In September 2025, the world was told that Burkina Faso had criminalised homosexuality. Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, The Guardian, Human Rights Watch, France24, RFI, and Al Jazeera all ran with it. The message was simple and absolute: Ibrahim Traoré’s government had outlawed same-sex relations.

But this was not true. The text referred specifically to the promotion of LGBTQ practices, yet that nuance was stripped away in the headlines. Within hours, global outrage was in motion. NGOs issued statements of condemnation, social media hashtags flooded timelines, and Western commentators rushed to brand Traoré a repressive strongman.

The story illustrates how headlines are no longer just summaries — they are weapons. They are crafted to delegitimise leaders who refuse to bend to Western power, fracture their support, and tarnish their popularity. In Traoré’s case, the aim is clear: dismantle the image of a young, beloved revolutionary whose alliance with Russia has made him a figure of sovereignty for African youth.

@globalpulse15 WATCH | Burkina Faso has become the latest African country to criminalise same-sex relationships. Its transitional parliament voted unanimously to pass a controversial new law outlawing what it calls “LGBTQ practices”.#GLOBALPULSE ♬ original sound – Global Pulse

The Headline as Weapon

Headlines shape perception long before facts enter the picture. In this instance, the global press delivered a moral verdict: Burkina Faso bans homosexuality. The nuance, that the law targeted promotion, was buried deep enough to become irrelevant. Once outrage is sparked, corrections and clarifications carry no weight.

This tactic is familiar in South Africa. Donor-funded media routinely deploy the same method. Daily Maverick, in particular, uses strategically sensational headlines to destroy the reputations of those who resist neoliberal ideology, reducing complex political struggles to cheap morality plays. The fact that SABC regurgitated the propaganda verbatim is also no longer surprising. What happened to Traoré follows the same script, only on a global stage.

@msparty Before you agree with the LGBTQI community to be banned; ask yourself why. #gayrights #lgbtqi #burkinafaso #homophobia ♬ original sound – Ms Party

Why Sexual Politics?

Sexual politics has become one of the most effective instruments in Western information wars. LGBTQ NGOs, heavily resourced and internationally networked, operate as both defenders of communities and as political instruments in donor agendas. They generate reports, feed narratives to media, escalate local disputes into international crises, and condition young people through donor-backed education and activism.

Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria have all shown how sexual rights campaigns have been mobilised to isolate governments targeted for regime change. Burkina Faso now joins this list. By outlawing promotion, Traoré’s government is signalling resistance to the use of NGO networks as tools of interference.

Traoré, Russia, and Sovereignty

The ferocity of the campaign reflects Traoré’s geopolitical stance. Since driving out French forces, Burkina Faso has forged close ties with Moscow, joining Mali and Niger in the Alliance of Sahel States. Russian trainers and equipment have bolstered defense, while Traoré’s popularity has soared among young Africans who see him as a symbol of dignity and independence.

For Western strategists, this popularity is both dangerous and intolerable. Having failed to eliminate him physically, they now turn to narrative war. Sexual politics is chosen because it strikes directly at the identities and sensibilities of a generation trained in donor discourse. A headline claiming “homosexuality is banned” is enough to sow doubt and division.

A Geopolitical Campaign

Russia itself has recognised this pattern. It has not banned same-sex relationships, but it has moved against NGOs funded by George Soros and other Western donors that operate as vehicles for political destabilisation. (This falls directly in the banning of the promotion of acts that encourage regime change politics, not of private preferences). Sexual politics has played this colour revolution role in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. It is consistently used to delegitimise leaders who refuse Western control.

The hypocrisy is palpable. Western powers say little about Israel’s ongoing terror in Gaza, yet they manufacture outrage overnight against African leaders like Traoré. This illustrates just how much it is not about defending freedoms but rather about protecting hegemony.

The “Burkina Faso bans homosexuality” story is a deliberate propaganda campaign, not a slip of the pen. It shows how headlines are weaponised, how NGOs function as extensions of Western strategy, and how sexual politics is deployed to delegitimise sovereign leadership.

In this era of media wars, we can not afford to consume headlines uncritically. Demand the legal texts. Demand the proof. Recognise when rights discourse is being turned into a weapon of empire. To fall for these narratives is to become part of an oppressive, hate-aligned geopolitics aimed at silencing Africa’s new leaders of independence.

* Gillian Schutte is a South African writer, filmmaker, poet, and uncompromising social justice activist. Founder of Media for Justice and co-owner of handHeld Films, she is recognised for hard-hitting documentaries and incisive opinion pieces that dismantle whiteness, neoliberal capitalism, and imperial power. Armed with an MA in Creative Writing and a background in African politics, Schutte fuses personal narrative with critical race theory and decolonial thought to interrogate entrenched systems of domination. Her body of work confronts oppression head-on, amplifies the voices of the marginalised, and advances a radical vision for social, economic, and political transformation. 

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

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