So, June 16th is the Day of the African Child ... What does it mean? For most African young people, the Day of the African Child does not mean a whole lot. Many will continue their daily lives -- working in fields and factories, caring for younger siblings or older relatives, begging on the streets of sprawling urban centres, fighting in armed groups and militias, tending sheep and cattle, selling their wares and services in markets and on the streets - without even knowing that June 16th is different from any other.

Those who are aware of the Day of the African Child are likely to be enrolled in some kind of formal education, or 'mobilised' for activities by NGOs, UN agencies and governments. For these young people, the Day of the African Child may be simply that - one day in which they are told something about children's rights that contrasts with the other 364 days of the year during which they are ignored or silenced. Other African young people would not consider themselves to be children. In many traditional African societies, puberty is a biological change that has social implications: after puberty, one is no longer treated as a child, although one may not have full status within social hierarchies based on age and sex.

For many civil society organisations, the Day of the African Child has become a celebration of the entry into force of the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). The ACRWC, together with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), provide a comprehensive framework for protecting and promoting children's social, economic and political rights. Many civil society organisations thus use June 16th as a day to reflect on the progress made towards the institutionalisation of child rights in law and to call for greater implementation of these legal standards.

For many African governments, June 16th provides a platform for self-aggrandizement. Government leaders often highlight the progress they have made towards upholding and implementing their international and domestic commitments towards children and make more promises about what they will do in the future. This means that the Day of the African Child ensures that children's issues are on the political agenda - for at least one day a year.

In other words, the Day of the African Child is primarily a day for adults, in various capacities and with a variety of motivations. Apart from a few tokenistic children's voices (often under the guise of 'participation'), the overwhelming chorus of speeches, television and radio appearances, and written words (including this commentary) will come from adults. The marginalisation of children's voices is particularly ironic and unfortunate since the day was initially introduced to commemorate a 1976 march by black students in Soweto, South Africa to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand the right to be taught in their own language. The Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in 1991 declared June 16th a day to remember the hundreds of students, who were gunned down, killed and wounded, during the march and subsequent protests. The fact that a day ostensibly for commemorating children's political action is dominated by adults reflects a broader marginalisation of children in the struggle for social justice.

Who cares?

Since the Day of the African Child is largely dominated by adults, why should we care about it at all? Responses to this question often refer to the importance of children as the future generations and/or pull on heartstrings by listing a litany of the ways in which children are victimised. These common refrains again reflect an adult-centric approach to children as semi-human beings: only important in terms of their future contribution to societies, or as victims in the present.

This is why the question about who cares becomes so important. The focus here is not on the 'who cares?' throw-away question in response to issues that are deemed unimportant, but rather who cares in terms of who is best placed to understand and articulate children's issues. Viewed in this way, the answer clearly appears to be: "Children, of course!" Once children are recognised as active economic and social members of families, communities and societies, it is much more difficult to justify their current political marginalisation not only from children's issues, but also from broader social justice issues. In other words, we need to refocus our attention on the reason why the Day of the African Child was initiated in the first place - to commemorate political action by African young people in their struggle against oppression.

Young people's roles in the struggle for social justice

Since the entry into force of the ACRWC and CRC, children's rights advocates across Africa and globally have worked tirelessly to introduce the language of rights around children's issues. However, while claims around children's rights are a necessary component in the struggle for social justice, they are not sufficient in and of themselves. Since social justice is broader than human rights, we need to complement the work done on promoting and protecting children's rights by recognising children as citizens and actors in building just societies. While young people have important roles to play in the struggle for social justice - as economic and social actors who directly confront such issues, and as political actors with views on their own situation - civil society organisations rarely address children's issues, concerns and opinions.

* In order to increase the priority of children's issues, Fahamu intends to develop training materials for a distance-learning course highlighting the roles of children in social justice for partner organisations in Africa. This initiative is intended to complement existing child rights courses by approaching children's issues from a different perspective. It will start from the philosophy that children are first and foremost human beings, and thus must be recognised as active members of their communities and societies. Taking social justice as the end goal, it will show how children's roles must be integral in working towards this goal because of children's often unequal positions within hierarchical power relations that tend to marginalise their views and make them more vulnerable to particular abuses. We hope that this initiative will help us to move from generating more adult-centric rhetoric on a 'Day of the African Child' to recognising and promoting young people's daily roles in the struggle for social justice in Africa.

* Christina Clark is Commonwealth Scholar, Oxford University and a volunteer with Fahamu. She is currently coordinating a consultation process on Fahamu's proposed initiative on young people in the struggle for social justice. For more information on the initiative and/or a detailed concept paper, please contact her on: [email protected].

* Please send further comments to [email protected]