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.
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