Women
Rape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibits rape of men and women and provides for prison terms of five to 20 years for perpetrators. The law provides for a rebuttable presumption of consent in marital rape cases. The court may impose a life sentence in cases of gang rape if the rapists are related to or hold positions of authority over the survivor, or if the survivor is younger than 18. The law does not specifically address domestic violence and intimate partner violence or mandate special penalties for these acts. Authorities did not enforce these laws effectively.
Human rights organizations reported family members and community leaders often informally mediated rape accusations without survivor input and dissuaded survivors from reporting to police to avoid bringing shame or other negative consequences to the family, particularly if the perpetrator was related. Families often accepted payment as compensation. Police reportedly often had a blame-the-victim mentality. Media and NGOs reported that rape of schoolgirls by teachers was a problem, but the government did not provide information on charges filed.
Although rape survivors were not legally required to have a certified, post-rape medical examination to press charges, human rights organizations reported that the certificate and other documentation, such as a survivor’s psychological evaluation or a crime scene report, were frequently treated as essential to successful prosecutions. During the year, the government began to implement legislation that guaranteed the cost of any certified post-rape examination would be covered by the government. Prior to the passage of this legislation, the certified examination was prohibitively expensive for most rape survivors at a cost of 50,000 CFA francs ($81). Human rights organizations reported that despite this legislative progress, many doctors were not aware of the change and demanded proof that the examination be provided to survivors without charge. Human rights organizations further reported that police often did not know to refer rape survivors to a medical practitioner for an examination, while many medical practitioners were not trained how to examine survivors for signs of gender-based violence or prepare the certificate. Human rights organizations reported that the only government-run survivor shelter, located in Abidjan, had limited beds and would not house victims for more than three days.
Dignity and Rights for the Children of Côte d’Ivoire (DDE-CI), a human rights organization, and local press reported on the alleged rape and assault of a child aged nine in Abidjan. The survivor and her family filed a complaint with local police who arrested the alleged perpetrator. When the case was later transferred to a task force dedicated to handling crimes against children, the task force recommended the survivor accept a settlement in lieu of supporting referral of the case to the prosecutor for criminal prosecution. Authorities ultimately released the suspect after he agreed to pay 250,000 CFA francs ($407) to the young girl’s father.
A human rights organization reported several cases of high-profile individuals inciting rape, including the case of an actor announcing on a television program that he performed “lack cats”, a behavior that consists of breaking into a woman’s room at night and forcing nonconsensual sexual intercourse, on his cousin. The actor further stated this was a common and normal practice. The human rights organization reported that several complaints concerning this event were pending with the HACA.
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law specifically forbids FGM/C and provides penalties for practitioners of up to five years’ imprisonment and substantial fines. Double penalties apply to medical practitioners, including doctors, nurses, and medical technicians. Nevertheless, FGM/C remained a problem. The most recent 2016 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey indicated that the rate of FGM/C nationwide was 37 percent, with prevalence varying by region. A human rights organization indicated that up to the end of June, it received no formal reports filed concerning FGM/C, but another organization indicated tracking cases of FGM/C became more difficult as perpetrators modified their methods to evade tracking and prosecution. The organization reported that FGM/C was now frequently performed at birth.
Other Forms of Gender-based Violence: Societal violence against women included traditional practices that are illegal, such as dowry deaths, the killing of brides over dowry disputes, levirate, forcing a widow to marry her dead husband’s brother, and sororate, forcing a woman to marry her dead sister’s husband. The Ivorian Network for the Defense of Children’s and Women’s Rights (RIDDEF) and DDE-CI stated these cases were rare but reported some cases of forced marriage during the year (see section 6, Children, Child, Early, and Forced Marriage). The government did not provide information regarding the prevalence of, or rate of prosecution for, such violence or forced activity.
Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment and prescribes penalties of one to three years’ imprisonment and fines. Nevertheless, the government rarely, if ever, enforced the law, and harassment was widespread and routinely tolerated.
Reproductive Rights: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.
As a result of FGM/C, scarring was common. Scarring could lead to obstructed labor during childbirth, an obstetric complication that was a common cause of maternal deaths, especially in the absence of Caesarean section capability (see the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM/C) subsection for additional information).
Barriers to modern methods of contraception included cost (the government only partially subsidized the cost of some methods of contraception), distance to points of purchase such as pharmacies and clinics, and low or unreliable stocks of certain types of contraception. Other barriers to use included misinformation, and conflicting moral and religious beliefs, including providers opposed to providing modern methods of contraception to adolescent girls.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 74 percent of births in 2010-19 were attended by skilled health personnel. Barriers to births attended by skilled health personnel included distance to modern health facilities, cost of prenatal consultations and other birth-related supplies and vaccinations, and low provider capacity. Government policy required emergency health-care services to be available and free to all, but care was not available in all regions, particularly rural areas, and was often expensive. According to WHO estimates, in 2010-18, the adolescent birth rate was 123 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19.
Health services for survivors of sexual violence existed, but costs of such services were often prohibitive, authorities often did not know to refer survivors to medical practitioners, and many medical practitioners were not trained in treatment of survivors of sexual violence. Emergency contraception was not always available as part of the clinical management of rape cases.
According to the WHO, UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund, the World Bank, and the UN Population Division, in 2017 (the latest year for which data are available), the maternal mortality rate was 617 deaths per 100,000 live births, down from 658 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015. Factors contributing to the high maternal mortality rate chiefly related to lack of access to quality care. Additionally, local NGOs reported women often had to pay for prenatal consultations and other birth-related supplies and vaccinations, which dissuaded them from using modern facilities and increased the likelihood of maternal mortality.
Stigma surrounding menstruation and lack of access to menstruation hygiene caused some girls not to attend school during menstruation. The Ministry of Education authorized pregnant adolescent girls to attend school, but not all schools adhered to this policy. Additionally, pregnant adolescent girls faced stigma that sometimes caused them to stop their studies. RIDDEF, a local human rights organization, reported tracking nearly 5,000 pregnancies in schools during the 2021-2022 school year.
Discrimination: The law provides the same legal status and rights for women and men in labor law, although there were restrictions on women’s employment (see section 7.d., Discrimination with Respect to Employment and Occupation). The law establishes the right of widows to inherit property upon the deaths of their husbands equally with any children. Human rights organizations reported many religious and traditional authorities rejected laws intended to reduce gender-related inequality in household decision making.
Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination
The law prohibits xenophobia, racism, and tribalism, including discrimination against persons based on their ethnic origin. The government’s enforcement of the law remained inconsistent.
The country has more than 60 ethnic groups; human rights organizations reported ethnic discrimination was a problem. Authorities considered approximately 25 percent of the population foreign, although many within this category were second- or third-generation residents. Land ownership laws remained unclear and unimplemented, resulting in conflicts between native populations and other groups.
Media and human rights organizations reported on several localized interethnic, referred to as intercommunal in the country, conflicts during the year. In August clashes erupted in the Agneby-Tiassa and Mé regions between the Abbey and Malinké populations over territory and the distribution of narcotics. A human rights organization reported that over several days of conflict, at least four persons were killed, 44 stores and homes were burned, nearly a dozen persons were injured, and two persons were arrested.
Media and human rights organizations published numerous reports during the year on the growing tensions in the northern part of the country between Fulani ethnic group members and non-Fulani farmers. According to reports, farmers had grown frustrated with Fulani herders permitting their herds to graze on farmers’ crops and often were compelled to purchase fences to protect their property. This resentment was exacerbated by the widespread belief that the Fulani were affiliated with violent extremist organizations. As a result, Fulani reported being subject to denunciation to authorities as well as arbitrary arrest and detention. Further, Fulani herders who were believed to permit their herd illicitly to graze on crops were often reported to Dozos, a fraternity of traditional hunters. According to reports, Dozos were more likely to treat Fulani suspects unfairly and subject them to beatings.
Children
Birth Registration: The law confers citizenship at birth if at least one parent was a citizen when the child was born.
The law provides parents a three-month period to register their child’s birth for a nominal fee. In some parts of the country, the three-month window conflicts with important cultural practices around the naming of children, making birth registration difficult for many families. To register births after the first three months, families must also pay a fine. For older children, authorities may require a doctor’s age assessment and other documents. The government requires health-care workers in maternity wards and at immunization sites to complete birth registration forms automatically when providing services. According to UNICEF, birth registration services were available in nearly all maternity hospitals and vaccination centers. Failure to register births could result in denial of educational and other public services. According to UNICEF, in 2021 an estimated one million children in the country were without birth certificates, down from 1.6 million in 2020.
Education: Primary schooling is obligatory, free, and open to all. To enter secondary school, children must pass an exam for which identity documents are required. As a result, children without documents could not continue their studies after primary school, (see section 2.g, Stateless Persons). Education was ostensibly free and compulsory for children ages six to 16, but families generally reported being asked to pay school fees, either to receive their children’s records or to pay for school supplies. Parents also often contributed to teachers’ salaries and living stipends, particularly in rural areas. Parents of children not in compliance with the law on mandatory education were reportedly subject to substantial fines or two to six months in jail, but this was seldom, if ever, enforced, and many children did not attend or have access to school. A UNICEF research report during the year indicated the COVID-19 pandemic created an “increased precariousness” among populations that were already vulnerable to economic and social “shocks.” It reported that increasingly, children in these vulnerable households were leaving the school system.
Girls participated in education at lower rates than boys, particularly in rural areas. Although girls initially enrolled at a higher rate, their participation dropped below boys’ rates because of a cultural tendency to keep girls at home to care for younger siblings or to do other domestic work, and due to reported sexual harassment of girl students when traveling to school and, once at school, by teachers and other staff. A human rights organization reported that in some school locations, the lack of water and bathroom facilities for women and girls along with a high rate of pregnancy served as limitations on female enrolment beyond early grade levels (see section 6, Women, Reproductive Rights).
Child Abuse: A March 2020 government study on violence against children and youth younger than age 18 found that 19 percent of girls and 11 percent of boys had been victims of sexual violence and that 47 percent of girls and 61 percent of boys had been victims of physical violence. According to 2016 MICS-5 survey data, nearly nine out of 10 children, including more than 70 percent of children aged one to two and over 90 percent of those aged two to three, were subjected to violent discipline from an early age. Human rights organizations also reported a rise in physical and emotional violence due to the emergence of violent youth gangs in communities and schools as well as a growing culture of online harassment.
To assist child victims of violence and abuse, the government strengthened the child protection network in areas such as case management, the implementation of evidence-based prevention programs, data collection, and analysis.
Responsibility for combating child abuse lies with the Ministries of Employment and Social Protection; Justice and Human Rights; Women, Families, and Children; Solidarity, Social Cohesion, and the Fight against Poverty; and National Education. International organizations and civil society groups reported that lack of coordination among the ministries hampered their effectiveness.
Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The law sets the minimum age for marriage at 18. The law prohibits marriage for individuals younger than age 18 without parental consent. The law specifically penalizes anyone who forces a minor younger than age 18 to enter a religious or customary matrimonial union. Nevertheless, reports of child marriage persisted.
According to UNICEF, the most recent data available in 2017 showed that 27 percent of girls were married by age 18 and 7 percent were married by age 15. A prominent human rights organization with national reach reported that as of June, it received reports of 115 rapes or attempted rapes and 72 involved girls younger than age 15. It further reported receiving 18 reports of forced marriage, 11 of which concerned girls younger than age 15.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits the use, recruitment, or offering of minors for commercial sex or use in pornographic films, pictures, or events. The law does not specifically address grooming children for commercial sexual exploitation. The minimum age for consensual sex is 18. Consensual sex with a person younger than age 15 is classified as rape. For victims between the age of 15 to 18, consent may be raised as a defense to a charge of rape. Authorities did not effectively enforce the law.
A human rights organization reported that as of August, it had recorded five cases of rape during the year where officers and prosecutors either refused to receive a valid rape complaint (which would have called for investigating and pursuing charges), or reclassified the facts constituting rape as indecent assault. The organization further reported that one case of reclassification involved a survivor who was only age eight. The country is a source, transit, and destination country for children subjected to trafficking in persons, including sex trafficking.
Also see the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.
Displaced Children: Human rights organizations reported thousands of children countrywide were homeless and were frequently subject to harassment by authorities. The government implemented several programs to reduce the number of homeless children, with particular emphasis on skill development that targeted unemployed youth vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremist organizations. The Ministry of Women, Family and Children also launched a program called “Zero Children on the Street,” which began in July with the transfer of 200 homeless children in Abidjan to an education center where the children received both medical treatment and education. Officials in the Ministry of Youth operated several centers in a few cities where at-risk youth could live and receive training. A Ministry of Justice center provided reintegration training and support for former juvenile offenders. According to a report from UNICEF during the year, the COVID-19 pandemic afforded numerous opportunities to fund and implement initiatives that supported family reintegration and facilitated contact between families and displaced children. It also reported the pandemic appeared to encourage displaced youth to seek out civil society programming and other opportunities that enabled organizations to provide vital youth-support services.
Antisemitism
The country’s Jewish community numbered fewer than 150 persons, including foreign residents and local converts. There were no reports of antisemitic acts.
Trafficking in Persons
See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.
Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics
Criminalization: Homosexuality is not criminalized, but public heterosexual and same-sex intimate activity was subject to prosecution as public indecency that carries a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment. Human rights organizations expressed concern this law could be disproportionately applied against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) persons. Fondygender, a local NGO, said that they noticed a decrease in the unfair application of this law against members of the LGBTQI+ community this year.
Violence against LGBTQI+ Persons: Authorities were at times slow and ineffective in their response to societal violence targeting the LGBTQI+ community. Further, LGBTQI+ persons often did not report violence committed or threatened against them, including assault or homicide, because they did not believe authorities would take their complaints seriously. FIDH related in a report several cases of rapes against LGBTQI+ persons including the cases of gay men subjected to “corrective rape” in the city of Bouaké. The Director of the Judicial Clinic of Bouaké reported that heterosexual men sometimes rape gay men to inflict pain on them and change their behavior. Fondygender, however, said that authorities are more understanding and better at handling complaints from the LGBTQI+ community than in previous years.
Discrimination: The law provides for various political, socioeconomic, and safety protections to everyone and prohibits discrimination based on several specific categories, but not sexual orientation. In April the acting National Assembly President commented on a widely debated, but ultimately defeated, legislative proposal to treat “sexual orientation” as a basis for discrimination, stating: “In the end, it was clearly understood that this was not an endorsement by parliamentarians of homosexuality, since this practice does not conform with our cultural or moral values and is contrary to the legislation in force concerning the definition of marriage.”
LGBTQI+ community members reported being evicted from their homes by landlords or by their own families. Familial rejection of LGBTQI+ youth often caused them to become homeless and drop out of school. Members of the LGBTQI+ community reported discrimination in access to health care. Human rights organizations reported regular discrimination in employment, with employers refusing to hire, firing, or not promoting LGBTQI+ community members once learning of their LGBTQI+ identity.
Availability of Legal Gender Recognition: The law does not provide a method for individuals to update their gender markers on personal identity documents.
Involuntary or Coercive Medical or Psychological Practices Specifically Targeting LGBTQI+ Individuals: There were no reports of medical or psychological practices specially targeting LGBTQI+ community this year.
Restrictions of Freedom of Expression, Association, or Peaceful Assembly: There were no reports on a restriction of freedom of expression, or peaceful assembly. An LGBTQI+ organization reported that authorities cooperated in securing an event they organized during the year. LGBTQI+ organizations reported facing restrictions on the ability to be legally registered.
Persons with Disabilities
Although the constitution contains protections for them, persons with disabilities cannot easily access education, health services, public buildings, and transportation on an equal basis with others. Although the law requires measures to provide persons with disabilities access to transportation and buildings and designated parking spots, human rights organizations reported these provisions were frequently not implemented around the country.
The law requires the government to educate and train persons with physical, mental, visual, auditory, and cerebral motor disabilities; hire them or help them find jobs; design houses and public facilities for wheelchair access; and adapt machines, tools, and workspaces for access and use by persons with disabilities, as well as to provide them access to the judicial system. The law prohibits acts of violence against persons with disabilities and the abandonment of such persons. These laws were not effectively enforced.
Persons with disabilities reportedly encountered serious discrimination in employment and education. Prisons and detention centers reportedly provided no accommodations for persons with disabilities.
According to UNICEF, the number of children and adolescents with disabilities was estimated at more than 50,000. The government financially supported some separate schools, training programs, associations, and artisans’ cooperatives for persons with disabilities, located primarily in Abidjan, but human rights organizations reported these schools functioned primarily as literacy centers and did not offer the same educational materials and programs as other schools. It was difficult for children with disabilities to obtain an adequate education if their families did not have sufficient resources. In some instances, support materials were financed by private donations. The government took some steps to integrate children with disabilities into ordinary public schools, but these schools often lacked the resources to accommodate them. According to UNICEF data from 2017, the proportion of children living with a disability who were outside the school system was 42.2 percent for primary school, 60.4 percent for junior high school, and 76.5 percent for upper secondary education. The government made efforts to recruit persons with disabilities for select government positions; however, a human rights organization reported that some governmental officials still discriminated against these persons once hired. Homelessness among persons with mental disabilities was reportedly common.
Political campaigns did not include braille or sign language, undercutting civic participation by persons with vision and hearing disabilities. The CEI did not provide any formal accommodations for persons with disabilities at polling sites for the March 2021 national legislative elections, although observers reported CEI staff and fellow voters assisting persons with disabilities during voting, including assisting them climb stairs to access polling sites. During the year, the CEI hosted a workshop on “strengthening the political and civic participation of persons with disabilities in the electoral process.” The CEI was drafting revisions to the electoral code to facilitate the participation of persons living with disabilities in the electoral process during registration and voting. According to disability rights organizations, these revisions reflected reforms advocated by NGOs and were expected to include efforts to increase physical accessibility of voting locations and accommodate individuals who were blind or deaf.
Other Societal Violence or Discrimination
According to 2021 UN estimates, there were approximately 400,000 adults and children living with HIV in the country. There were no credible reports of official discrimination based on HIV and AIDS status, and the government respected the confidentiality of individuals’ HIV and AIDS status. The government respected patient rights, and a statement of these rights was posted or available at health facilities. The law expressly condemns all forms of discrimination against persons with HIV and provides for their access to care and treatment. The law also prescribes punishment for refusal of care or discrimination based on HIV and AIDS status. Social stigma, however, persisted. According to polling from 2016, nearly 50 percent of adults (age 15 to 49) said they would not buy fresh vegetables from a shopkeeper known to be HIV positive, while more than 30 percent said they did not think children with HIV should be able to attend school with children who are HIV negative.
A human rights organization reported that the government relaunched the Human Rights, HIV, and Tuberculosis Technical Working Group, which aims to monitor alleged violations of the rights of individuals with HIV.