notes on the role of cs os in child rights monitoring january 2008

Notes on the Role of CSOs in Child Rights Monitoring

Notes on the Role of CSOs in Child Rights Monitoring, January 2008

1 Introduction

The role of CSOs in child rights monitoring has drawn upon a number of sources. These include the recommendations of the CRC Committee in its consideration of official and supplementary reports submitted by the Ethiopian government and CSOs, the various reports issued by government and non-government child rights actors in Ethiopia, and the organizational experience of CSOs/NGOs in designing and implementing child rights interventions. The lessons drawn from these sources justify the role of CSOs/NGOs on general grounds as well as a number of specific grounds including: lack of comprehensive information on the situation of children, the need to follow up on progress in implementing the recommendations of the CRC Committee, and follow up on the implementation of the legal and policy framework on child rights.

2 Overall Rationale

Child rights violation is among the major challenges of democracy, human rights and development in Ethiopia. Children are subjected to different types of abuses perpetrated by individuals, groups and even by law enforcing organs. Despite the ratification of the UN CRC, children can be beaten, detained by the police, sexually harassed by their guardians and subjected to harmful traditional practices. Sometimes violations target special groups like street children, minority group children etc. Their types are also diverse and the number of children that are affected each year is significant. For example, a research undertaken by Save the Children Sweden in Ethiopia indicated that more than 90 percent of students were punished by their teachers.1 Regarding sexual violence, of the 485 young women questioned in one survey, 332 said that they had been sexually abused in one form or another when they were a child.2 Apart from these concrete figures the majority of child rights violations are undocumented and unaccounted for, like the treatment of children arrested during the post election violence following the May 2005 National Elections.

Regardless of some progresses in protecting the rights of children, there are huge gaps between the policies of the government and actual realities on the ground. Understandably, it cannot be possible for a country such as Ethiopia to attend to all social problems with the limited resource. The point is, however, the country could have done better to protect the rights of children even with the current resource it has at hand. Children could have been more protected from violence, the rights of such marginalized groups as street children and orphan and vulnerable children to

1 Save the Children Sweden: Ending Legalized Violence Against Children, All Africa Special Report – a contribution to the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children, PP 24,

2 African Child Policy Forum: Violence against Girls in Africa: A Retrospective Survey in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, PP.55, 2006.

Ghetnet Metiku WoldegiorgisSocio-Legal ResearcherE-mail: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


basic education could have been better fulfilled if the education policy took the issue of diversity within children. The rights of children would have been of high priority for the parliament and the media.

The challenges in respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of children in Ethiopia are complex. They can be related to rampant poverty, cultural and attitudinal factors and institutional limitation and etc. Still, lack of transparency and above all accountability (which are crucial elements of good governance) are also among the important factors that need to be addressed. For example, there is no mechanism to monitor whether the expressed commitments of the government, such as the National Plan of Action for Children, are implemented or to put relevant government ministries into account if they failed to implement their plans. Even more, no body is there to question why prison administrations put children in adult cells, though the law of the land clearly states otherwise. With the exception of education and health, other sectors relevant to children are less visible in the discussion agenda of the Ethiopian Parliament, which means the accountability mechanism related to such issues as children and the law, vulnerable groups such as street children, orphans etc is weak.

Until now the government’s report on the implementation of the UN CRC is the only formal mechanism to check whether the State has carried out its obligations as a duty bearer towards the rights of children. This mechanism can be more forceful only if complementary child rights monitoring system with wide scope and broad constituency is put in place. This has to be a home-grown mechanism that adequately appreciates the challenges in the child’s sector and human rights in Ethiopia. As one can see from previous experiences the gaps in child rights monitoring can be summarized in the following points:

Lack of child rights monitoring system, which is relevant to the specific situations of Ethiopia, that involves wider groups relevant to the rights of children;

Absence of strong human rights and child rights institutions, which can be instruments to make child rights among the priority agendas of the country; and

Lack of regular fora for open and constructive dialogue about the rights of children in the country among different actors

Producing periodic child rights reports, though important by its own right, should not be considered the end result of child rights monitoring. Rather the report should be taken as one of the outputs of such system which includes constructive dialogue, capacity development of duty bearers to use the recommendations to improve the status of children and creating more space for children to participate in the monitoring process as active citizens. It is safe to conclude that these are largely lacking in Ethiopia.

Similar to many countries, which entered into democratic processes, the Ethiopian government has established national human rights institutions, namely the




Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the Ombudsman, which have promoting human rights as their major agenda. At present these organizations are not strong to meaningfully contribute towards protecting the rights of citizens in general and that of children in particular. For example, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission Strategic Plan 2006 – 2011 makes it clear that capacity limitation in diverse areas including identification of key roles and responsibilities, staffing, development of operational guidelines, complaint handling procedures etc are major strategic issues that need to be addressed so as to make the Commission an effective organ for promoting human rights.3 This also holds true for the Ombudsman. In such institutional limitations, it is difficult for these human rights organizations to monitor the rights of children. Hence, an initiative that aims at establishing child rights monitoring has to accord due importance to the roles that these organs can play and to develop their capacities at the same time.

One of the challenges in promoting the rights of children in Ethiopia has been weak civil society sector whose orientation is largely towards delivering service. Rights monitoring is a new area for many of the organizations in the sector and this gap deserves proper attention if child rights monitoring has to be broad based. Building the capacity of civil society organizations is more than important because this is one of the core actors in the child sector. The diversity of the thematic areas that civil society organizations are engaged in, considering their closeness to grassroots issues, their relatively better position to mobilize resources and above all their comparative pioneering role in human rights promotion make the sector the necessary partner in child rights monitoring system. Amidst these potentials, however there are also areas that need to be improved, such as in experience in promoting rights, weak constituency in the same, lack of concerted and on-going programmes in monitoring the rights of children.

Unlike the UN CRC monitoring mechanism and other human rights monitoring works (like those carried out by Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch), child rights monitoring in Ethiopia require fora, where constructive dialogue can take place among different actors. This is important for the specific situation of Ethiopia because the existing relation between government and non-government organizations is not solidly built on trust and partnership. Unless there are mechanisms where all actors come together and engage in constructive dialogue, and if this does not lead to nurturing trust, any human rights monitoring report, child rights monitoring included, can result in unnecessary tensions that do not benefit children. Such dialogue fora are not there yet in Ethiopia; and they have to be created and strengthened.

Child rights monitoring should be a multi-stakeholder initiative where the accountability of different actors are identified in the recommendation parts of annual reports. This means there has to be an effective follow-up system to see whether different actors have taken appropriate measures based on the recommendations and even to share the challenges they encounter in due process. This is because the purpose of the monitoring exercise is to take action to improve

3 Ethiopian Human Rights Commission: Ethiopian Human Rights Commission Strategic Plan 2006 – 2011, Addis Ababa, 2006 PP.48.




child rights situation in the country. The engagement of CSOs/NGOs in child rights monitoring aims at creating a strong child rights monitoring mechanism that ensures the accountability of different duty bearers, supports organizations and guardians to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of children as per the UN CRC and the African Charter for the Rights and Welfare of Children.

3 The Lack of Comprehensive Information on the Situation of Children

As noted above, the Ethiopian government has submitted a series of reports on the implementation of the UN CRC to the convention monitoring body. In its examination of these reports, the Committee has consistently expressed concern over the lack of sufficient information on the situation of children in Ethiopia. For instance, during its examination of the 2006 state party report by Ethiopia the Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed deep concern over the lack of information in the State party report on the extent of the problem and the number of children affected by child prostitution, traffic in children, exploitation of children by engaging them in prostitution as well as sexual abuse in its different forms. 4

These concerns are also shared by the government as indicated in its periodic reports. In its second five year report, the government noted the absence of systematic data gathering and monitoring mechanism to indicate even crude estimate of the incidence of harmful traditional practices.5 In addition, limited efforts in gathering relevant and comprehensive information were among the problems identified in the background assessments leading to the development of the existing National Action Plans.6 Similarly, non-government actors have lamented the lack of comprehensive and up to date data on the situation of children in Ethiopia.7

The engagement of CSOs thus seeks to contribute towards addressing this information gap by making available comprehensive and up to date information on the situation of Ethiopian children. Moreover, the experience of CSOs/NGOs similarly indicates that accountability mechanisms to monitor the behaviours and actions of different stakeholders in the child’s sector are absent in Ethiopia. Therefore, an ongoing monitoring activity on accountability towards child rights could also be instrumental in encouraging duty bearers carry out their responsibilities as per international human rights standards.

4 Follow up on Implementation of CRC Committee Recommendations

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has in its examination of periodic reports submitted by the government of Ethiopia identified a broad category of measures that need to be adopted in implementing the Convention. These generally relate to developing a comprehensive strategy, the ratification of the Optional Protocols to 4 Ethiopia, the Second Five Year Country Report on the Implementation of the UN

Convention on the Rights of the Child, April 2005 5 The Second Five Year Country Report on the Implementation of the UN Convention

on the Rights of the Child, April 2005 , p.33 6 MoLSA, National Action Plan on Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children, Addis

Ababa, Ethiopia, December 2005, p.167 FSCE,2003




the UNCRC, coordination of implementation of children’s rights, monitoring the implementation of the Convention, making children visible in budgets, training and capacity-building, cooperation with civil society, international cooperation, independent human rights institutions, making the convention known to adults and children, and making reports under the convention widely available. In connection with the most recent government report, the Committee recommended measures to be taken in addressing sexual exploitation and abuse of children especially girls, the right to survival of orphaned and vulnerable children is at risk, child labor, and corporal punishment in schools, families and care institutions.8

The implementation of these recommendations is an ongoing process involving a number of specific measures across sectors and levels of engagement. Current processes initiated by the government of Ethiopia based on its commitment to child rights and in response to the recommendations of the Committee include legislative, policy, administrative and practical processes. These include:

The adoption of the two optional protocols to the CRC, the Protocol to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption;9

Consideration of the UN CRC and the ACRWC in the continued review of the overall legislative framework including on birth registration and protection of vulnerable groups of children;

The development of policy documents on child labor and a number of other specific child rights issues; and

Implementation of child rights awareness creation, capacity building and coordination efforts at federal, regional and other lower levels.

The initiation of these and other efforts clearly show that the Ethiopian government is indeed committed towards the realization of child rights. Yet, one of the major problems in the implementation of child rights in Ethiopia has been and still is the weak reporting system especially at the lower levels. As indicated in the various official and independent reports, the child rights administration system is facing serious challenges related to budgetary, administrative, structural, autonomic and other issues.10 The shortcomings of the National CRC Committee structure have also been identified in detail in a recent independent study.11

8 Committee on the Rights of the Child, 26th Session (2001) “Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Ethiopia”, 2RCO, Add.144, paras. 338 and 39

9 NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, State Party Examination of Ethiopia's Third Periodic Report, Session 43 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

10 MoLSA, Ethiopia’s National Action Plan for Children (2003 – 2010 and beyond), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 2004, p. 43

11 Mekdes G.Tensay and Tsegaye Kasasa, Actual Status, Functioning and Capacity of the National CRC Committee in Implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Ethiopia: An Assessment Report, Submitted to the Italian Cooperation




In this context, the reports submitted by the government within the CRC monitoring framework as well as other processes may for the most part be considered a matter of formality. As such, it would be difficult for the Ethiopian government to measure its own progress and for the CRC Committee to follow up on the implementation of its recommendations through a report submitted every five years. The proposed engagement of CSOs aims at addressing this difficulty through a continuous monitoring process.

Program Support of Children and Adolescents in Vulnerable Circumstances, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 2006, p. 33



notes on the role of cs os in child rights monitoring january 2008

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