DPOs began by developing specialised schools, making educational provision for children with a specific type of disability (auditory, visual or intellectual impairment). Gradually, they tried to integrate children with disabilities into ordinary schools, then to open themselves up in order to transform themselves, applying the principles of inclusion.

From 2004, thanks to technical and financial assistance from HI, the Ministry of National Education and Literacy (MENA) began to develop pilot projects in Tanghin-Dassouri (25 km from the capital), making that rural settlement the cradle of public inclusive education in Burkina Faso.

3 CTIS (Transitional School Integration Classes) for children with severely impaired hearing were opened in buildings which had previously served as lodgings for teachers. After three years of practice in using sign language, these children with impaired hearing continued their schooling at the same school in an ordinary first-year primary class.

But these measures are not systematically applied by State agents.

This is despite the fact that fines are laid down for natural or legal persons (ranging from FCFA 50,000 to 100,000 and, in the event of a second offence, from FCFA 100,000 to 200,000) for failure to comply with the articles on access to care, education and transport (Article 52), but the law does not provide for any possibility of a penalty against the State or its agencies.

The cost of the National Educational Integration Strategy was around FCFA 9.3 billion (nearly EUR 14 million) in 2016.

The main aims are to develop a communication and information system on inclusive education and to adapt the inclusion programme and teacher training.

But the Ministry of National Education and Literacy is demanding more resources to improve educational provision (such as the creation of a Braille printer) and health services for children with disabilities (spectacles, lenses, wheel chairs, etc.).

In the absence of reliable data on which to base the National Strategy for the Protection and Promotion of People with Disabilities (SN-3PH), the Ministry of Social Welfare and National Solidarity performed the first census of children with disabilities in 2013 — which was also the first in the sub-region of West Africa — with the support of UNICEF, HI, CBM and Light for the World.

This lack of sound statistics limits any advocacy and any growth in awareness on the part of the majority of decision-makers with regard to the difficult situation faced by children with disabilities.

Despite the methodological shortcomings of the 2013 general census of children with disabilities, that census did make it possible to establish that the needs of children with disabilities were substantial and were being very inadequately met in the case of all types of disability.

The problem of quality is a major concern for educational players. Where children with disabilities attend ordinary public schools, in many cases the schools are unable to make high-quality provision for them: materials and infrastructure are inappropriate or non-existent, and teachers are not sufficiently trained.

There was found to be a real gulf in terms of quality of reception, provision, teaching and teacher training between public and private inclusive schools, the private schools scoring better in these respects.

In the past, cases of infanticide were identified where children born with malformations were killed. They were abandoned, exposed while still alive on anthills or in sacred woods, or discreetly eliminated by means of suffocation, overfeeding or purging with toxic concoctions. The children’s condition was subsequently attributed to punishment by the ancestors, by spirits or by other gods. In some families, children with encephalopathy are regarded as snake children, ‘bringers of bad luck’, spirits or being as animals are to hunters’ families.

In other places, they are often abandoned to their mothers without any support, on the pretext that the mothers have offended against customs or have passed through a sacred wood, a river or a snakes’ cave (the case of Séguénéga in Yatenga province) during their pregnancy.

This negative image of disability in society influences the whole family, which explains why families are often the very first to neglect and discriminate against a member who has a disability, even if the disability has been caused by an accident in adulthood.

As regards people with albinism, ‘people flee them or accuse them of all kinds of things. They are called witches and sorcerers. They are abducted and killed to obtain their organs’, says the Chair of the association of people with albinism. Sorcery is practised against them or they are sacrificed because every fragment of their body is valued for use in ritual and fetishist practices: their hair is sold at high prices to chiefs or other prominent individuals eager to increase their powers; having unprotected sex with a woman who has albinism is said to be a cure for HIV/AIDS; in order to make a man virile, it is said that the genital organs of a man with albinism need to be procured. People with albinism are simultaneously avoided, rejected, marginalised and courted, but girls remain more vulnerable than boys.

Children with intellectual deficiencies are the most marginalised and the most excluded from society. The director of the APEE says that ‘girls with intellectual deficiencies are more vulnerable because some people believe that having sexual relations with them will bring them prosperity and power’.

Elisabeth is no longer going to school, while her sister Sarah has never done so, although the four other brothers and sisters, who are in good health, all attend school (including a daughter aged 19, who is in 4th year, and another aged 6, who has enrolled in the first year of pre-primary education).

Her uncle, who was present during our visit, recalls:

Elisabeth’s fits began during the first year of primary school, on the way to school and then in class. She went on to second year, but the teachers expelled her because it was becoming too difficult to take care of her. She was taken to hospital, where she was given pills, but when she took them, she became crazy. At that point, we called a halt to everything. Thanks to prayer, she is doing better now. But because of her illness, we have not tried to send her back to school.

It is also noticeable that parents and teachers make greater efforts for boys with disabilities. For example, Eli is 16 and has epilepsy. His family is poor. His father is a pastor: he does not earn any wages. The family only has a garden, which it cultivates. His mother tells us:

Pupils at Koranic schools are generally boys, while girls are increasingly attending madrasas.

Unlike in Niger, the children with disabilities whom the researchers met during the study do not attend Koranic school in parallel with ordinary or specialised school.

However, children with disabilities are to be found at these schools, where the teachers are not trained to cater for them, as was observed during the visit to a madrasa in Yahoré where a boy with an intellectual deficiency was among the pupils.

The conditions in which pupils are educated at madrasas are particularly precarious in rural settlements.

Progress has been made with the school completion rate of girls in primary school, and parity between girls and boys has been achieved since 2013. Girls and boys now enter and complete primary schooling at virtually identical rates. In the 2016 primary school intake, 58.8% of boys were enrolled and 65.7% of girls. In all provinces, a greater proportion of girls than boys were enrolled in primary school. These encouraging figures show that, in primary, there was little disparity between girls and boys and that girls were sometimes more successful than boys.

This progression is due to the introduction of a national gender policy (National Strategy for the Acceleration of Girls’ Education - SNAEF) 2012-2021 heavily financed by UNICEF to promote girls’ access to, and continued attendance at, primary schools, using such means as the provision of grants and school kits, free distribution of food, improvements to the school environment (separate latrines and water supply points), the provision of means of transport (bicycles), etc.

However, a study by a Canadian agency shows that, while girls achieve virtually identical results to boys – and sometimes even outperform them – in the lower classes of primary school, that ceases to be the case as from the third and fourth years of primary school. At secondary level, far fewer girls than boys attend school, and they also have poorer success rates. The problem of school retention is greater in the case of girls. In 2016, only 13% of girls in post-primary education reached secondary level. This disparity between boys and girls continues in higher education and later in the professional world.

Thus, a decision on whether to educate a child with a disability is a rational choice based primarily on economic rather than social considerations. The opportunity cost incurred in sending girls with disabilities to school is too high.

One head teacher told us the story of a girl with albinism who regularly missed lessons because she was exploited by her family.

She has been rejected and beaten by her family. It was her grandmother who took her to live with her, because she (i.e. the grandmother) was dependent. The granddaughter runs her household, but the grandmother does not worry about her falling behind at school on account of domestic work.

Although the head teacher knew about the exploitation and the rejection suffered by this girl, she would nonetheless prefer to exclude her from school because ‘she is not setting a good example’.

The problem is not early marriage but rather late marriage, because they have to be found a husband, and that is more difficult for women with disabilities than for men with disabilities. Except in Kaya, where blind men cannot marry. It is enough for a man with disabilities to have the financial capacities to meet his family’s needs: in that case he will stand a chance of finding a wife. By contrast, women with disabilities are shunned by men, simply because they do not think that such women can make good wives.

As a rule, girls with disabilities are married to men with the same type of disability, but it is not easy to find one. If it proves impossible, such girls are condemned to stay with their parents and be a burden to them. They are more likely to be withdrawn from school to help at home, because their families do not believe in their capabilities. That is why it is important for them to continue their studies, because then if they do not find husbands, at least they will be able to become independent by working.

According to a survey on begging conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Demography in 2011, distinctions are drawn between different forms of begging: begging by Koranic school pupils, mothers of twins and people with disabilities. Begging by Koranic school pupils is the most widespread, while begging by people with disabilities is confined to the aged.

We observed that in Christian families, children with disabilities got more help and support from both Catholic and Protestant churches. For example, during a FGD with the parents of disabled children, a mother came accompanied by the pastor of her church. Her child was able to benefit from specialised care thanks to the intervention of a Christian doctor attending her church.

When it was time for the school holidays, children remained at school because nobody came to fetch them: their parents did not have time. An application was made to ‘Community-Based Rehabilitation’ to arrange transport for them, but problems arose because some children had been forgotten and they were reduced to begging. After that happened, a halt was called. Now, parents are required to come: otherwise they have to pay the host family.

The long distances on foot between the family home and ordinary public school can also endanger the safety of children with disabilities, particularly girls, which is a further disincentive for parents to send girls with disabilities to school. Establishing school canteens would enable children to spend the whole day at school without having to go home at lunchtime.

The disabled children’s families are asked to contribute a little and give something to the host families, often in kind: cereals and condiments, for example. But now the children no longer want to leave their host families during the holidays.

Having relatives in town makes it easier to send girls with disabilities to school. DPOs are often the only parties looking for ways of providing housing, because of the abdication of responsibility by parents and the State, and they encounter particular difficulties in the case of girls with disabilities. For example, during the project to decentralise primary schooling in the regions, UN-ABPAM found it hard to persuade girls to come to school and to remain there — although the association had funding from the SHC — because it could not find host families for them. ‘Because of ethnic and clan problems, families are reluctant to host girls with disabilities’, explains the project manager.

However, at primary level, there are many children with impaired hearing, and they are mixed with other pupils in inclusive classes where the teacher teaches while signing and where hearing children have a good knowledge of sign language. In secondary, because of staff shortages, these two girls with impaired hearing did not have interpreters to help them in class, because the school had opted — as suitably trained teachers were not available — to place them in vocational classes, where pupils with impaired hearing were more numerous (8 to 10 children in the 2nd year of the electro-mechanical course, 2 of whom were girls, see the video). They therefore have to manage together with other – hearing – children, who know how to sign, or else to obtain assistance from the interpreter at quiet times. In the 5th year class, it was once observed that the girl with impaired hearing was asleep at the back of the class. She was isolated and could not follow what was going on, particularly as the teacher did not know sign language and did not know how to involve her in the lesson.

As regards the production of documents for use in teaching children with visual deficiencies, UN-ABPAM, which is the only specialised organisation that has reproduction equipment, cannot cope with the demand.

In addition, the annual cost of supplies and teaching materials for a visually impaired child in primary school is extremely high (approximately FCFA 88,400).

The President of UN-ABPAM is working on a project with the NGO Light for the World to develop a digital application to facilitate access to books.

Lastly, in the case of pupils with impaired eyesight, the responses unanimously favoured integrated education for the initial years of schooling, thus confirming the relevance of Transitional School Integration Classes (CTIS) for this target group. The director of the Renaissance private school would like to reduce the duration of CTIS to one year, so that pupils can be integrated into pre-primary education.

For example, at the Association of Parents, Friends and Sympathisers of Children with Encephalopathy (APEE), boys and girls are segregated because boys may engage in violent behaviour and have heightened sexual needs.

DPOs draw attention to the problem of looking after girls with disabilities if they fall victim to rape and unwanted pregnancy.

No body or public policy exists to assist these young mothers with disabilities. Moreover, the phenomenon remains largely invisible because it is very little documented.

In general, it is the mother who is keen on getting a daughter educated and who pushes for her to attend school, but this research has revealed the decisive role of the father (or more generally of a father figure, who may be a brother or an uncle) in the successful schooling of girls with disabilities.

Where parents and family members have had their awareness raised, they are confident that children with disabilities will succeed, and the children — particularly the girls — are sometimes more successful at school than children without disabilities, as in the case of Awa, a blind girl aged 12 attending third-year primary at the Renaissance school.

There are numerous civil-society and religious actors, which coexist without cooperating. They rarely share their experiences and remain confined to two types of disability (visual and auditory).

Each of them seeks to provide assistance, but their actions remain isolated, despite the existence of multiple coordination networks (REPEI, RENOH and FEBAH, in particular) because they suffer from problems of leadership and from disagreements.

Organisations promoting inclusive education receive assistance from international foundations and NGOs, but their funding tends to decline. The organisations are compelled to find fresh partners and other sources of funding.

According to the members of these commissions, the investigators lack the means to visit families and identify children with disabilities. Above all, it seems to be very difficult to identify them, because parents hide them.

The Provincial Directorate of National Education and Literacy (DPENA) gave grants to children with disabilities. Although this is a laudable initiative, it remains very limited. According to the Head of a CCEB, 'the Directorate asked each CCEB to institute a quota of 10 beneficiaries, although we had identified 300 children with disabilities in our district. In the end, the measure was arbitrary and the amount of the grant was small — some FCFA 15,000 per child — and it is not known what use the parents made of the money'.