INERELA+ (The International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected By HIV and AIDS) participated at the 45th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) in Maseru, Lesotho. The ACERWC session took place from April 7-11, 2025, and INERELA+ which was also involved in the 26th Ordinary Session of the CSO Forum (Civil Society Organizations) which also happened in Maseru, from April 3-5, 2025, participated.
ACERWC 45th Session: This is the main session of the ACERWC, where the committee monitors and evaluates the efforts of African countries in protecting children’s rights. INERELA+ was involved in this session to advocate for children’s rights and raise awareness about issues affecting them. This demonstrates INERELA+ commitment to advocating for children’s rights and promoting gender equality.
The year 2025 marks the 35th Anniversary of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and 30 Years of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. While member states and stakeholders have made commendable progress in advancing the rights of children in Africa, the pace of progress remains disturbingly slow. Challenges faced include resource limitations, climate change-related and conflict emergencies, inadequate participation of children in planning and budgeting for programs and essential services affecting them, increasing online risks and harms, legal protection gaps and inadequacies leading to impunity and lack of sustained protection of children against harmful practices, sexual exploitation, violence, and abuse.
In view of the above challenges, INERELA+ through its Executive Director Munya Mandipaza submitted a statement as follows.
- Call for accelerated efforts to end Female Genital Mutilation
Female Genital Mutilation continues to be an urgent critical area of concern, with significantly limited prevalence data, legal protection, and support mechanisms for survivors. Sierra Leone and Kenya remain some of the few countries in the continent with high FGM prevalence which have yet to pass laws that ban the practice. While the Committee, in its urgent appeal to Sierra Leone in October 2024, expressed concerns over legislative debates calling for the removal of the anti-FGM provision in the Child Rights Bill 2024 and called on the Republic of Sierra Leone to uphold its human rights obligations; unfortunately, the Bill remains stalled in Parliament and is yet to be passed pass.
Hence, women and girls are without any legal protections from FGM in Sierra Leonne. INERELA+ called for the committee to implore Member states to defend existing laws and to enact and enforce comprehensive laws and national policies to prohibit FGM; and put in place comprehensive multi-sectoral measures in accordance with the recommendations of the ACHPR-ACERWC Joint General Comment on FGM.
- Call for Strengthened Interventions to End Child Marriage
Child Marriage remains an urgent human rights issue requiring the strengthening of political commitment, enforcement of laws, and prioritizing survivor-focused policies to end harmful practices in Africa. The urgency of the issue is demonstrated by cases such as in Zimbabwe, where Delight Masomeke a 14-year-old girl from Johanne Masowe apostolic church died after giving birth in December 2022.In 2023 a thirteen-year-old bride married to a 41-year-old man died during labour at a shrine in Chitungwiza.
Many African States are making strides towards amending their laws on child marriage in compliance with international and regional human rights obligations. For instance, the pending Marriage Bill in Uganda would set the minimum age of marriage at 18 for all persons, removing exceptions under current law for religious and customary marriages, as will a similar bill in South Africa (the Marriage Bill 2023). INERELA+ Executive Director called upon member states to swiftly pass legislative reforms to align child marriage laws with the Children’s Charter and the Maputo Protocol. We are hopeful that these two Bills are swiftly passed and adopted by the Ugandan and South African Parliaments.
- Call for Accelerated Measures to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Digital and Offline Spaces
The sexual exploitation and abuse of children in Africa are on a troubling upward trajectory, with sex trafficking becoming increasingly prevalent. This crisis is exacerbated by inequalities stemming from the climate crisis, economic decline, and ongoing conflicts. The UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (2024) highlights a rise in detected cases of trafficked children in Sub-Saharan Africa, emphasizing that many are trafficked beyond the continent primarily for sexual exploitation. In West and East Africa, boys are more frequently trafficked for forced labor, whereas girls are disproportionately trafficked for sexual exploitation.
INERELA+ urged the Committee to encourage all Member States to implement human trafficking and child protection laws fully and to ensure that designated national institutions are adequately resourced to combat this growing crisis effectively.
Simultaneously, the online sexual exploitation of children (OCSEA) is escalating across Africa, driven by increasing internet connectivity yet hindered by weak legal frameworks and limited cross-border cooperation. A 2024 report by ChildFund International and the African Child Policy Forum revealed a disturbing surge in OCSEA cases across the continent. Alarmingly, over 60% of unidentified victims were very young children, with 65% being girls.
INERELA+ commended the Committee’s General Comment No. 7 on Article 27 of the Charter, underscoring the urgent need for Member States to implement comprehensive, child-centred digital protections. Additionally, Munya Mandipaza acknowledged the efforts of many Member States in enacting national laws to combat OCSEA. In the spirit of the Charter and the recently adopted UN Global Digital Compact, she urged the Committee to call upon governments to ensure the effective implementation of these laws and other protective measures. This includes strengthening accountability mechanisms for technology platforms and companies to safeguard children’s rights in digital spaces effectively.
- Call for Strengthening Legal Protection Mechanisms to Protect Children from Sexual Violence
The UNICEF 2024 Report reveals that more than 79 million girls and women (over 1 in 5) across sub-Saharan Africa have experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18. When online or verbal abuse is included, the number of girls and women affected rises to 650 million globally (1 in 5), underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive prevention and support strategies to address all forms of violence and abuse against girls effectively. According to the same report, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of child victims of sexual violence globally. In Conflict settings with weak institutions girls face an even greater risk, with the prevalence of rape and sexual assault in childhood slightly more than 1 in 4. INERELA+ experience is that key gaps in laws in African countries result in routine denial of justice to survivors of sexual violence including children. The gaps include laws that allow the perpetrator to walk free after reaching some form of “settlement,” including marrying the victim; laws framed in terms of morality rather than bodily integrity, thereby perpetuating a cycle of violence and discrimination; laws that explicitly permit rape in marriage, even of children; laws permitting judicial discretion to reduce charges or define evidence based on a stereotyped assessment of the complainant’s behaviour; laws that fail to recognize true consent is impossible in situations of dependency or extreme vulnerability; laws or practices inhibiting investigation or prosecution of sexual assault; and laws requiring witness corroboration and other overly burdensome evidence. Munya urged the Committee to encourage all Member States to:
- Repeal discriminatory laws, address gaps in legal definitions of rape, and failures in implementation that deny survivors access to justice. Strengthening laws and regulations to protect children from all forms of sexual violence, and invest in the people, resources, and systems needed to implement them.
- Create public awareness on sexual violence as a human rights issue to challenge and change social and cultural norms that allow sexual violence to occur and discourage children from seeking help.
- Equip every child with accurate, accessible, and age-appropriate information that empowers them to recognize and report sexual violence.
- Ensure that every child victim and survivor has access to services that support justice and healing and reduce the risk of further harm.
- Build better national data systems to monitor progress and ensure accountability for perpetrators of sexual violence.
INERELA+ therefore urged the ACERWC committee to recommend for member states to:
- Develop, adopt, and enforce re-entry to school policies in line with the human rights standards on access to education, and also guided by the recommendations and general comments of the ACERWC to enable girls to return to school in the event of pregnancy.
- Improve budgetary allocations and planning for the education sector with a key focus on adequate support systems and services for vulnerable children, such as children from poor economic backgrounds, children with disabilities, pregnant schoolgirls, and child mothers. This would be in line with the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child on education being accessible and affordable
- Provide comprehensive sexuality education and SRH information and services to address the problem of teenage pregnancy in Africa. This should be part of the curriculum and should be disseminated in both school and non-school settings so that the lack of information is mitigated.4 This education should be age-appropriate and child-sensitive information about the dangers of teenage pregnancy.
- Further accessibility by pregnant teenagers and young mothers to emergency contraception and quality maternal health care and psychosocial support is important.
INERELA+ remains committed to supporting the Committee in contributing to initiatives and efforts to implement The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) to promote and protect children’s rights in Africa.