Adolescent Reproductive Health, Including HIV/AIDS

The Public Health Code stipulates that Family Planning programmes must include STI/HIV/AIDS prevention and the 1995 national health policy for the period 2005-2010 aims at reducing the spread of STIs, including HIV/AIDS.

Girl’s Education

The law provides for free compulsory primary education. In 1997, the government adopted a National Education Policy with one of its general objectives being to encourage young people to adopt informed behaviour through adequate attention to their sexual health and respect for social codes. The major objectives of the National Education Policy include the following: introducing adults, and especially adolescents, to the concept of responsible childbearing; creating spaces for dialogue and exchanges of experience and information among adolescents, and between adolescents and adults; raising adolescent awareness about the physical, physiological, and emotional changes they are experiencing; raising adolescent awareness about their rights and responsibilities and about prevailing social norms; and encouraging young people to acquire useful knowledge and skills so that they can share this information with, and raise awareness among, other young people.

Labour and Employment

Employment law contains a special clause to protect children and adolescents in the workforce by setting the minimum age for any type of employment at 14. Also, “the labour inspector can call for a medical examination of women and adolescents to ensure that the work to which they are assigned does not exceed their strength.”

Gender Issues

The Constitution guarantees gender equality and the Penal Code prohibits “any discriminatory behaviour capable of causing divisiveness between people.”

Burkina Faso is one of the few countries that has adopted laws that explicitly prohibit
Female Genital Cutting (FGC). The Penal Code, (Art.380) suppresses FGC with imprisonment between 6 months and 3 years and a fine. If the victim dies, the charges will go up between 5 10 years. In 1990, the government established a national committee to combat the practice of FGC with the main objective of eliminating its practice.

Sexual offences committed against minors are punished more seriously than those committed against adults. Rape is punishable by five to 10 years of imprisonment. The sentence is increased to 20 years if, among others, the rape or attempted rape victim is especially vulnerable due to pregnancy, disease, disability, or physical or mental deficiency and the rape or attempted rape victim is a minor 15 years old or younger. Clauses in the Penal Code prohibiting assault and battery are applicable to domestic violence cases.

Sexual offences committed against minors are punished more seriously than those committed against adults. The sentences for rape are doubled when committed against minors who are 15 years or younger.

The law prohibits trafficking.

International Conventions

Burkina Faso has ratified both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Age at First Marriage

The law states that a man must be older than 20 and a woman older than 17. There are
exceptions that may be provided “for a serious reason” but the absolute limit is 15 years for
girls and 18 for boys.