Prostitution in Burkina Faso is not specifically prohibited by the law, however soliciting and pimping are illegal. In recent years the demand for prostitutes

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...

 has increased. Burkina Faso has been referred to as "a theatre of child labour". As a large number of children are trafficked

Human trafficking

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...

 into Burkina Faso for forced prostitution as well as domestic work. The Burkina Faso government has ratified on 31 August 1990 the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and has taken measures to ensure the safety of children against sexual abuse and exploitation, however it is still prevalent. The increase in demand for prostitution has caused fear of an increase in the number of people in Burkina Faso infected with HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

 and AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

, currently 0.9% of the population are infected with HIV.