On 19 - 20 November 2025, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria (the Centre) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) hosted a workshop for strengthening the technical capacity of CSOs/NGOs and Individual lawyers to litigate violations of children’s rights before African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC). The workshop brought together civil society organisations and lawyers from four of the African regions.
Article 44 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (the African Children’s Charter) provides that the ACERWC can receive communications from individuals, CSOs and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) regarding violations of children's rights under the Charter. Despite the mechanisms in place to protect children's rights, their use has been generally limited and narrow and only a small number of complaints have been filed. For Article 44 of the African Children’s Charter to be effective, it requires active, strategic mobilisation which entails, among other things, expanding participation beyond the small circle of existing actors toward a diverse, geographically dispersed, and thematically broad array of CSOs/NGOs and litigants. It is therefore important to establish and continuously expand a CSO/NGO network dedicated to ensuring that Article 44 of the African Children’s Charter is not just recognised, but fully operationalised, with a particular focus on mainstreaming the communications process in areas that have thus far received no attention.
This workshop capacitated various CSO’s and litigants on the ACERWC, its mandate and the communication procedure under the African Children’s Charter. Over the course of two days, the participants were trained on advancing children’s rights through litigation. In particular the participants were trained on the work of the ACERWC, specific approaches to litigation, case identification and ripeness for litigation, ethical consideration in litigating cases concerning children, child participation in litigation and follow up and implementation of ACERWC decisions. The Centre, the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa and the Centre for Reproductive Rights shared their experiences from practice and from the cases they have litigated before the ACERWC.
The workshop ended with closing remarks from the Centre and GIZ reaffirming the importance of such platforms and the Centre’s commitment to work towards the establishment of a Litigants Group for the ACERWC which will serve as a platform for experience sharing, equipping emerging litigants with tools needed for communications, supporting communications in under litigated areas such as girls’ rights, diversifying he substantive and geographic scope of communications and positioning the Litigants Group to support continuous engagement and follow-up.
For more information, please contact:
Childrens Rights Unit
Tel +27 (0)12 420 6209
rotondwa.mashige@up.ac.za