THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS AND WELFARE OF THE CHILD (ACRWC)

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The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is a regional human rights treaty adopted in 1990 and which came into force in 1999. It sets out rights and defines principles for the status of children.

Background Information on how the Charter came to be

The idea to develop an African Charter on the Rights of the Child emanated from a conference organized by ANPPCAN and supported by UNICEF on Children in Situations of Armed Conflict in Africa in 1987.  The participants at the conference learnt of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was being drafted in Geneva.  Considering that few African countries had been involved in the process, the conference recommended that a regional meeting be held to examine the Draft Convention from the African perspective.  Accordingly, ANPPCAN was asked to convene a meeting with the support of UNICEF in 1988 to develop a Charter to supplement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

In the 1988 meeting, it was recommended, among other things, that a working group composed of African specialists in different disciplines, be constituted jointly by the OAU (now African Union) in collaboration with ANPPCAN with the support of UNICEF and other interested organizations to prepare a Draft Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Children to be considered by African Governments.

The envisaged objectives of the Charter were to:

  • Pay attention to special issues prevailing in Africa.
  • Complement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child being drafted at that time, but not to delay its process.
  • Facilitate the ratification and the implementation of the UN Convention once adopted.

The African Charter defines a child as anyone below age 18 years and child labour is comprehensively covered in Article 15, while Articles 21 and 22 protects children against harmful social and cultural practices (child marriage, discrimination based on gender) and recruitment into armed conflict.  The Charter further protects children from sexual exploitation in Article 27 where children are supposed not to be in child prostitution.  Article 29 protects children from sale, trafficking and abduction, while Article 16, section 2 expects state parties to establish monitoring units to prevent and protect children from abuse and exploitation.

Under the Charter, nations are obliged to provide protection to children against all forms of abuse, discrimination, neglect and exploitation.

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) has been ratified or acceded to by 53 African Union member states.  The Charter expected state parties to constitute a Committee of Experts with clear roles assigned.

Since the African Charter having been adopted 31 years ago and being in force for 22 years, it is time to ask the hard questions. Why despite the noble intentions, has the numbers of children in child labour, continued to increase. A recent report by UNICEF and ILO “Child Labour: Global Estimates 2020, trends and the way forward” indicates that in the last four (4) years 16.6 million children in Sub Sahara Africa, have gotten into child labour.  According to reports from UNICEF, Sub Sahara Africa, has the largest proportion of children, where 29% (5-17 years) are engaged in child labour. This is in stark comparison to the Middle East and North Africa, where 5% of children in this age group, are in child labour. Very many children in Africa continue to be married off young, there by interfering with their education. Teenage pregnancies, is the order of the day and children continue to be trafficked in large numbers for child labour and prostitution. COVID 19 Pandemic has exacerbated the situation as shown by a recent study by ANPPCAN, on the Impact of COVID-19 on Children in 2021 in 4 Counties in Kenya.

Given the special needs of children in Africa, the Experts who developed the Charter, included a Committee of Experts, to ensure the implementation of the Charter.  This Committee was given the role to closely work with Governments in Africa to ensure the situation of children improved.  This Committee was not expected to repeat what the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child was already doing. The Committee was given a role to visit countries in Africa and ensure Governments actualize policies, laws and programmes friendly to children e.g. education, food, health and shelter.

However, some 30 years down the line, the situation of children in Africa is still a huge challenge.  Extreme poverty and lack of social protection measures, continue to push many children into situations of exploitation, such as child labour, trafficking and sexual exploitation. Many families can no longer provide for the basic needs of their children and conflicts due to resource scarcity and competition are on increase. Informal settlements continued to expand without planning, leading to overcrowding, exposing children to terrible living conditions and exploitation, as studies show.

The questions then is; what is there to celebrate in the Charter. To begin with, it took nine years for the Charter to come to force and twenty two years after its adoption, children in Africa continue to drop out of school in large numbers, millions of them are in worst forms of child labour; including, prostitution and many cannot access health services and are suffering from malnutrition.

African governments need to question the approaches they have adopted in regard to solving developmental issues. It is time to critically look at applying the global problem solving approaches to national and local issues.

The current reality is, how can the poor countries in Africa, be expected to be measuring their performance with highly developed countries under the SDGs. Africa, needs to start looking inwards and coming up with its own Home Made Solutions, instead of waiting for solutions from others. As long as we continue to depend on others to solve our problems, our children will continue to suffer and all the noble intentions, will be to no avail. If this continues history will judge African countries and their institutions very harshly. Change is urgently needed.