Burkina Faso, which was a French colony until 1960, is the second largest country in West Africa under military rule and one of the poorest countries in the world. This, along with the fact that education there is not compulsory, contributes to the increase of child labor and to the exploitation of underage children who, instead of going to school, work from dawn to dusk at cotton plantations, cocoa/coffee plantations and even granite quarries in its capital Ouagadougou. The percentage of children who finish Primary School is below 32%, while the number of children – aged between 5 and 14- who work hard reaches 45%.