Introduction: Harmful Traditional Practices and International Instruments

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The launch of the Secretary-General Study on Violence Against Children is scheduled to take place on October ninth at the General Assembly in New York. Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro has indicated that the report will recommend prohibition of all forms of harmful traditional practices. Although there is sometimes disagreement as to what constitutes such practices, the Study lists them as follows:

  • female genital mutilation (cutting of a girls’ sexual parts);
  • child sexual abuse, including girls married very young or being forced to marry;
  • honour killings, where men kill girls in the name of family ’honour’, for example for having sex outside marriage, or refusing an arranged marriage.

Several of the Regional Consultations for the UN Study, in their outcome documents, recommend a ban on harmful traditional practices, including:

  • In East and Southern Africa:

- Traditional harmful practices should be criminalized and child marriage should be banned.

  • In South Asia:

- Implement policies and programmes to discourage the system of dowry and establish community support system for the protection of married girls;

  • In the Middle East and North Africa:

- Amend existing laws, as a priority, to incriminate the practice of FGM; impose harsh punishments on crimes of honour, while ensuring that the appropriate enforcement mechanisms are put in place and operational.

  • In West and Central Africa:

- Vote in laws abolishing excision and put in place measures for applying these laws;

- Raise the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 and institute parity between men and women regarding the age of marriage;

- Encourage a wide debate in national and local forums on traditional and modern (paedophilia, sex tourism, pornography) practices that are harmful to children, including the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: involve traditional and modern media forms; concentrate on the needs identified by the young people themselves particularly regarding questions of reproductive health;

- Introduce into all types and levels of teaching curricula, training modules on the fight against harmful traditional practices, the prevention of HIV/AIDS and the culture of peace.

Find out below what other international human rights instruments say about harmful traditional practices.

What the Convention on the Rights of the Child says about harmful traditional practices:

Article 24.3
States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.

What the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child says about harmful traditional practices:

Article 21
Protection against Harmful Social and Cultural Practices

1. States Parties to the present Charter shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate harmful social and cultural practices affecting the welfare, dignity, normal growth and development of the child and in particular:

(a) those customs and practices prejudicial to the health or life of the child; and
(b) those customs and practices discriminatory to the child on the grounds of sex or other status.

2. Child marriage and the betrothal of girls and boys shall be prohibited and effective action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify the minimum age of marriage to be 18 years and make registration of all marriages in an official registry compulsory.

Other instruments include:

Organisation: 
Child Rights International Network

Countries

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