- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
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.
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.