Human trafficking in Burkina Faso

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Burkina Faso ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in May 2002.^[1]

In 2010 Burkina Faso was a country of origin, transit, and destination for persons, mostly children, subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. The Government of Burkina Faso provided data from the Ministry of Social Action showing that, in 2009, security forces and regional human trafficking surveillance committees intercepted 788 children Burkinabe and foreign children, 619 of whom were boys, destined for exploitation in other countries, principally Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Niger. Child trafficking victims who remained inside Burkina Faso were usually found in large cities such as Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso, Nouna, and Hounde. Child victims faced conditions of forced labor or services as plantation and mining hands, laborers on cocoa farms, domestic servants, beggars recruited as pupils by unaccredited Koranic schools, or captives in the prostitution trade. To a lesser extent, traffickers recruited Burkinabe women for nonconsensual commercial sexual exploitation in Europe. Women from neighboring countries like Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Niger migrated to Burkina Faso on the promise of respectable work, but were subjected to forced labor in bars or forced prostitution.^[2]

In 2010 the Government of Burkina Faso did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it made significant efforts to do so, despite limited resources. The number of child victims intercepted in 2009 exceeds by 100 the already high rate recorded in the previous reporting period. Yet massive flooding in September 2009 destroyed many files and computer systems holding data on trafficking investigations and prosecutions during the year. In prior years, the government conscientiously reported such information. Protection and assistance efforts for victims continued to the extent the country's strained resources allowed.^[2]

The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017.^[3] The country was moved to Tier 2 in 2023.^[4]

In 2023, the Organised Crime Index gave the country a score of 7 out of 10 for human trafficking.^[5]