BURKINA FASO

Programme sheet - Child Protection

The majority of procedures are performed by traditional circumcisers within the majority ethnic groups. The prevalence of circumcision varies by region, with the highest rates in the Eastern Centre in the High Basins in the North in the Central Plateau and Center-North. The practice is more prevalent in rural than in urban areas. In Burkina Faso, FGM/C is practiced earlier. Indeed, over 60 percent of women report having been circumcised before the age of five. The main forms of FGM/C performed excisions are type I (removal of the clitoral hood, which may or may not include the partial or total removal of the clitoris) and type II (removal of the clitoris and small lips and/or the labia majora).

LEGISLATION PROTECTING FROM FGM/C One can note the existence of laws on the prohibition of harmful tradi-tional practices including female circumcision and laws on the protec-tion of sexual and reproductive health of women: Law No. 043/96 / ADP November 1996 prohibiting the practice of excision throughout the national territory and punishes the perpetrators and accomplices by imprisonment and fines. Law N ° 049/2005 / AN, on the reproductive health prohibiting harmful traditional practices including female circumcision.

UNICEF supports the Government through: Strengthening institutional and community capacity, service delivery and partnership with governmental and non-governmental authorities; Contributing to the development of national policy and the implemen-tation of legislative reform contribution to the adoption and implementa-tion of the 2009-2013 national action plan to promote the elimination of FGM/C;

Key figures: Burkina Faso total population estimated at 19,034,397 in 2016 based on National Institute of Statistics and Demography projections 51.7% of the total population are women 53% have less than 18 years 76% (MICS 2010) FGM/C prevalence rate among women aged 15 to 49 years More than 90% of FGM/C are affecting girls below 10 years old

Support for the development of the second 5-year phase of the Action Plan Zero Tolerance to FGM/C; Support for surgical repair and assistance to women and girls who have undergone FGM/C; Communication for behavior change based on social norms theory and masculinity approach.

UNICEF’s response (cont): Context:

Since 2011, a total of 465 villages publicly declared the abandon-ment of harmful traditional practices including that of FGM/C. In 2015, these are 160 villages that have made such statements. More than 3,216 active and committed people in the communities have been formed on the negative consequences of FGM/C. In 2015, 40,417 young people and women were mobilized against female circumcision through 8,382 and awareness sessions in communities and in schools. From 2014 to 2015, the number of cases of FGM/C that led to the arrests of perpetrators or accomplices rose from 121 in 2014 to 145 in 2015, the cases prosecut-ed increased from 105 to 129 and the number of pen-alties from 105 to 116. The number of surgical repairs has increased from 97 in 2009 to 704 in 2015 with the training of 543 health workers in the public and private sector (doctors, counselors, midwives, gyne-cologists).

Highlights

Key donors: USA–UNFPA through the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme, the Government of Switzerland. If UNICEF is now one of the main partners along with UNFPA, the Government of Burkina Faso's efforts to abandon the practice of FGM/C and child marriage, this is due to a large extent the financial support of UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme that represents most of the Country Office other resources devoted to FGM/C and child marriage. Partners: The Ministry of Social Action and National Solidarity; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Justice; the Ministry of Women's Empower-ment and Gender; the Ministry of Economy and Finance; the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Security; the Ministry of Defense; the Minis-try for the Promotion of Civil Rights; the Ministry of Education and Literacy; the Ministry of Secondary and Higher Education; the Ministry of Com-munication. International organizations: (UNFPA, WHO, World Bank) - Bilateral Cooperation (Embassies of the Netherlands, Germany (GIZ), Luxembourg, Denmark, and Italy) - Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) (Medicus Mundi, Plan Burkina Faso, Oxfam International). Civil society: UNICEF is building a new partnership with the two recent national coalitions against child marriage and the introduction of modules on FGM / C in school curricula launched in 2015. Civil society partners include Mwangaza Action, PROMACO, GASCODE, Voice of Women, AMMIE, FDC, and the National Network of associations and NGOs to promote the elimination of the practice of FGM/C, the Network of religious and traditional leaders, and the Network journalists.

Female genital mutilations/Cutting (FGM/C)

Donors and Partners:

Funding: From 2009 to date, the USA-UNFPA Fund has contributed $ 1,916,294 USD to support UNICEF interventions in the field of promot-ing the abandonment of FGM/C. UNICEF completed with equivalent funding through its regular resources. The estimated financial requirements for further action both to change behavior, but above all to protect girls against FGM / C and help with repairs is estimated at $ 900,000 per year.

UNICEF’s response:

For data related to child marriage, according to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS-MICS) published in 2012, the entry into union is very early in Burkina Faso and the trend is to lower the age of union. For women aged 25-49 in the survey, one in ten (10%) was already in union reaching the age of 15, and more than half of women (53%) was already in union reaching 18. The median age of first union of women aged 25-49 is estimated at 17.8 years. One note that the proportion of women entered in a first union at an early age has increased slightly since the survey among women aged 45-49, 7% were already in union at 15 years, against 10% among those aged from 20-24 at the time of the survey. In the Sahel Region, the prevalence is 87.1%, and 67.3% in the Eastern Region, where the phenomenon of abduction of girls stands out as a subcategory of child marriage, unique to this region.

Although the government has ratified international and regional stand-ards and provisions against discrimination of women and girls, harmful traditional practices such as early marriage and child marriage, these practices continue to persist. The limitations inherent in education, health and citizen participation of the girl are often related to child marriage. Indeed, only 28% of Burkinabe girls aged 7 to 12 years old attend primary school. In addition, the dropout rate is higher for girls than for boys. Once married, girls face increasingly large challenges for marriage is wrongly considered as the end of schooling and all hope of develop-ment of professional skills, means they need to break the cycle of pov-erty. Under the old law of Burkina Faso, girls were encouraged to marry before the age of 17. Under strong pressure to have children, more than half of those who married eventually have children at a very young age. With inadequate access to health care, early pregnancies present sig-nificant risks to the health of teenage mothers and their children. It is also estimated at 36% the proportion of those married under polyg-amy. Girls living under this plan are more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV than others. Marriages are contracted in traditional manner, they are not transcribed in the official records of civil status and therefore do not allow to take legal proceedings to condemn the spouse and parents of the girl for marriage before the age authorized.

Abandonment of the Practice of Child Marriage

Discussion Meetings were held in the Sahel region with local authori-ties, traditional and religious leaders to raise awareness about the nega-tive consequences of child marriage; 144,998 people in total (80,133 women and 64,865 men) were in-formed about the negative consequences of child marriage; UNICEF supported girls' education by awarding scholarships to 287 adolescents, literacy and training in life skills for the benefit of 960 vic-tims or girls at risk of child marriage; UNICEF supported the development and implementation of an inte-grated communications plan specific to child marriage in collaboration with 10 local radio stations, community television, a group of artists and a theater company ( information, education and communication for be-havioral change); UNICEF continues to support the strengthening of the capacity of households to improve the knowledge, awareness and respect for the legal age of marriage and the promotion of children's rights and women; Support UNICEF in 158 adolescent victims or at risk of child marriage through the provision of supplies and school uniforms including the can-teen within ten (10) provinces targeted by the project "Ending Child Mar-riage in Burkina Faso". This scholarship program has helped maintain 158 adolescent girls in formal school since 2009 and significantly delay the age of marriage and first pregnancy thereof; UNICEF has supported and closely supported the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Family for the development and adoption of the National Strategy for the abandonment of the practice of child marriage (2015-2025) and that his five-year Plan of Action, but also the establish-ment of an intersectoral platform with a mandate to oversee the imple-mentation of this action plan, coordination and monitoring.

UNICEF is working to revitalize the political platform to answer and end child marriage. It supports the intensification of the program to end child marriage through various strategies, including advocacy and community mobili-zation to change social norms. Under the national plan for the abandonment of the practice of child marriage, UNICEF works closely with the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Family and non-governmental organizations in communi-ties in 10 targeted provinces.

‘’ I will not return to the village. I want to continue my studies and

succeed in my baccalaureate exam ’’, replied 15-years-old Adjaratou

Amadou who fled Gorom-Gorom where she was forcibly married by her

father when she was 11.

Key Donor: Canada Government Partners: If UNICEF is now one of the main partners along with UNFPA, the Government of Burkina Faso's efforts to abandon the practice of FGM/C and child marriage, this is due to a large extent the financial support of UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme that represents most of the Country Office other resources devoted to FGM/C and child marriage. UNICEF is building a new partnership with the two recent national coalitions against child marriage launched in 2015. The estimated financial requirements for further action both to change behavior, but above all to protect girls against marriage before age against early pregnancy and are estimated at $ 1,500,000 per year.

Highlights Context:

Donors and Partners:

UNICEF’s response:

Key figures:

A 2010 study on child labor in artisanal gold mining sites which enquired 86 sites with the sup-port of UNICEF, has identified in these sites a total number of 19,881 children. Among them:

83.5% of children had never attended school; 51.2% of children lived on artisanal gold mining sites; 30% of children had no relationship with their employer; 66.7% of children worked more than 10 hours per day;

1 in 4 children had been injured on the site .

Burkina Faso has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990 and the ILO C182 Convention on the worst forms of child labor. The government adopted in 2009 a decree listing the hazardous work prohibited to children and a national action plan against child labor 2012. In 2013, about 800 mines artisanal gold have been identified in Burkina Faso (according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines). In 2015, the Mining Code was revised increasing measures to protect children against the worst forms of labor and their presence on the arti-sanal mining sites and quarries.

Children working in artisanal gold mines and quarries

UNICEF, in partnership with government and non-governmental organi-zations has developed since 2009 an integrated project to provide chil-dren working in artisanal gold mines and quarries necessary compo-nents of protection, education and strengthening socio economic, in the five most affected regions (Central, Sahel, Central Plateau, South-West and North-Centre). The contribution of UNICEF consist in: Promoting mentoring and early childhood development structures; Promoting the return to school for children who dropped out of school; Providing support for vocational training; Providing support to adolescents for the creation and management of small enterprises; Providing support to the creation of income generating activities for young people and mothers heads of households; Awareness raising and communication for social change; Advocacy and resource mobilization; Capacity building of partners to address the issue with sustainable measures; Providing technical assistance and expertise for the issuance of legal and political dispositions addressing the issue.

Key Donors: UNICEF National Committees in Germany and the Netherlands.

Partners: The project is implemented by five Non-Governmental Organizations and associations in collaboration with:

- Regional and Provincial Directorates of the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Family;

- Foundation Terre des hommes Lausanne in the Plateau Central (Zorgho), granite quarry of Pissy and in the Sahel region (including Gangaol);

- Association for the Facilitation and Community Development (AFDC) in the Southwest;

- Association for Assistance and Community Development Support (AAADC) in Bam;

- Association for Community Development and Promotion of Child Rights (ADC / PDE) in Sanmatenga;

- Vision Plus Association in Namentenga.

UNICEF is working with the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Family, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Mines and the Chamber of Mines to translate international standards into national legislation, but also to strengthen the child protection system with rules and regulations on the worst forms of child labor such as work in artisanal gold mines. UNICEF works on the establishment of a strategic partnership with industrial mining companies to call their attention and focus their actions on the protection of children's rights. To this end, UNICEF has contributed to set up and continue to technically support the Platform on CSR Burkina Faso since 2015 following the advocacy of UNICEF with major mining compa-nies operating in Burkina Faso such as IAMGold.

Context:

UNICEF’s response:

Since 2009 to date, the project has contributed to the withdrawal of 25,182 children including 12,056 girls from mines and quarries. This resulted in:

14,152 children (6-12 years) were enrolled in primary school;

8,899 children (3-6 years) were enrolled in preschool (Bissongo);

1,184 young people aged between 15 and 17, including 33% of girls, were enrolled in vocational training. To date, 945 of them have graduated and been installed at their own account;

947 children aged between 13 and 17, including 50% of girls, re-ceived support for income-generating activities with literacy support, strengthening their micro-business management skills and life skills;

1,350 mothers working on the sites their children but who received support for income generating activities continue to be monitored and supported by social workers in the field to keep children in school and ensure that the additional income guarantee the welfare of children outside of income coming from artisanal gold mining work.

Highlights

Donors and Partners:

Key figures: