“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”.
