Burkina Faso

The landlocked, Sahelian country of Burkina Faso, with a population of 15.8 million, is one of the most densely populated countries in West Africa and one of the poorest in the world. A 2009 United Nations Human Development Report places Burkina Faso 177th of 182 countries ranked. The major religions are Islam, indigenous beliefs, and Christianity (approximately 50 percent, 40 percent, and 10 percent, respectively). Burkina Faso's accession to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women came into effect in 1987. Since then, much of the country's national legislation has been harmonized with that of the convention and other international agreements relating to the rights of women, and a wide range of legal instruments and bodies have been implemented to ...