Burkina Faso’s transitional legislative assembly passed a bill this week to outlaw homosexuality – making it the 32 nd out of 54 African countries to criminalise homosexuality. The legislation, enacted under the military junta-run country’s new Persons and Family Code, penalises ‘behaviour likely to promote homosexual practices’ with prison sentences up to five years. The move is part of Burkina Faso’s military leader Ibrahim Traoré’s vocal crackdown on ‘Western values’.

Burkina Faso has now become the 32 nd out of 54 African countries to criminalise homosexuality.

Neighbouring Mali, also run by a military junta spearheaded by Assimi Goïta, passed a similar ban in November. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Abdourahamane Tchiani’s Niger, which together formalised junta-ruled Alliance of Sahel

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