AFRICAN COMMITTEE: Special session on violence against children

Summary: The African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child held a special session on violence against children during its 15th session.

A statement was delivered on behalf of Marta Santos Pais, the UN Special Representative on Violence against Children (SRSG).

Calling for urgent action to end violence against children across the world, Ms Santos Pais noted in the important role played by African countries in the regional consultations which helped shape the UN Study on Violence against Children and its recommendations.

Highlighting her meeting with the Chairperson of the Committee and the African Union's Minister of Social Affairs in November, the SRSG said that cooperation with regional mechanisms and organisations was a key part of her strategy and welcomed the fact that addressing violence against children was high on the region's agenda.

Below is a summary of her recommendations:

• To develop a strategic agenda of collaboration with the African Committee to help consolidate an African fit for Children where violence has no place.
• To include the protection of children from all forms of violence as a systematic and core section of the Committee's review of States Parties' reports on the implementation of the African Charter, and also as a visible focus of the Committee's Concluding Observations.
• To undertake in collaboration with the SRSG an advocacy campaign to call for an explicit legal ban on all violence against children, including corporal punishment.
• To promote the development of an African report on national follow up to the recommendations of the UN Study on Violence against Children in close collaboration with key partners, including UNICEF and the African Child Policy Forum. Such a Pan African report can become a critical advocacy tool for promoting progress in the region, and also a powerful source of information on good practices to support the scaling up of positive initiatives, within and beyond the region.
• To place violence against children high in the policy agenda of the African Union and its Member States; African leaders have been vocal in their commitment to the protection of children’s rights, including through their strong call for action at the Pan-African Forum on Children.

Read the full speech here.

Violence against Children in Africa: The challenges and priorities for action

Dr. Assefa Bekele from the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) presented a report on the challenges and priorities for addressing violence against children in Africa, outlining the incidence of violence in the region, the causes and national legal and policy frameworks taken to combat the problem.

Violence remains a pervasive but invisible problem in the region which is almost entirely absent from the political agenda, he said. ACPF studies of children in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia suggest that almost all children under the age of 15 experience some form of violence at home, at school, in institutions, on the streets or at the workplace.

These studies indicate that violence against children in the home setting is most in need of attention. Some estimates indicate that as many as 38 million children in sub-Saharan Africa report to have witnessed violence in their own home.

Explaining national legal provisions protecting children from violence, Dr. Bekele said that several countries have enacted comprehensive laws addressing one or more harmful practices (such as corporal punishment, FGM, early marriage/forced marriage) including Kenya, Togo, Nigeria, Ghana, Lesotho and the Gambia. These laws, he said, mandate preventative measures, as well as protection, support and assistance for the victim and survivor, in addition to criminalising the act of violence.

However, he said, despite these important but scattered national initiatives in the legal and policy area, children in Africa are, for the most part, neither covered by national protective policies and mechanisms nor reaping the protective benefits of laws on protection from violence, abuse, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Although protecting children from violence is primarily a national responsibility, he said, the African Committee has a moral and political power to take a leadership role in what is still an young movement, and to influence the behaviour and policies of government. He made the following recommendations to the Committee:

• To make violence against children a particular area of concern in national reporting to the Committee.
• To establish a programme of cooperation with the UN Special Representative on Violence against Children to accelerate action especially legislative and policy reforms in Africa.
• To embark on a major programme of advocacy and action, including a continent-wide campaign to promote non-violent and positive values in dealing with children, giving a central role to the family and positive parenting and the preparation of an Africa report on violence against children.
• To promote national policy and legal reforms. Laws are fundamental for action. A good beginning would be to use the Charter and the CRC for legislative reforms, more specifically to encourage countries to domesticate them and harmonise their national laws with international legal frameworks.
• To put child wellbeing in general and violence against children in particular on the political agenda by engaging Africa’s top political leadership.

Read the full report here

Further information

• Read Ms Santos Pais' first report

• Violence Study: Overarching Recommendations
• CRIN information page on the Human Rights Council
• About the UN Study on Violence Against Children
• More about follow up to the UN Study recommendations in Africa