Portrait of the African Child

• A school child in my native Abia State of Nigeria standing behind a delapidated classroom building.
  

Portrait of the African Child
I had originally planned to devote the entire article painting a portrait of the African child, the way I know it. However, when I stumbled on the report of an organization called the African Child Policy Forum, released last month, I couldn’t pass it up. I’ll return to that report, later in the commentary, if only to use it as background information for my essay. For now, it is important to state that, in that report which rated 52 African countries in terms of their child-friendliness, my native Nigeria placed 22nd, despite that the country is the sixth largest exporter of crude oil in the world.
The concept of the African child should not be perceived as monolithic, but in terms of typology. This commentary will focus on the typical African child. For the purpose of analysis, the typical African child is often found in the rural areas, while the atypical African child usually resides in the urban areas. In broad terms, the socio-economic circumstance of the atypical African child is often better than that of the typical Africa child. In some cases, the African child in large metropolitan cities such as Lagos and Abuja, in Nigeria, fares as well as other kids in developed economies. Of course, there are kids in the slums within these large cities that live about the same standard of living as those in rural areas.
I grew up, in the 1960s, in a rural area in the present day Abia State of Nigeria and lived in country decades after. My kids are growing up in the United States. The contrasting circumstances are poignant. When I reflect on my days growing up in Nigeria, it’s hard to tell if anything has changed, fundamentally, for the typical Nigerian child, over the years. Poverty, for instance, which is the nemesis of the typical African child, remains a menace. For many a typical African child, the entire household lives on less that one dollar, a day. In almost every case, if a child’s parents are poor, the unaffordable school fees will ensure that the child will not enroll in school, enroll later than her peers, or attend inferior schools that are poorly staffed and funded. Poverty may mean that the child will have to drop out of school, at certain point, irrespective of her intellectual endowment. In my own case, high school was not an option for me in the early 1970s when I completed primary school. I had to work as a house boy in the nearest urban city of Aba from late 1972 to May 1973 before I managed to find my way back into the school system. House boys do all the menial jobs in the house and run the errands, while the children of their well-to-do masters go to school.
The typical African child lives in a house that is not plumbed or electrified. In that case, time that should have been spent studying at home, after school, is spent on the streets in search of water or firewood. In school, the typical African child is often seen studying in unroofed and/or dilapidated buildings, with the consequent exposure to the elements. In many cases, her school lacks the basic facilities, supplies and equipment for effective teaching and learning. In war-torn countries (and there are many in Africa) the typical African child may be seen at the battle field, rather than in school. Cases abound in which the typical African child is forced into marriage, used as cheap or unpaid labor, forced to beg on the streets, and recruited into prostitution in the urban areas. It is not uncommon to see a typical African child subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Many a typical African female child suffers from gender-based discrimination, particularly when it comes to the decision as to who should go to school. Malnutrition and disease are often the lot of the typical African child, as the rural areas, unlike many of the urban areas, lack basic healthcare facilities and infrastructure.

Glimpses from the African Report on Child Wellbeing 2008
The report from the African Child Policy Forum has some, otherwise, startling findings, such as that: “The ground-breaking report, which scores and ranks 52 African countries using an index of more than 40 indicators, finds that some of the poorest nations are the most child-friendly because they have put in place appropriate laws and policies to protect child rights and effectively target their limited resources to provide basic needs for their children. Some wealthier African nations languish at the bottom of the league for failing to protect their children against exploitation and harmful traditional practices and because their minimum ages – particularly for marriage and criminal responsibility – are too low and in some cases also discriminatory.”

Of the least child-friendly countries, the report said: “The “least child-friendly” governments are Guinea Bissau, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Gambia, Sao Tome and Principe, Liberia, Chad, Swaziland, Comoros and Guinea. Many of these countries have not ratified the relevant child rights treaties; do not have adequate legal provisions to protect children against abuse and harmful traditional practices like early marriage; do not have juvenile justice systems, do not prohibit corporal punishment and do not exert the maximum effort to provide for children’s basic needs.”

Please, note what the focus of the report is:
“The child-friendliness index shows how committed individual governments are to child wellbeing, by assessing their performance in the protection of children through laws and policies; their budget allocation and their achievement of good outcomes for children through health, education, etc.
“For the first time we can assess the behavior and performance of African governments systematically and transparently, using the child-friendly index and, by so doing, hold these governments more accountable for their children’s wellbeing. We will be able to monitor progress and failings more easily using this powerful instrument which is the first of its kind in Africa and, to our knowledge, the first of its kind anywhere. I am confident that our methodology will be adapted and used in other regions of the world,” says Dr Assefa Bequele, Executive Director of ACPF.”

Of all the indices studied, the report on child protection is worth reproducing:
“On child protection, the report finds:
• 10 out of 51 countries had not ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) as of June 2007
• A third did not have legal provisions for protection against child trafficking
• A quarter had no legislation prohibiting harmful traditional practices such as female genital cutting
• Some10 countries had a minimum age of criminal responsibility of just seven years, and 8 out of 52 countries had between 8 and 10 years (lower than the recommended minimum of 12)
• More than half of the 52 countries reviewed have not yet banned corporal punishment in schools or in the penal system.
• Less than half the governments had policies that provided for free primary education
• Twenty of the 52 countries have not set up specialized juvenile courts, so children’s cases are dealt with in adult courts.”