The Human Rights Situation in Africa
From Afro Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization (AAPSO) addressed to the 31st Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights Pretoria, South Africa, 2-16 May 2002.
The end of apartheid institutionalized in South Africa has not only augured a new era for Africa, but also gave hope that other problems afflicting the continent will find their solution even at the heart of African populations who are tired and traumatized by years of civil wars, conflicts with diverse origins and their well known consequences on their lives in general. Certainly, the remnants of this crime against humanity, namely apartheid, that appeared under different forms and in several parts of the world, still persists and henceforth hampers the fight against it. With the new dimension it has taken in Africa largely due to the changes, which occurred, in the international scene, the human rights issue imposes itself acutely.
In fact, as globalization has become a course that should be followed by all; with consequences, disparities and polarization worldwide wrought at the socio-economic level, the 11th September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington have led to the disorientation of the objective and even concept of the so-called coalition against terrorism vis-à-vis human rights issue, and terrorized to a certain extent the advocators of these rights, for example under the pretext of combating terrorism. This novelty is due to the fact that a super power has combined what it deems as terrorist using a double standards policy and launched what can qualify as the terrorization of the world, giving to green light to perpetrators for excessive abuse. It is even more alarming that Africa has not been spared from the new epidemic.
Looking back at the recent past and analyzing objectively the present situation of human rights in Africa, it is apparent that hopes for a meaningful change have been betrayed. This is not only due to civil wars, diverse conflicts, and ethnic confrontations between tribes and clans, between religious faiths. For they have reached alarming and disastrous dimensions in many regions, without counting millions of deaths that have ensued.
Moreover, slavery and all that can be related to this term, as well as a certain form of colonization exercised under the pretext of securing borders, have been cast before the African spectrum.
At the outset of the new millennium, slavery qualified as modern, commenced to spread in certain parts of the black continent. The case of domestic slavery is well known, as well as that practiced abroad whose victims are mainly African women, who have been sequestered, violated, battered, maltreated, malnourished, and underpaid in those countries where they were promised comfort, well being and other material advantages. The forms, often subtle, of this modern slavery in Africa, embraces different categories of the population, women and children are the most likely to suffer the consequences.
The threat leveled against sovereignty and territorial integrity constitutes another African reality today. The overt lust manifested internally and externally towards the immense natural resources enjoyed by Africa was the source of bloody confrontations that wrought enormous losses of human lives, disaster and destruction on development potential. The direct implication of Africans in this type of adventure indicates that selfish interests and the race towards immediate profit have undermined these countries right to development and social progress.
Working children is another scourge of our times, and characterizes to some extent daily life in Africa. It is sad to state that Africa has a world record in this regard: 41% of African children work, as compared to 21% in Asia and 17% in Latin America. In view of such proliferation in Africa, more adequate measures and appropriate means consistent with African reality should be adopted regarding the definition, exercise and consequences of working children.
Debt servitude, sexual exploitation and child prostitution as well as child trafficking practiced and organized at a large scale, constitute scourges that are of unlimited bounds. The debt question has become an eternal harassment for Africans because poverty and misery helps this debt to hold entire populations and generations hostage for many years.
Following the example of their Asian peers, African children are the victims of wars that obsess those who recruit them to serve in armies, militias, guerrillas and rebels. The fate of those child-soldiers that stand at 120,000 in Africa is simply disastrous. Separated from their families, trained under harsh conditions in order to learn how to kill, to terrorize, to be drugged, they exist under conditions in which their lives are often broken, their future compromised, even if some of them return to the fold of their own society. Arms acquisitions in Africa have sapped its resources, which could have been utilized to combat poverty. Moreover, it encourages arms proliferation that could lead to violence, even deadly violence, such as terrorist acts.
The issue of child trafficking is of great concern to us. Bearing in mind that these children are either sold or exchanged through good bargains, can be sacrificed and easy to train under dire conditions forcing them to fearlessly commit exactions of all kinds, and are obedient, child traffickers thus commit abominable crimes in breach of the most basic children's rights beginning from the elementary ones.
The failure of the international community as well as in Africa vis-à-vis growing and blatant violations of human rights poses the question of the credibility of international, regional and national organizations in addressing these rights. The resort to torture as a means to extract confession; summary executions in defiance of all equitable justice; often mysterious disappearance of detained persons; inhuman treatment of innocent or suspected persons accompanied by physical or even sexual harassment; deprivation of freedom under unspeakable conditions; discrimination with respect to race, sex, religion and ethnicity. All these are practices perpetrated in the continent, which has opted for democracy and respect for human rights. It is inadmissible that the perpetrators of such practices act with impunity and worse, in collusion with high ranking officials. The fight against terrorism is even used as a pretext to undertake actions against human rights advocators.
African reality regarding the question of human rights could also be indicated by facts often left in silence but which greatly affect the lives of populations: national high ranking officials are implicitly and explicitly accused of amassing the wealth of their countries; furthering corruption and covering up acts; circumventing UN embargoes; ignoring massacres of their own citizens; using their own social and political position to influence courts and judges; resorting to threats, blackmail to their own benefit; carrying out repressive operations and rape; inciting xenophobia, intolerance and favoritism. The list is far from being exhaustive. The least that could be said is to declare such acts as crimes against African humanity.
The role and responsibility of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights should be reinforced under all circumstances where the rights of the human being are interplayed even in situations that require international intervention. Rigorous condemnation must be applied when this is related to abhorrent, reprehensible and loathsome practices exercised against refugees from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, victims of atrocious exchanges for the humanitarian needs of inoffensive members of a respectable international organization. Such criminal acts should be the object of strict preventive measures, investigation and more vigilance.
The growing number of refugees and displaced persons in Africa due to ongoing conflicts constitute a major setback for the development, security and stability of countries. This situation has created a propitious terrain for the propagation of disease such as AIDS, which has already claimed the lives of millions in Africa, caused by prostitution as well as carriers of the virus of this pandemic.
Should Africans be solely blamed? If the present situation deteriorates in Africa from day to day regarding human rights, external factors should not be neglected. The steamroller effect of globalization continues to provoke disastrous consequences on the lives of populations. These effects have reached a dimension and scope to the extent that poverty and misery lead to the destruction of human and material potential facing the staggering riches accumulated, sometimes through corruption. Hence, globalization and terrorism aggravate the scale of the disparity caused by the polarization of the world's populations. The human rights issue arises with force because this globalization gave birth to poverty and seems to have created the right to poverty, and that Africa, the poorest continent in the world seems to be doomed to perpetual marginalization. Regarded as the commercialization of the world, and of Africa, globalization imposes its rules upon all, namely rules of the strong upon the weak.
Before all these new challenges, it is hoped that the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights that is being developed will serve as a more effective and efficient instrument for dealing with human rights violations.
In view of reaffirming its credibility on a new basis, the African Union, with its subsidiary organs, namely CADHP, African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, African Court on Human and Peoples Rights, Mechanism for Prevention, Management and Resolution of Conflicts, all must exert their efforts to improve the image of a united Africa, one that respects the rights of human beings and capable of establishing peace and stability for its own citizens torn by scourges that shame this great continent.
Make a better world.