29/11/2025
28/11/2025
Improving children's protection in Africa's labour and living conditions
Africa-based NGO shares recommendations to improve children's protection
As NGOs estimate that 92 million children in Africa are engaged in child labour, the highest number globally, they call states and businesses to act as soon as possible to protect children from harm and respect their rights. A new report shows how it can be done.
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By Melissa Chemam
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"We have launched our report to call African countries to look specifically at business and children's rights, particularly how countries are mainstreaming child rights in their national action plans around business and human rights", Dr. Musa Kika, the Executive Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), told RFI from Lesotho.
The report, released this week, is titled Building Tomorrow – A study on mainstreaming children’s rights in National Action Plans on Business in Human Rights in Africa, and recommends including children's rights into proper national and continental action plans for businesses and on human rights in Africa.
The NGO says states and businesses must act now to better protect children from harm and respect their rights, as Africa is plague by from more child labour than other regions of the world, but also as many business and industrial practices harm children more.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s worst record of child labour, and business has a huge role to play in addressing these obstacles to ensure an equitable future for all – especially for children.
The IHRDA also hosted a two-day conference in Maseru, Lesotho, with a focus on how children’s rights are integrated into National Action Plans (NAPs) on Business and Human Rights (BHRs) across the continent.
The conference, set along the 46th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, brought together lawyers, academics, business and development experts, as well as human rights institutions and CSOs.
"That's the African Union's mechanism or organ dedicated to issues of child protection," Kika told RFI. "They meet twice every year in ordinary sessions to receive reports to determine cases that have been brought before them and are basically to interact with, you know, governments and non-state actors to ascertain the state of child protection, you know, and deal with attendant issues."
Long-term reflection, short-term needs
It's within that context that the IHRDA launched its report on how businesses deal with children's rights, with recommendations for African countries to help mainstream children's rights in their national action plans around business and human rights.
"Millions of children on the continent are engaged in child labour," Kika said, "between 70 to 90 million children in Africa and particularly in the informal sector.
And because Africa has a huge informal sector, we actually really don't know the extent of the problem. And it's very difficult to track what children are doing, the hazards they are facing. Plus, when it comes to business and child rights, it's not just child labour, it also concerns how children are affected as consumers of services and products."
The report describes how unsafe products and harmful services from corporate companies affect children residing in environments that are affected by poor business practices, for instance in mining
"We were recently in Zambia in a town called Kabwe, for instance," Kika said, "where lead, zinc and manganese mining has been happening for almost a century, and Kabwe is now known as perhaps one of the most polluted towns in the world. The soil has been contaminated by lead."
This is due to harmful business practices, but also to the failure of the Zambian government to enforce environmental protection laws. "As a result, children are suffering deformities, deformities, developmental challenges, etc."
Lawsuit demands justice for Zambians 'poisoned' by lead mine Children also indirectly suffer when their caregivers who are working for business are not treated right, the report underlines, and when they are not remunerated appropriately, when they are not given enough time to rest and be with their families, etc.
The goal of the report is to help regulate and change business practices and to hold to account corporate actors for their violations when they occur. The process requires countries to come up with policies, legislation and framework. "This is going to be a long term process, but what I can say is we are happy that already the Committee of Experts is open to engagement with us," Kika added.
Key points for change
Discussions during the meetings centred around key topics, including:
-The legal duties of States to protect children from business-related harms and the corresponding responsibilities of corporations to respect children's rights across their operations;
-The challenges of the informal sector and its impact on children’s rights in Africa, highlighting risks in unregulated areas such as the digital environment, business-related environmental harm, and marketing of harmful products;
-The roles of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), civil society, the judiciary, and government ministries to protect children’s rights in business context.
"We are going to need a multi-pronged approach at the African Union level, continental level," Kika told RFI.
"It's timely now because Africa has just adopted what is called the African Continental Free Trade Area, an agreement that was contracted recently trying to build a single market for Africa in terms of movement of goods and services and people. So, if that framework is fully implemented without a binding mechanism for children's protection at continental level, there's going to be massive violations."
But Kika knows African countries also need measures at the domestic levels. "That's why we are also looking at national action plans for each single country," he added.
"The current state of affairs is that only five out of 55 African countries have national action plans. So 50 countries don't have any coordinated, coherent plan on how they are going to be mindful of child protection in regulating and carrying out business."
That's why Africa needs to strengthen the mechanism at the domestic level in addition to the continental.
BPFF 2025 is here
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23/11/2025
'Deep'
Dear readers,
I personally had a very good week, thanks to new, old and recently-met friends. What are we without the kindness of others?
Yet there is so much horrors going on in the world. This constant sadness cannot go away. Ukraine, Congo, Palestine, Sudan, so much suffering. And Marseille.
But a friend of mine sent me music, so for now I just want to share that, a song.
OKALI - 'DEEP'
20/11/2025
G20: Some final perspective
South Africa's presidency of the G20 comes to end with a highly expected head of states summit
South Africa will hosts the last event of its G20 presidency this weekend, the head of states summit, aiming to secure commitments on debt relief for developing countries and to tackle global inequalities. The United States has so far boycotted all the events since February, but on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced an 11th-hour about-turn, saying the US told him it wants to take part in this weekend's G20 summit in Johannesburg...
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Until now, participants this absence has not defer their efforts, on the contrary, as multilateralism is at stake and at the same time Africa and the global south gained through this year of South Africa's presidency a louder voice in the international group.
Anna Kelly, US deputy press secretary, posted on X that this announcement was fake news.
South Africa's G20 main theme was "Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability", and a promise to focus on supporting developing countries through debt relief and financing measures to cope with disasters caused by climate change.
Yet, it was only branded by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February as "anti-American"; he then skipped the first meetings of G20 ministers, setting the tone for a complicated year for South Africa.
This didn't discourage Pretoria, which put debt relief as a priority, especially repayments limiting investments in essential infrastructure for healthcare and education.
According to the United Nations, between 2021 and 2023, Africa spent $70 per capita on debt interest payments, more than on education or health, which were at $63 and $44 per capita respectively.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa will also push during the two-day summit for the creation of an "International Inequalities Panel", modelled after the IPCC for climate change, to tackle massive global inequality.
A productive year
Désiré Assogbavi is the advisor on Africa at the Open Society Foundations. He regularly came to Johannesburg to follow the South African presidency of the G20 this year and came back again a week before the head of states summit.
He thinks that huge progress has been made.
"This G20 is happening in a very particular situation," Assogbavi told me. "You see what's happening in the world; multilateralism has been being challenged around the world. So this is a particular moment. The G20 is supposed to be one of the best expressions of countries, with people working together to find greater solutions for world problems."
He underlines that if not everybody is coming to the table, the vast majority is.
"The United States has decided not to endorse the presidency of South Africa and decided to boycott it, while it is happening for the first time in Africa. This is regrettable, really unfortunate. I wish everybody came. However, the summit will go ahead. And I see a lot of determination from various delegations, from various actors to move forward anyway, to try to resolve the big problem that our continent, the whole world is having."
Multilateralism at stake
G20 is one of the bodies representing the most powerful countries around the world. The goal of such a summit is to get together and agree on a common position on key issues.
"We are very optimistic because it is happening now for the very first time in Africa," Assogbavi continues. "And it seems to be one of the most inclusive presidencies. Over the last few days, since I landed here in Johannesburg, I've seen various group, various components of the society having their own meetings around the key thematics of the summit. And the conclusions of those discussions will be part of the general debates of the leaders."
Ramaphosa even told reporters ahead of this 22-23 November event that the US absence is "their loss".
And South Africa insisted all year through that this presidency has been the presidency of the whole of Africa.
This presidency of South Africa has been a success in that sense according to Assogbavi, as the African Union, the continental body that represents the whole continent, has been now admitted in the G20 as a full member.
"So we have South Africa as a member, and we also have the African Union as a full member at the table now," Assogbavi told me. "At the beginning of the year when South Africa took the presidency, they had an agreement with the African Union to put their hand together and push an African agenda within the G20. And I can say this is one of the achievements of President Ramaphosa at the helm of the G20, allowing the continental agenda to be a priority and not only the South African agenda.
If many still reckon that the United States is the most powerful of the 19 countries in the G20, the body represents 85 percent of global GDP and about two-thirds of the world's population, and also includes the European Union and now, as Assogbavi explained, the African Union.
For all these reasons, he remains optimistic on the potential outcomes.
Priorities: Critical minerals and the debt crisis
The debt sustainability appears as the number one priority of the African Union.
All the heads of states of the union met in Lomé, Togo, in May 2025, and signed the Lomé Declaration on debt sustainability in the continent.
"This is already in a good place on the agenda of the G20," Assogbavi told RFI. "So again, South Africa has been championing the Pan-African agenda and not only a South African agenda."
Another key issue for Africans is the management of the many mineral mining projects that are exploding all over Africa.
"Let's be clear: We're not going to resolve all the problems of the continent, including the wars, in one G20 meeting, but what is positive is that we have been seeing the entire continent speaking with one voice on those critical issues and, most importantly, the issue of Africa being a provider of raw critical minerals to the rest of the world and only taking five percent of the profits."
Assogbavi added that this is happening at a very interesting moment for the continent, as the whole world is talking about the production of critical minerals, also considered as green sources of energy.
"There's a realisation in the whole world that they are useful to tackle the climate issue, instead of using the old fossil fuel to generate energy," Assogbavi said. "So Africa is targeted as a reserve of minerals that the whole world needs. It is important for Africa to be united and to speak with one voice on how they're going to manage that situation. And this is happening. The G20 is one part of it, but there will be other gatherings internationally where this discussion will have its way."
On the matter of inequality overall, a report for the G20 redacted by a team led by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz labelled wealth inequality as a global crisis that threatens democracy and social cohesion worldwide, saying it should be confronted with the same urgency as the climate crisis.
If adopted, the International Inequalities Panel pushed by Ramaphosa "would mark a significant win not just for Pretoria's presidency, but for the millions across the Global South whose voices are often sidelined in elite economic forums," according to Tendai Mbanje, a researcher at the the University of Pretoria's Centre for Human Rights.
Improving leadership skills
Finally, with all these discussions on debt or the use of Africa’s mineral wealth, the underlying issue is the way these resources are being governed and managed by African leaders. Many Africans are increasingly calling for stronger accountability and better governance to ensure that the continent’s assets truly serve the public interest.
"The management of these resources within the continent is a crucial issue, and of how the money borrowed from various institutions is being managed on the continent" Assogbavi told me.
There is a need for transparency, so that people know exactly who benefits from what.
Assogbavi thinks the G20 also raises the issue of the fact that Africa's own leaders have to be accountable.
"We are calling for more justice in the way international affairs are being conducted; it is important that we also raise our voice as people of the continent vis a vis our leaders, for a better management and better governance of our resources," Assogbavi concluded.
Looking forward
As the summit is about to start, it remains unclear if South Africa's G20 presidency will manage to secure a consensus and to release a joint final declaration on these issues, however.
Delegates involved in preparatory work reported that some participants have been obstructive, including Argentina's representatives, as President Javier Milei, a Trump ally, is also boycotting the event.
China's representative Premier Li Qiang is expected to advocate for multilateralism. "Economic globalisation and multipolarity are irreversible," Li said at an Asian regional summit in October.
Russia will be represented by President Vladimir Putin's economic advisor and deputy chief of staff, Maxim Oreshkin, in the notable absence of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The summit also begins a day after the conclusion of COP30 in Belem, Brazil, and its final negotiations could influence discussions in Johannesburg.
November will then mark the end of a cycle of G20 presidencies by Global South countries, after Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023 and Brazil in 2024. The next country to take on the presidency is the United States.
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18/11/2025
Francesca Albanese à Paris - part II
DISUNITED NATIONS
Avant première film + débat
avec:
-Francesca Albanese, rapporteuse spéciale de l’ONU pour les Territoires palestiniens,
-Agnès Callamard, Secrétaire générale d’Amnesty International,
-et le réalisateur Christophe Cotteret.
Débat modéré par Sarra Grira, rédactrice en chef de la revue Orient XXI.
Au Proche-Orient, en reconnaissant la possibilité d’un génocide à Gaza, l'ONU est confrontée à l’une des plus violentes tourmentes politiques de son histoire.
Disunited Nations s’introduit au coeur de cette crise et de l’ONU avec notamment Francesca Albanese, rapporteuse spéciale pour les Territoires Palestiniens.
Une coproduction ARTE, RTBF, WRONG MEN, CIBLE PROD.
15/11/2025
Francesca Albanese à Paris
Francesca Albanese, rapporteuse de l'ONU sur les droits humains en territoires palestiniens occupés, à la librairie Petite Egypte à Paris, pour la présentation de son livre 'Quand le monde dort' aux éditions Mémoire d'encrier ce soir :
Francesca Albanese écoute, recueille et raconte. Elle mêle sa voix à celles des femmes, hommes et enfants qui vivent l'injustice au quotidien en Palestine : une enfant tuée à Gaza, un chirurgien marqué par l'horreur dont il a été témoin, une artiste exilée, un penseur juif brisé par l'apartheid. Toutes ces voix s'engagent à dire NON à l'horreur et à l'inacceptable. Lucide et troublant, Quand le monde dort est un acte d'amour, de courage et de vérité.
L’œuvre en couverture de l'ouvrage de Francesca Albanese est de l’artiste palestinienne Malak Mattar.
Issue d’une famille d’artistes, Malak est née à Gaza en 1999. Elle a commencé à peindre dès l’adolescence sous l’occupation et le siège militaire israéliens. Elle a obtenu une bourse en 2023 afin de poursuivre une maîtrise en beaux-arts à Londres.
Francesca Albanese a rencontré Malak alors qu’elle était toute jeune à Gaza.
Un chapitre de Quand le monde dort est dédié à cette rencontre marquante, à l’artiste, et à la lutte qu’elle mène pour sauver sa famille du génocide. L’œuvre qui s'intitule, You and I, est inspirée du poème du même titre que le poète palestinien Mourid Barghouti avait écrit à la mémoire de sa femme adorée, la grande écrivaine égyptienne Radwa Ashour.
Francesca Albanese est à Paris jusqu'à mercredi.
'Franz K'
Amazing 'Franz K' by Agnieszka Holland!
We went to the preview on Friday evening, with my friend Radka, who is now the director of the Czech cultural centre in Paris (!), her brilliant and delightful husband, David, members of the centre's team, and the Czech Ambassador to France, here:
Sortie France : 19 Novembre 2025
I studies the whole work of Kafka when I was at La Sorbonne, and wrote my dissertation about the role of the city of Prague his is first fictions and the ones of Milan Kundera.
I then become obsessed with Prague and went to live there for about six months, in the automn then back the following summer. I worked at the French Institute - where I met Radka - then with AFP.
I then become obsessed with Prague and went to live there for about six months, in the automn then back the following summer. I worked at the French Institute - where I met Radka - then with AFP.
Wonderful memories, amazing city, and unforgettable writer...
Go and see Franz K!
14/11/2025
Film Africa 2025
The cinema festival Film Africa 2025 (14–23 November 2025) opens today in London, UK. We have Stella Okuzu, interim director of the festival, with us in the podcast to explain what's happening: > Spotlight on Africa: Tanzania’s elections, film, football, and Angélique Kidjo
13/11/2025
At Festival du Cinéma Franco-Arabe de Noisy-le-Sec
Tunisian cinema takes centre at the French Arab Film Festival near Paris
Tunisia shines at this year's 'Festival du Cinéma Franco-Arabe de Noisy-le-Sec', the French Arab Film Festival, held every year in Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris, to showcase rare and expected films from North Africa and the South West Asian region. This year's edition offered documentaries, fiction and debates to an ever-growing audience. Melissa Chemam reports.
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"In this beautiful cinema, for ten days, we will discuss cinema—that is to say, imagination, experiences, and perspectives on the world," Mathilde Rouxel, head of cultural programming of the Festival du Cinéma Franco-Arabe de Noisy-le-Sec, the French Arab Film Festival, held every year in Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris, at the opening event on 7 November 2025.
"For ten days, our eyes will be riveted on images and sounds from Arab countries and diaspora communities, allowing us to dream and travel together from the comfort of our seats in this darkened room," she added.
She reminded the audience that, as headlines report inhumane massacres perpetrated by paramilitary militias against the inhabitants of El Fasher in Sudan, or on the GenZ protests in Morocco, the festival wants to offer deeper perspectives on the realities of North African and Arab countries.
Honouring Tunisian stories
For this 14th edition, from 7 to 16 November, the festival had a special focus on Tunisian films.
Rouxel told RFI that "this year we have this focus about Tunisia because they have a huge cinematic production, and it was also very interesting for us to, to move from, from the, the east to the west of the, of the region. Uh, and yeah, we wanted to have, uh, these people to talk about, like, the whole region."
Some important social and political topics are regularly covered by filmmakers, in fiction and documentary films, in countries where journalists often struggle to address them.
"Topics like exile, and the need for the youth to find a better future and for some trying to move to Europe", Rouxel added. "We have for instance this new film by Ala Eddine Slim, whom we know in France because he is used to showing his film in festivals as much as in cinemas. We present his film 'Agora', which is new. It is talking about the post-revolutionary era and the atmosphere now in Tunisia, outside of the capital especially, in the countryside of Tunis. It is, I think, a very important film."
The festival also had a short film programme, with films made outside of Tunis as well, by filmmakers who didn't study in cinema schools.
"We have three short films and the directors are here to discuss them with the audience. It's a way to give them visibility and to have different views on what's happening in the country," Rouxel added.
From Tunisia to Egypt, Sudan...
The special guest of honour this year is also the French Tunisian journalist and documentary filmmaker Hind Meddeb, who is presenting many of her films about Tunisia, but also films shot in Egypt and in Sudan during their recent revolutionary episodes.
"I'm French-Arab, like the festival," Meddeb said at the festival's opening night. "I grew up in France, so I'm culturally French, but at the same time, my mother is Algerian and Moroccan, and my father is Tunisian, so I always spent my holidays with my family in North Africa. And then my mother lived in Egypt, she lived in Syria. So I visited her and I was between these two worlds, between France and Africa, between France and the Arab world."
She explained how she was always surprised by the way the Arab world is represented in Europe and especially in Western media, compared to what I her own experience of the Arab and Muslim world
"So, I thought to myself, I'm going to make films to tell stories differently, to show a youth that we don't know here. And so all my films tell the story of young people fighting for freedom."
Her latest films, 'Sudan, Remember us', followed young Sudanese activists in Khartoum after the overthrow of the long dictatorship Omar El Beshir, in 2029, and chronicles the military crackdown that followed.
She interviewed dozens of Sudanese in Sudan for over her decades for this project but also others.
"Thousands upon thousands of people have been killed in just a few days recently in El Fasher, Darfur," Meddeb reflected, "and "he deep causes of the war are often not addressed in the media. All these films I make, I make them for the same reason this festival exists, to tell the stories in a different way."
Her other films shot in Tunisia and Egypt were also shown at the Trianon Cinema, in Romainville, and in Paris's Institut des Cultures d'Islam (ICI, or Institute of Islam's Cultures), in Paris.
...and beyond
The festival, which lasted 10 days until Sunday 16 November, also showed Palestinian films, like the awaited fiction film 'Palestine 36', directed by Annemarie Jacir, out in the UK now and to be released in France in January, and the Iraqi masterpiece 'The President's Cake', directed by Hasan Hadi, which chronicles the life of Iraqis during the US embargo of 1990-91, following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
The latter had its world premiere at the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in May 2025, where it won the section's Audience Award and the Caméra d'Or. It was also selected as the Iraqi entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, or Oscars. The award ceremony will take place in March 2026 in Los Angeles.
The festival also supports production of films in the Arab world, via strong partnerships, like one with the French Institute in Amman, Jordan.
"This year, we have at the festival a young Jordanian filmmaker, Bayan Abuta’ema, who won an award during the Amman Film Industry Days at the Amman International Film Festival for her film in development about Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan," Jessica Batshon, cultural attaché at the Institute, told the audience.
The festival showed films coming from Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well.
"We chose a film on Syria under and after Bashar, I think it's something that we need to see," Rouxel told RFI. "We chose two beautiful films coming from Egypt as well, The Settlement by Mohamed Rashad and Spring Came On Laughing, by Noha Abel, that are films that are showing contemporary Egypt in many different ways."
The Settlement addresses the precariousness of life in Alexandria through the eyes of a young man's desperate attempts at social integration. It was described as "a milestone for the Egyptian film industry" at the Berlinale earlier this year.
Finally, other films show the lives of North Africans in European diasporas.
On both weekends were also organised roundtables to give the audience and guest space to discuss what cinema can bring as "a tool for struggle and solidarity", Rouxel concluded.
Newsletter: Last post of the year
Last post of the year: Fighting for democracy and truth - via protests, films, music and more
From Tanzania to Cameroon, Venezuela and Palestine to the African diaspora in Europe, a selection of voices who are not giving up.
Hello,
this week, more content, but a shorter post…
I explain why at the end of the post.
I’ll write less often on Substack, as interactions are minimal… I hope to hear back from some of you! Please share if you like.
Many thanks.
Last post of the year: Fighting for democracy and truth - via protests, films, music and more
From Tanzania to Cameroon, Venezuela and Palestine to the African diaspora in Europe, a selection of voices who are not giving up.
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