Burkina Faso: Promotion Mission, 2007

The promotion mission of Commissioner Rezag-Bara aimed firstly to strengthen the dissemination and implementation of the African Charter in Burkina Faso, and to bring to that State Party the support and encouragement of the African Commission in its efforts to realise the effective enjoyment of human rights by the people. The mission also intended to monitor the evolution of the situation of human rights and peoples in Burkina Faso. Interviews were also aimed to gather information on the full enjoyment of human rights in Burkina Faso in general, including certain categories of people (women, children, prisoners and other detainees, extrajudicial execution problem at security operations, health and nutrition, etc.).. Finally, the interviews intended to collect information on the electoral processes in the country.

Recommendations

The Government of Burkina Faso is called upon to:

1. Fully play its role as the first authority in the promotion and protection of human rights in the country, in particular by improving efficiency in poverty reduction, eliminating the canker of corruption in order to promote effective enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights;
2. Hasten the process of making justice accessible to those who need it by providing courts and district courts in all the provinces and regions of the country and promoting the effective operationalization of the communes so as to ensure access to justice and actual enjoyment of certain categories of rights;
3. Focus maximum attention on the independence of the judiciary to foster the enjoyment of the right to a fair trial and protection of the right of persons on remand as well as provide continuous training to the police to stem the lapses that lead to extrajudicial killings during security maintenance operations;
4. Take the necessary measures for the improvement of conditions in cells and prisons by providing adequate food and appropriate health care. Envisage the eradication of overcrowding and promiscuity in the prisons by building appropriate structures that conform to international norms for women and minors (like the case of Laye which is preferred so much by some NGOs);
5. Carefully envisage integration of the gender dimension in the Public decision-making bodies including participation of women in political life by ensuring that all their rights are respected especially in terms of literacy as well as access to school and training by girls;
6. Promote improvement in transparency in the activities of the Independent National Electoral Commission;
7. Ensure the publication of annual human rights reports by the appropriate institutions on a timely basis including reports of parliamentary enquiries and encourage applied research in human rights by local NGOs especially;
8. Take all the necessary measures to build capacity at the National Human Rights Commission particularly through allocation of substantial financial resources and deepening of its financial self-sufficiency;
9. Forward Burkina Faso’s 11th report (3rd in actual fact) to the African Commission Secretariat so that it would be presented at the 41st Ordinary Session of the African Commission.

Civil Society, particularly NGOs are called upon to:

1. Further consolidate their activities in the area of sensitization of the population on human rights issues through promotion of the African Charter;
2. Further develop the bonds of cooperation between the CNDH and the African Commission and ensure the creation of Networks with the view to consolidating cooperation between them.
3. Cooperate with the Government to elicit their contribution to the formulation of reports to be submitted by Burkina Faso to the supervisory organs in charge of related international instruments, especially the African Commission.