brahima said many people in his country view homosexuality as “a sickness” or “a curse” and even believe gay people “need to be killed.”
Several incidents in the past few years have highlighted this hostility, delivering a clear message that gay people are unwelcome even though the country has refrained from formally taking action against them. In 2013, the imam at the Grande Mosquée in Ouagadougou used his sermon marking Eid Al-Adha, or Tabaski, one of the biggest Muslim holidays of the year, to stress that homosexuality, and gay marriage in particular, was against the country’s values. “Men who marry men, just like women who marry women under the pretext that it’s the law, we do not agree,” said the imam
The previous year, a case of anti-gay harassment caught the attention of the U.S. government. According to the State Department’s Human Rights Report for 2012, on March 18 of that year, hundreds of people from the Ouagadougou neighbourhood of Wemtenga “demonstrated to demand the departure of a gay couple within seven days,” claiming “the couple set a bad example for neighborhood children.” After two weeks, the couple left, and “no legal action was taken against the perpetrators.”
mexico, cuba and venezuela have confirmed what the united states has already proved true; that the liberation of any queer minority will not came as a result of behind-the-scene efforts nor the goodwill of the majority. clinton proved that no amount of meeting people where they’re at will change this fact and each of those countries share a similar colonial and homophobic background to burkina faso.
like it was in mexico or cuba; the government has to lay down policy via its courts to protect any minority and it MUST follow through with it or else you end with a venezuela or burkina faso; a place that already has a strong pro-revolutionary environment, but still homophobic AF and paying lip service to their ideals as much as the united states does to its own ideals while never fully living up to them.
Thanks for providing a better perspective on this than french media, if they where actual reporters they would have done this work also.
Well, we all know that the french capitalist media doesn’t really care about our LGBT+ comrades neither our Burkinabe comrades. They only care to further their imperialist goals in the region which is to desestabilize Burkina Faso and to plunder their resources.
“This is the new trend in the United States.”
More like the old ways that got erased by colonialism
More like the old ways that got erased by colonialism
Exactly. This is the type of thinking that permeates in places that have anti imperialist thinking.
We can’t let the imperialist use the identity of our LGBT+ comrades as justification to destroy nations like Burkina Faso. Also, we need to reassure the people in these nations that we are part of their development and the revolution. We are allies and not their enemies.
The imperialist from the US and Europe are well known to fund LGBT+ campaigns. We all know that most of those programs don’t really help our LGBT+ comrades but it does help to fund terrorists:
“Without the support of this American aid agency, terrorist groups like the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara or Iyad Ag Ghaly’s JNIM could find themselves short of weapons, ammunition, and reconnaissance means. This is very good news for Africa, because USAID is an unconventional warfare weapon for American special forces, which use psychological manipulation methods and support insurgency and irregular warfare against Africans ,” said a Nigerien on condition of anonymity.
It also gives justification for the imperialists to impose sanctions on them, which also don’t help anyone at all, most especially queer comrades in places that are besieged by imperialism.
UK and USA imperialists are cheering. This is going to be interesting to see how it plays out
True. However, sanctions don’t have the power to disrupt these countries as it did before.
Right now, (this is entirely my speculation) the imperialist are trying to attack solidarity for Burkina Faso within Western countries(this wouldn’t be the first time because they have done this against the Palestinian resistance). However, I am confident that our queer comrades within Burkina Faso will organize along with the current pro-women organizations such as this one to fight the conservative and religious, Coalition to Act Against Gender-Based Violence (Faso CAC-VBG).
The source is France24. I wouldnt trust it.
Yeah not even a link to a source or announcement from the government. Here is a comment I found from The Deprogram sub on reddit: https://reddit.com/comments/1n6avoo/comment/nbzbn98
I feel the same, if you google it, every article uses the same Fr*nch source for the story, and they’re all almost identical in writing too. The law was proposed in July 2024, and only passed now. The only ‘credible’ source I could find was some place that collects bills in PDF format, but they even stated
To enter into force, it would require parliamentary approval before being promulgated by the president. ILGA World’s Research team is currently working to find a copy of the bill.
So the proposed bill isn’t available anywhere I can find it, and now it’s suddenly passed ‘unanimous’ according to “Agence France-Presse?” Smells fishy.
But that aside, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was introduced and did actually pass, lots of African countries including Mali (their massive northern neighbour) has passed a law criminalising LGBTQ activities. Ghana, Uganda…
I am cautious of reporting from a french source will accept better sources on this matter
Sadly, it is true -> https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8992825. This source is another from BF.
The religious segment of society didn’t only banned homosexuality but it also targeted women that have multiple husbands. The bill could has the following:
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The prohibition, accompanied by sanctions, of behavior deemed " harmful to family structure ," in particular that aimed at promoting homosexual practices.
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The prohibition of polyandry, that is to say the possibility for a woman to have several husbands.
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The possibility of changing the matrimonial regime: spouses married under the monogamous regime could, by joint declaration and court approval, switch to a polygamous regime.
The prohibition of polyandry, that is to say the possibility for a woman to have several husbands.
‘Women hold up half the sky’ and they build monuments to Thomas Sankara, disgusting in the face of his legacy.
So they’re permitting or even promoting polygamy but banning polyandry, which I’m sure is actually much more deeply culturally rooted, since it’s a traditional practice in a lot of West Africa that long predates the Abrahamic religions.
They’ve since clarified that the possibility of changing polygamous to monogamous and vice versa did not make the bill. Polyandry is strictly prohobited however, which is done in anticipation of a rapid evolution of behaviour in society according to the Minister of Justice. Not sure how those connect, maybe to do with inheritance laws?
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It’s typical of French media that they focus on cherrypicking only the bad out of a much larger bill. Still… It is sad that this was included at all. Unnecessary and counterproductive. Not a strategically smart move at all, as it harms the ability for supporters of the revolutions in the Sahel to counter western accusations.
I’m not mad, Burkina, i’m just disappointed… 😞
The Burkinabe have strong relations with their diaspora so I am pretty sure that they will overcome it through strong Grassroot orgs independent from imperialist funding.
The diaspora will have to be very careful how they approach this. The last thing you want is to come off as trying to push the cultural norms of the imperialist West onto a native population. That risks hardening opposition and increasing the backlash.
What should be done is to emphasize that homophobia and queerphobia are not inherently African, that traditional African culture actually was much more tolerant and matriarchal, and that these hetero-normative and patriarchal gender roles are actually a cultural imposition by colonizers.
In doing so you have to try and avoid using western symbols and terminology, and instead find ways to root your LGBT advocacy in traditional culture, using language which doesn’t come across as alien to the local culture but appeals their deeply rooted history and identity.
It’s quite a delicate dance that requires a deep understanding of the cultural sensibilities, and that is something that only the people who come from that culture can really do. The diaspora needs to partner with local groups that support the overall trajectory of the current government’s reforms but which can also recognize that a serious strategic mistake is being made here in this specific instance.
This is literally a law that I would expect a fascist country to have, not a revolutionary socialist-leaning one. Way too many people defending this.
I’m not defending it. I have said repeatedly i think they’re making a big mistake. Unfortunately many people even in socialist societies are homophobic, including those in the ruling party and government. Communists are not immune from holding onto antiquated and reactionary prejudices. And Burkina Faso, even with all its positive changes these past years, is not yet a socialist country, nor is it ruled by communists.
But the fact is that such laws do get passed in socialist countries. Stalin himself passed such laws. We should not idealize socialist countries as perfect societies that can do no wrong. Sometimes they make very big mistakes. It’s sad that it still happens in this day and age, but the hope is that through internal struggle and self-critique they can come to understand that they were wrong. As happened in Cuba.
Communists are supposed to be leaders and a guiding hand of the people, it doesn’t mean that their reactionary beliefs should be downplayed or mollycoddled.
The fact that Stalin and many communists were harshly anti-LGBT is half my point. Keyword, is WERE. There is no justification anymore. Not that there was in the first place, but even more so now.
I think Cuba is a different case, because the communists overthrew Batista and the U.S. backed cronies, in the mid 20th century.
If Cuba didn’t have it’s revolution until now, and then still persecuted LGBT people like Traore’s government is, I’d be just as pissed and disgusted as I am now.
Alright, I found it on RTB’s website. It’s part of the (french language) 8pm news broadcast from yesterday: https://www.rtb.bf/2025/09/01/jt-de-20h-du-1er-septembre-2025/, starting at 16:06 timestamp. This is the new law I was discussing in the other comment, you can read the draft from last year here (use a translation tool if needed). The segment ends at 21:10.
This is an update to the previous family code law in BF, named Zatu and promulgated in 1989 (after the coup that killed Sankara). It made no mention of homosexuality in it (this is the 1989 law).
The new law has been adopted unanimously at the burkinabè parliament by 71 votes. it’s a comprehensive law project that contains more than 1113 articles, it’s not solely about LGBT rights like france24 is implying, although the news host did mention it and made a point that this new law was about “reflecting the socio-cultural reality of BF”. The Justice Minister’s speech after the vote was broadcast and he mentions the article quite late into it, first talking about family name and naturalization reforms. He also doesn’t spend a lot of time on that particular point relative to the rest (at least in the segment), but he does call homosexuality a ‘strange practice’, and this is somewhat echoed by the reported on the footage.
it’s a comprehensive law project that contains more than 1113 articles, it’s not solely about LGBT rights like france24 is implying
Not sure how this is a distinction that matters. The only way it would matter is if you’re implying that it was somehow snuck in, which I very much doubt.
Thanks for doing the deep dive. So this is just an update of an large law that was already ati-queer and the new version of the law doesn’t fix that stuff either but it isn’t like they are actively making things worse for homosexuals.
No. Being homosexual didn’t use to be illegal in the old Zatu, this law made it punishable by 2-5 years in prison along with fines. They are definitely making things worse for homosexuals and the justice minister underlined that they are intending to actively prosecute homosexuals.
When a society is subject to imperialism, it is unable to resolve precolonial contradictions (ie patriarchal formations). Beliefs and practices discarded by European societies unfettered by imperialism are still present for this reason. Furthermore, colonized societies will desperately hold onto every aspect of the old society in order to resist the repression and erasure of colonialism. This unfortunately results in “backwards” practices resurging. While this incredibly harmful policy must be criticized, it cannot be grounds to dismiss the burkinabe project because traore’s junta fights the very system that impedes the progression of burkinabe society.
Indeed, this is an unfortunate decision that’s not unsurprising, and a common theme within the broader history of decolonial national liberation movements. In particular, the move could stem from conflation of homosexuality with Western influence, which they are trying to wholly eradicate. Interestingly, some of the articles not that enforcement of this is intended to lead to deportation of foreigners, so there’s likely a political pretext behind the decision as well.
i’m not familiar with precolonial burkina faso, did they have this bigotry? sometimes the homophobia is brought by the christian colonizers and wasn’t present prior.
That’s a good point. I’m purely making speculations based of off generalities.
I can’t speak to Burkinese culture but I read a paper on LGBTQ history in pre-colonial Africa in general a while back and a lot of groups there had long histories of openly queer people being part of the community, gender fluidity being widely accepted, and IIRC many gender based pronouns.
Yeah I do believe in most seemingly reactionary countries, by virtue of holding onto incidental racist, homophobic or reactionary beliefs due to leftover super-structures and colonialism, it is still usually better and more ripe for change than outwith in Liberal societies where the political system is setup for cruelty at a base level and exports that to other countries.
Disappointing. Being queer has always been a part of human experience, especially so in pre-colonial Africa
i mean, military people has this habit of banning homosexuality and lgbt when they start revolutionary activity…but i like to think that this is just something temporary bc they’ll learn that having reactionary ideas won’t help them in the long term and won’t make the colonizers and imperialist less aggresive against them
I think you’re being extremely and unduly charitable.
A lot of the laws in the proposal are justified as ‘getting rid of foreign influence’, so I doubt it is a move to mollify the imperial core.
I’m not trying to downplay this or anything, but didn’t they do this a while ago? I thought this was passed a few months ago at least? I’m confused
Passed first of September. Been debated for a while.
Yeah, that’s not unexpected when there are gay colonizers in France. The same phenomenon occurs in West Asia because of Israel. It’s the dialectic, the decolonial struggle adopts antithetical forms that reject the cultural imperialism of the colonizer.
This isn’t permanent, but in this early phase of the struggle they’re just going to do the antithesis of whatever France does.
…speaking of Israel, does France blackmail sexual minorities into being collaborators?
