Burkina Faso's military junta: 'Homosexuality will be punished by the law'

Burkina Faso's military junta has announced a ban on homosexuality, reversing the country's policies two years after seizing power.

Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala announced Thursday that the junta's cabinet has agreed on legislation criminalizing "homosexuality." He did not reveal the extent of the ban — whether it is against LGBTQ+ identity broadly or specifically those in same-sex relationships, nor what the sentences will entail.

"Henceforth homosexuality and associated practices will be punished by the law," he stated, per BBC.

While LGBTQ+ identity is not widely accepted in the nation, it was not previously outlawed. The ban comes as part of the junta's overhaul of marriage laws two years after overthrowing the country's former military ruler, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba. The nation will only recognize religious and customary marriages once the junta parliament approves the law and leader Ibrahim Traoré signs off on it.

There are currently 61 countries that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts in some form, 32 of them being in Africa, according to ILGA World Database, with punishments ranging from fines and imprisonment to the death penalty. Human Rights Watch has previously said the 2022 military coup in Burkina Faso was "responsible for serious abuses, further degrading [the country's] human rights and humanitarian situation."

While many countries have decriminalized same-sex relationships in recent years, others have instead enacted legislation where there previously was none criminalizing them. Uganda lawmakers passed what has been dubbed one of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws last year in May, and Ghana advanced a draconian LGBTQ+ criminalization bill in spite of warnings from other nations and world financial institutions.

The daughter of Cameroon's president, Brenda Biya, recently came out as a lesbian in spite of the country's anti-LGBTQ+ law and backlash from her family. She called on states to overturn their "unfair" policies.