A report of this nature is as much about what is available as about what is not available. There remain significant information deficiencies in the criminal justice system as it relates to children. The lack of quantitative data for critical components of the criminal justice system presents enormous problems in respect of planning and equally important, monitoring.
This report is written by Prof. Julia Sloth-Nielsen & Mr Benyam D. Mezmur for Save the Children Sweden.
The Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA) and the Child Justice Alliance, which the Children’s Rights Project co-ordinate, convened a conference entitled “Child Justice in South Africa: Children’s rights under construction”. The purpose of the conference was to take stock of the situation relating to the criminal justice system for children in conflict with the law.
This publication documents "best practice" examples pertaining to a number of child justice issues drawn from a wide variety of African countries, namely Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda including South Africa. It is a manual which is suitable for use by policy makers, non-governmental organizations and persons concerned with the implementation of child justice reforms and it highlights innovative local practices that can be replicated between African countries.
The first book dealing with the important topic of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which is a further means of securing Children's Rights in the international context and supplements the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the African regional context. This book contains ground-breaking interpretations of the Charter's provisions in the context of the Convention and the African perspective. It delivers insights into how the rights and responsibilities in the Charter can be harnessed to improve the situation and circumstances of children in Africa. More important, it points out the inadequacies of the Charter to ensure a comprehensive analysis of the provisions contained therein.
This publication is based on a report compiled by the Community Law Centre at UWC, on workshops held to give effect to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These workshops were facilitated in order to ensure child participation in the law reform process occasioned by the South African Law Commission's Review of the Child Care Act 74 of 1983. It is also informed by an evaluation report on this process compiled by Clacherty and Associates in 2001.
"Every child has the right... not to be detained except as a measure of last resort, in which case, in addition to the rights a child enjoys under sections 12 and 35, the child may be,detained only for the shortest appropriate period of time, and has a right to be ... treated in a manner, and kept in conditions, that take account of the child's age." (SA CONSTITUTION, SECTION 28)
Child Justice Alliance: A quantitative overview of children in the criminal justice system: 2007
