African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child

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The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1990.

The Charter defines a "child" as a human being below the age of 18 years. It recognises the child's unique and privileged place in African society and that African children need protection and special care. It also acknowledges that children are entitled to the enjoyment of freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, thought, religion, and conscience. It aims to protect the private life of the child and safeguard the child against all forms of economic exploitation and against work that is hazardous, interferes with the child's education, or compromises his or her health or physical, social, mental, spiritual, and moral development. It calls for protection against abuse and bad treatment, negative social and cultural practices, all forms of exploitation or sexual abuse, including commercial sexual exploitation, and illegal drug use. It aims to prevent the sale and trafficking of children, kidnapping, and begging of children.

It calls for the creation of an African expert committee on the rights and well-being of the child. Its mission is to promote and protect the rights established by the Charter, to practice applying these rights, and to interpret the disposition of the Charter as required of party states, OAU institutions, or all other institutions recognized by OAU or by a member state.

In many respects its provisions are modelled on the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It provides for the protection of children against harmful and potentially exploitative cultural practices with an emphasis on "customs and practices prejudicial to the health or life of the child and those customs and practices discriminatory to the child on the grounds of sex and others status" (Article 21.1). This could address the situations in which what elsewhere would be seen as the abuse of children are justified on the basis of "culture". The Convention also obliges States to establish 18 as the minimum age for marriage and to make registration of all marriages compulsory, and thus aims to combat early marriage and forced child marriage.