Gender activists have condemned Tanzania's First Lady, Mrs Salma Kikwete, for supporting the Swazi cultural ritual, umhlanga (reed dance). "The reed dance encourages girls to abstain from sex because they know if they are not virgins they will not be allowed to participate. This prevents them from contracting HIV/Aids," said Mrs Kikwete in her address to an audience in Mbabane.

A Finance Ministry report on the alleged looting of the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company has been pulled out of circulation, government sources said, thickening the plot in the "Steelgate" scandal that some say is the biggest since independence. Sources in the Finance Ministry said President Robert Mugabe's office had recalled the report from the handful of officials who had received copies, apparently to keep it from being leaked.

This policy brief provides a snapshot of the international subsector through an analysis of trends in size, resources, and scope from FY 2001 to FY 2003 in three major areas of operation: international development and relief assistance, international understanding (e.g., educational exchanges), and international affairs.

The Equator Prize recognises five community-based projects that demonstrate extraordinary achievement in reducing poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the equatorial belt. Prize winners receive international recognition for their work and an opportunity to help shape international policy and practice in the field, as well as a monetary award of US$30,000 each.

The GBV Coordinators in Africa and Asia will be responsible for managing and implementing grant-funded GBV projects and for integrating GBV into CCF's overall program strategy. The GBV Coordinator must have experience, comfort, and confidence working with children and adults in emergency and post-conflict situations. The GBV Coordinator must be able to work closely with other CCF Program Coordinators.

Under the guidance and supervision of the UNFPA Country Representative, the HIV/AIDS programme specialist will work with the UNFPA team, national counterparts, UN system agencies, multi and bilateral development agencies, civil society and communities to contribute to the development and implementation of national HIV/AIDS-related plans, policies and programmes within UNFPA's priority areas of work.

A school in Katima Mulilo made headlines recently by suspending 19 pregnant girls from grades 8 to 12, together with a boy who had apparently impregnated five of them. Thus, while the Namibian government and NGOs have made efforts to combat the high number of adolescent pregnancies and HIV infections, these problems stubbornly remain.

Kewe Thiam is the exception to the rule that most Senegalese girls don’t make it to high school. Sitting with a group of her peers, Thiam’s is the only female hand that shoots up, along with those of a dozen boys, when asked who among them goes to school. “The girls here want to go to school, but their parents don’t have the means. They can’t afford the inscription fees or the supplies,” says Thiam, 20, speaking for the girls around her who haven’t had the opportunity to learn French, the language of instruction in Senegal.

Four former Kenyan ministers should be prosecuted for their part in one of the country's biggest corruption scandals involving about $300-million, Kenya's anti-graft body said on Monday (October 2). It did not name names in the statement, which was issued amid mounting political pressure over the slow pace of investigations into the so-called Anglo Leasing affair, which involved state tenders awarded to fictitious firms.

On 4 October 2006, Reporters Without Borders published the full report of the fact-finding visit it made to Libya from 13 to 17 September. It was first time the press freedom organisation has been able to go to Libya in 20 years. This in itself is one of the signs of the changes taking place under the "Brother Leader," Muammar Gaddafi.

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This summary report provides an outline of the main issues and trends in agricultural extension, as they relate to ICTs, with a special emphasis on improving rural livelihoods. The report draws on the presentations, case studies and discussions from the CTA Observatory.

Cellphone operator MTN had not yet been able to meet its obligations to give away 2,5-million SIM cards and 125000 handsets to poor people, or to roll out internet access to 8000 schools, the company said recently. The social upliftment obligations were imposed as licence conditions when the cellular networks were awarded the 1800MHz spectrum and the high-speed third generation (3G) spectrum to boost their coverage.

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It might be useful for people in Sierra Leone to contact the Mozambicans. See

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The Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) was started in 2000 with a mission of achieving greater economic and social justice in local communities and worldwide by providing advanced educational opportunities to talented individuals from marginalized and excluded social groups who have historically lacked access to higher education.

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The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and Survival International today called on the UN General Assembly to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, at its current session in New York. Representatives of indigenous peoples across the world, Survival and many other NGOs, lobbied over the past two decades for the text of the Declaration to be finalized.

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It has been described as the silent killer, North America's epidemic, affecting all who fall in the path of its sometimes lethal sword. It wreaks havoc with our immune systems, causes coronary heart disease, gastrointestinal problems, hastening cancers and psychological illnesses. Statistics show more women fall victim to this modern-day scourge known as stress than do men. But North American black women face an even bleaker picture.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has called for EU nations to adopt a common, tough standard in dealing with illegal immigration. "We can't all continue to have our own immigration policies," Mr Sarkozy said, ahead of talks in Madrid with EU members from southern Europe. Mr Sarkozy has accused Spain of causing a surge in illegal immigration by offering migrants an amnesty.

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At the moment most countries strive hard to maintain professional qualifications that are recognised in rich countries or provide a relatively easy stepping-stone to achieving registration there. Though there is much waffle about "maintaining standards", the real reason is so that the professionals who determine these qualifications (or their children) can readily leave Africa to work in rich countries. The training of doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and other health workers should instead be focusing on African health needs, which differ greatly from those of rich countries. If African health qualifications didn't make it easy to get registered in the UK, Canada or the US, then much of the brain drain would stop.

During May-July 2005, an estimated 700,000 people lost their homes, their livelihoods, or both when the Zimbabwe government forcibly evicted them and demolished their homes and businesses as part of Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Rubbish). Visit this Amnesty International webpage to read more about the situation and to take action and demand justice.

Squatting in a maximum security prison cell in Kenya in the 1970’s, Kenyan essayist, activist, scholar and teacher Ngugi wa Thiong’o [pronounced Goo-gi-wa-Tion-go] penned his very first novel on toilet paper.

It was written in Gikuyu, a language he grew up seeing, tasting, feeling, and owning in the hills and valleys of his homeland. Standing no more than 5-foot-5, with graying wisps of hair at the crown of his head, Ngugi is a giant among giants. His frame doesn’t do justice to his larger-than-life iconic persona.

He is the African world’s gift to language legitimacy, and he’s not backing down on his insistence that African languages hold the same importance as European languages on the continent of Africa and beyond.

“African languages refused to die,” said Ngugi two decades ago in his seminal volume of essays entitled “Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature.” He was defying the often unspoken sentiment that African languages are secondary, and therefore on the verge of annihilation.

During his whirlwind trip to Washington, D.C. last week—which included an exclusive interview with The Informer—Ngugi was adamant about why African languages should take center stage.

At a lecture sponsored by Howard University’s African Studies Department, Karibu Books, and TransAfrica Forum last Thursday, he said that Europe’s colonization of Africa was fueled by its attempt to “shred our base, while they secured theirs.” The apparent destruction of African languages and naming systems was the means of destabilizing the continent, said Ngugi. It has far-reaching implications even today.

Ngugi believes that when published materials from the continent are written in European languages, “you place it within a linguistic prison” in which the texts are not accessible to the people who matter most—Africans themselves.

To say that Ngugi’s insistence is revolutionary would be an understatement.

With the exception of Ethiopia, whose official language is Amharic, the official languages of most African countries are the vestiges of colonial rule—Portuguese in the former Portuguese colonies, French in the former French colonies, and English in the former English colonies.

Although some countries have attempted to reconcile this disparity by adopting African languages as national languages—Senegal has Wolof and Kenya has Swahili—European languages still seem to carry more influence. Ngugi insists that officially evoking European languages perpetuates a system of dependency already evident in the manner in which Africa engages with the West.

He is the only continental author to write exclusively in an African language, forcing publishing houses to figure out the logistics of translation. And they have. Ngugi’s books have been translated in over 30 other languages. “What Gikuyu can do, any other African language can do,” said Ngugi, inadvertently encouraging other African writers to follow his lead.

His belief is that texts should be written in the language in which they are conceived, developed, and rendered. European languages, he said, should be additions and not substitutes to the already large body of African linguistic diversity.

In 1969, Ngugi and other professors at the University of Nairobi in Kenya questioned the primacy of the English language and even called for a shut-down of the English Literature Department in favor of positioning Black Literature—and by extension African languages—at the center of intellectual thought.

Thus began his activism on behalf of the struggles of Kenyans, and his increased ostracism from the political machinery. Thirty years ago, he openly criticized African authoritarian rule and economic dependency on Europe and his reward was exile.

Even today, the writer makes a point to step away from the language issue to scrutinize what he feels is of paramount concern to the continent of Africa—engaging with the West on equal footing. Ngugi believes that the West positioned itself as a giver and Africa as a beggar. “We must reject that conclusion altogether…The real crime is to refuse to stand up, the real aesthetic of resistance is to stand up, rise, and rise again.”

He says that Africa should not be a beggar considering its vast economic resources. “People are respected because of their strengths, not because of their weaknesses…We [Africans] have got to put our house in order before we can expect anyone to take us seriously.” This can be done through intra-continental travel, trade, and communication. “There has to be a greater, freer movement of goods, services, and people across our borders,” Ngugi stated.

Ngugi tested this notion in 2004 when he returned home after decades in exile. A distinguished professor of English and Comparative Literature and director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California at Irvine, Ngugi and his wife, Njeeri, went back to Kenya amidst a welcome fit for a prodigal son.

“We are determined that we are not hounded by those who were so keen on keeping us out in the first place,” said Ngugi, alluding to the genesis of his forced migration from a homeland so prominent in the texts he weaves eloquently.

Reflecting on the African Union’s proposed adoption of Swahili as its official language, Ngugi said that it was a step in the right direction, but he drew a cautionary line. “We shouldn’t go from English mono-lingualism to African mono-lingualism.” In other words, adopting Swahili should not negate the legitimacy of other African languages.

Eschewing political correctness, Ngugi is an advocate of Ebonics, which, he believes, is evidence of African languages holding ground in the U.S.

In the tradition of James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison, and others, Ngugi says that African Americans were able to maintain cultural traditions in language formulation. To even begin to understand African American English (Ebonics), he argues, one must first study its roots.

Those roots are planted firmly on African soil.

While it has become common to observe a wry smirk on the faces of those who deride Ebonics as “bad” or “deviant” English, it is exactly here they stumble, failing to realize the power dynamics that lie beneath the debate. It is precisely here that Ngugi has contributed the most insightful observations.

The relationship between power and language has undoubtedly been his strongest area of research. He stated emphatically, “As long as people persist in interpreting themselves through linguistic vehicles that are external to themselves, they are continuing in that ‘oppressive’ pattern.” To choose a language, he declares, is to choose a world.

This analysis also sheds light on how African Americans sought to own the English language. While they may have been forced to adopt the words of the English-speaking community, total acquiescence was impossible. They would borrow words, package their delivery defiantly in their own cadences and intonations, and completely transform the meanings of some, such as “cool.”

Ngugi sees this as a natural act of resistance by a human community. “The struggle of African people in the ‘New World’,” he said, “takes the form of creating new languages. [Their] conditions of life also mean a struggle to construct the world in their own terms.”

Indeed, Ebonics has played a strong role in American culture. While mainstream America has shunned incorporating it into the academy, they’ve embraced it culturally as evidenced in its boasted cultural forums like hip-hop. “Hip-hop,” Ngugi said to The Informer, “is a lyrical based extension of Ebonics.”

And the buck doesn’t stop there. “Ebonics has [also] had a major impact on the language of power [English],” he reminds us. According to Ngugi, American literary icons such as William Faulkner and Mark Twain generously used Ebonics in their texts. America’s denial of its impact and influence perhaps led Toni Morrison to charge it with “playing in the dark.”

Though a strong proponent of the new language African Americans created, Ngugi cautioned against embracing it exclusively. “Do not abandon Ebonics, but definitely learn the language of power,” he instructed. In a rapidly globalizing world, one must necessarily be multilingual.

Ngugi looks forward to a world in which the communication between African Americans and Africans are conducted directly, not through the medium of European languages.

He was pleasantly surprised to visit a community school in Michigan in which African Americans were speaking Ki-Swahili fluently with the same mannerisms of native Kenyans. “Black Americans should be learning African languages,” he stated resolutely in an interview with The Informer. “An African language of their choice would do more to integrate Diaspora Africans than anything else.”

A Ghanaian based in South Africa, Kwesi Kwaa Prah echoes this sentiment: "We need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that Africa is a Tower of Babel in which thousands of languages are spoken. The implication of the idea of Africa as a Tower of Babel is that there are too many languages for Africans to be able to work in their language, therefore they must work in colonial languages.”

Like Ngugi, Prah is an African languages enthusiast. He currently serves as director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) based in Cape Town, South Africa. According to Prah, the “Tower of Babel” myth preserves “the cultural and linguistic hegemony of colonially introduced languages in Africa.” The work Prah and his colleagues are doing at CASAS demystifies the notion that African languages are too innumerable to catalogue, study, and appreciate.

He lauds Ngugi for being a pioneer in the deconstruction of European language supremacy on the continent and within the Diaspora.

Referring to his latest novel, “Wizard of the Crow,” Ngugi firmly believes that it will find a home in the consciousness of Black people because “they will find my books illuminate their experiences today.”

In “Wizard,” Aburiria is a fictional nation and it becomes a dystopia representing the all-too-real problems that many contemporary African nations faced in their post-independence societies. Ngugi said “post independent states have been headed by the wrong heads.”

“Wizard” is also about love and the struggle between the material and spiritual as well. It illuminates the lives of average Africans attempting to control their destinies in the midst of dictatorships and neo-colonial deprivation. “The colonial experience is part of the experience of the modern world…It’s not a matter of sentiment, it’s historical fact,” said Ngugi, who believes that “Economic modernity is founded on what was taken from Africa” in the form of natural resources such as gold, timber, rubber, coltan, and cobalt.

Ngugi said in jest that “Wizard” has all the answers to the world’s existential questions. Perhaps it has hidden in its lyricism the answers to the African world’s most potent dilemmas. For example, one of the characters in “Wizard” is on a perpetual search around the world for the source of Black people’s power, and he finds eventually that it’s in unity. This is the key to moving forward for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic, asserted Ngugi.

“We have been strongest in our heightened unity and weakest in our heightened disunity,” he told The Informer.

Ngugi has a keen interest in consolidating the economic and political resources of “the two halves of Africa.” He says this can be achieved through African leaders extending dual citizenship to Africans of the Diaspora. “You want to create bridges to the continent of Africa for Diaspora Africans to invest and visit” without impediments. The first major tourist destination for African Americans should be the continent of Africa, said Ngugi.

A special bond links Africans and African Americans, and though it has been frayed and stretched, hacked at, and even denied by some, it persists.

Responding to a question by The Informer concerning African/African American solidarity, Ngugi answered with the quiet detachment of an elder who has witnessed that bond strengthened through the efforts and labor of many, least of all, himself. “We’ve got a lot to learn from each other,” he said emphatically.

* This article first appeared in The Washington Informer and is reproduced here with permission. The Informer's editorial for on the subject "Kudos to an African Icon" can be read at http://www.washingtoninformer.com/opinionseditorials.html Robtel Neajai Pailey is the Washington Informer Assistant Editor, and Melvin Kadiri Barrolle is the Washington Informer Contributing Writer.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Like many other countries, Ghana, has taken the necessary steps to protect children from abuse and exploitation by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 5th February 1990, just three months after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. In spite of this, the reality of children’s lives remains in stark opposition to the picture the legislation sought to draw. Afua Twum-Danso argues that Ghana must go a step further and adopt measures to protect children from abuse through advocacy, community action and awareness of children’s rights.

Ghanaians are fond of joking that their government is always one of the first, if not the first, to ratify international conventions, protocols and agreements. Therefore, they merely raise an eyebrow at the fact that the Government of Ghana was the first State Party to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 5th February 1990, just three months after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. To comply with this, the government reviewed its policies and domestic legislation quite rapidly compared with many other African countries.

The Children’s Act: In Focus

The Children’s Act led many to hope that there would be a turning point in the progress of children’s rights and welfare in the country. Yet, the yawning gap between policy and actions on the ground continues to widen. The Act, in and of itself, is a good comprehensive piece of legislation – one that, ironically, some countries look to as a best practice. Its provisions cover the protection of all children below the age of 18 in all aspects of their life.

The first part of the Act outlines the basic rights of the child, which are all in accordance with the CRC principles. These include the right to grow up with parents (unless it is not in the best interests of the child), the duties and responsibilities of parents towards a child, the right to parental property, the right to education and well being, right to social activity, right to be able to express an opinion and participate in decisions affecting his/her well-being and the right to protection from exploitative labour and torture.

Any contravention of this part of the Children’s Act is liable to a fine of not more than 5 million cedis or a term of imprisonment not beyond one year or both. Included in the second part of this section is the definition of what is meant by a child ‘in need of care and protection’, which covers children who are orphans, neglected or ill-treated, destitute, under the care of parents or guardians who are unfit to take care of the child or who is wandering and has no home and no visible means of subsistence. The second part outlines measures for the establishment and operations of Child Panels and Family Tribunals. The third part focuses on issues relating to parentage, custody, access and maintenance. The fourth part deals with adoption, and interestingly, fosterage, which for the first time is regulated. The fifth part provides some guidelines concerning child labour and apprenticeships.

The Children’s Act Viz A Viz Children’s Lives: A Stark Contrast

Despite the comprehensive nature of the Act, the reality of children’s lives eight years after its passage remains in stark opposition to the picture the legislation sought to draw. Highlighted below are a few examples of the situation of children viz à viz certain provisions of the Act.

- Although the Act stipulates that the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) is to be responsible for children ‘in need of care and protection’, thousands of children who are neglected, ill-treated, abandoned, orphaned and resort to begging on the streets remain outside the reach of DSW, mainly because people – be it children or adults – are still not reporting cases sufficiently and DSW does not have the resources or capacity to go in search of cases. Although in some cases, people rely on the extended family support system to look after such children, many people do not know to whom they must report cases. As a social worker based in one of the local DSW offices in Accra told me, ‘many people go to WAJU to report cases and then have to be referred back to us’.

- The Act clearly states that every child has ‘the right to education and well-being’. The introduction of the FCUBE (Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education) in 2005 illustrates the efforts of the government to enforce this aspect of the Act. However, many parents and children still do not know about the FCUBE and those who do, complain because they still need to provide for textbooks, shoes, uniforms, exam and printing fees etc, which costs more than the 30,000-cedi school fees that the government has taken upon itself to pay. Although substantial numbers of parents appreciate that they cannot expect the government to provide everything, they still maintain that this new deal leaves them bearing the greater weight of the financial costs of schooling, something which many cannot afford. Thus, for the poorest of the poor, the provisions of the FCUBE are not enough, meaning that a large proportion of children remain out of school and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

- The Children’s Act further stipulates that every parent has rights and responsibilities whether imposed by law or otherwise towards his child, which includes the duty to protect the child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse and exposure to physical and moral hazards and oppression. Although it is the belief of this writer that most Ghanaian parents want the best for their children and strive to obtain this – albeit sometimes in misguided ways – incidences of parental neglect are increasing. In interviews with over 200 children in Accra, one thing that they pointed to over and over again was the need for parents to show love to their children and pay them attention. In children’s minds, once a child has parental love and attention all else will follow, including food, shelter, medical attention, clothes and education.

The sexual abuse of children also seems to be increasing in our society – or maybe is the real increase is in reported cases of sexual abuse. In early February 2006 a 7-year-old girl in the Ashanti region of Ghana was raped? by her grandfather, a man in his late 60s, and later tested HIV positive. Approximately a week later the media reported that a 4-year-old girl had been raped? by an 81 year old man. These are just a couple of cases in a long series of abuses against children that have been reported to the police.

- The Act also stipulates that although children may be employed from the age of 15 and engage in light work from the age of 13 years (i.e. work that does not conflict with a child’s attendance at school and is not harmful to the health or development of the child), hazardous work should only be undertaken by those who are 18 years and over. This includes mining, porterage of heavy loads (i.e. kaya work), going to sea or fishing, mining and quarrying, working in manufacturing industries where chemicals are produced or used, places where machines are used, places such as bars, hotels and places of entertainment where a person may be exposed to immoral behaviour.

However, one does not need to go far to find evidence of children engaged in such work. Kayayes and kayahii (truck-pushers) can be identified at any urban market, sometimes carrying loads for those who are supposed to protect them: police officers. In the coastal areas of the Greater Accra and Central regions the use of children in fishing remains a big phenomenon. Here, people do not understand why their male children should not participate in a tradition that has been in their families for generations. This is particularly evident in Ga Mashie where fishermen are seen as warriors – a status that understandably all fathers want to pass on to their sons.

All the children that were interviewed by this writer were easily and very quickly able to identify places where children are engaged in mining and quarrying. Children could be found breaking stones at places such as Achimota and Kasoa. With regards to mining, they mentioned Boduase, Obuase and Prestea. That children are engaged in these hazardous occupations in their thousands is not hidden. In fact, you would have to be blind to miss it. Even then I wonder. Though any person who contravenes this section of the Children’s Act commits an offence and is liable to a fine of up to 10 million cedis or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both, these phenomena continue unabated.

Sensitisation of Communities

The reasons behind the limited implementation of the Children’s Act and hence the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are a mixture of lack of political will, lack of awareness and public dissemination and lack of resources. Research has proven that lack of awareness and understanding of the concept of children’s rights and the CRC are directly linked to the lack of political will, which, in turn reinforces the lack of resources available to ensure the implementation of children’s rights.

Despite the centrality of public awareness of children’s rights to the implementation of the CRC and domestic legislation, most members of the public and even policy-making bodies do not know about these legal instruments. In cases where they do have knowledge of them, they do not know much about them and their contents. In fact, there are some MPs who do not even know what is in the Children’s Act, which was enacted in 1998 and which many of them voted into passage. One Assemblyman from a community within the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) desperately crying out for children’s rights related interventions, confided in me that he had not read the Children’s Act and thus, did not know what it contained.

Not only do the majority of Ghanaians not know of or have very little knowledge of the Act, but also there seems to be a great deal of confusion surrounding the very concept of children’s rights. Many believe that it means children’s rights to empowerment only and thus they reject the idea sometimes quite angrily, as it attacks the very premise on which Ghanaian cultural values are based.

In one example, a senior community leader who is very well educated, possibly abroad, said to the writer, ‘Children’s rights? We have enough problems with children here without giving them their rights’. Instead, according to him, what the community needs is to focus on providing education, clothes and food for children - not rights. And this is where the problem lies.

Rights, in the eyes of many, are linked to the empowerment of children, whereas education, food and clothing are seen as basic needs that the community must provide for children. That these are also rights is not always clear. Thus, there needs to be clarification of what is meant by children’s rights and an explanation that it could range from basic needs such as food, clothes and education to more lofty ideas like asking children for their opinion and involving them in decision making.

Child Panels

The centrality of sensitising communities about the Children’s Act notwithstanding, it is important to consider another scenario where people know the provisions of the Act and still fail to report cases of abuse and exploitation. This could be because they fear the exorbitant financial fees that go along with the bureaucracy, long waiting periods and numerous adjournments that currently make up the Ghanaian judicial process. Added to this is the fear of being ostracised from the community in cases where the abuse was perpetrated by a fellow member of the community.

Therefore, an approach which takes into consideration the traditional arbitration process whereby all interested parties to a case are brought together to discuss the issue in informal surroundings with elders from that community as arbitrators, would be a vital asset to the modern legal framework. That the Children’s Act (Act 560) makes provisions for the establishment of Child Panels at the community level is an acknowledgement of the need for a more communal and traditional approach to complement the formal judicial system.

The Child Panel provision of the Children’s Act (Act 560) addresses the establishment of a quasi-judicial body that is charged with mediating minor civil and criminal matters at the community level. It is based on the belief that many families and communities would rather seek their own way to resolve problems than engage in a costly and lengthy judicial process. It is also the only legal structure at the community level charged with the socio-legal protection of children.

Therefore, it has the potential, when fully operationalised, to absorb not only the civil issues pertaining to non-maintenance of children, child labour, parental neglect or maltreatment, truancy/failure to send a child to school, but also minor crimes committed by children such as petty theft. Child Panels also have the capacity to engage in sensitization activities relating to children’s rights, facilitate counselling support for child victims of abuse where necessary, and facilitate reconciliation between a child offender and his/her victim. By dealing with minor offences committed by children, Child Panels can assure justice is meted out to the child without recourse to the main justice system which tends to be expensive and time consuming.

The benefits to the child and the wider society are evident. Firstly, it exposes children to non-violent ways of resolving conflicts. Secondly, as the deliberations of the Child Panel and its settings are informal, it is less intimidating for children and thus more child-friendly. Thirdly, the fact that Child Panels send out invitations to attend a session instead of issuing subpoenas or warrants and the fact that it makes proposals instead of judgments ensures that parties with a vested interest will be less apprehensive of attending a session of the panel.

Finally, its approach is participatory, not only because it allows children to participate effectively in matters that affect them, but also because it asks the interested parties if they have any proposal for the settlement of the matter.

Wider societal benefits include reducing the burden on the judicial system, which is already seriously overloaded. According to DOVISSU, between January and June 2005 it handled 7150 non-criminal cases in Accra alone, which the Child Panel system could have effectively managed if it was already in operation. This would allow DOVISSU and the judicial system to focus on more serious cases such as murder, armed robbery, rape, defilement, drug and people smuggling/trafficking, which appear to be on the increase. Moreover, as Child Panels undertake mediation and restitution functions at the family and community levels, the situation whereby children are put through the formal justice system can be avoided.

Therefore, they offer alternatives to prison for children who have committed minor crimes for which a prison sentence would be too harsh and only turn the child into a hardened criminal instead of a rehabilitated, responsible member of society. Finally, the nature of Child Panels will encourage more people to report crimes and civil matters and thereby allow the country to address some of the key problems facing children in Ghana today: parental neglect and non-maintenance, the exploitation of children’s labour and failure to send children, especially girl-children, to school.

• This article was written by Afua Twum-Danso, the Child Rights Programme Manager at the Centre for Community Development Initiatives (CCDI), an NGO based in the UK. For further information on CCDI and its work on children’s rights, please contact: [email][email protected]
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Lord’s Resistance Army continues to demand that the indictments by the International Criminal Court against its leaders should be dropped. The Hague-based court had indicted Kony, Otti and fellow commanders Dominic Ongwen, Okot Odhiambo and Raska Lukwiya on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to IRIN news, last week Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the indictments should not be rescinded until the rebel leaders signed a peace deal. Joseph Yav Katshung argues that “…Not everybody welcomed these arrest warrants. On the one hand, proponents of prosecution argue that individuals who commit crimes against humanity should be punished for the sake of justice. They say that it would be unprincipled - as well as sending a dangerous message worldwide - for the prosecutor to submit to the demands of armed thugs who have been maiming, raping and killing with impunity. On the other hand, opponents of prosecution argue that the ICC should give peace a chance, as it is more important to save civilians than to judge perpetrators.”

Very often, when a country wishes to move from war to peace, various options may be tried, including trials in an international or national court of law as well as other non-punitive approaches with various names. In recent years, there has been a growing demand around the world for transitional justice mechanisms, such as truth commissions. Tina Rosenberg suggests that “…a country’s decisions about how to deal with its past should depend on many things: the type of war endured, the type of crimes committed, the level of societal complicity, the nation’s political culture and history, the conditions necessary for war to reoccur, the abruptness of the transition, and the new democratic government’s power and resources.” [1]One may add national “interests”.

Last year in October the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants of arrest for Kony and four other Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commanders - Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo - accusing them of carrying out massacres, mutilating their victims and kidnapping thousands of children to be used as fighters and sex slaves. Now, a year on, it finds itself at odds with Uganda's government, which first referred the case to it, but is now offering the rebels amnesty and protection if talks succeed. [2] This paper examines this dispute and seeks to locate the debate about peace and justice in Northern Uganda.

Defining Justice

Defining justice is a difficult task. Is it justice in the narrow sense of criminal justice, or justice in the broader, restorative, sense? Talking about “justice”, one should note that it is a flexible concept. Justice in situations of transition is not self-defining. It is about what is required and what is possible in a given situation. There are different kinds of justice: retributive justice, deterrent justice, compensatory justice, rehabilitative justice, exonerative justice and restorative justice. [3] Each has a time and a place in a given situation and no one model of justice covers all needs.

Mato Oput as Restorative Justice

It is important to note that restorative justice views crime essentially as a violation of people and relationships between people. Its primary objective is to correct such violations and to restore relationships. As such, it necessarily involves victims and survivors, perpetrators and the community, in the quest for a level of justice that promotes repair, trust building and reconciliation. It draws attention to the need to create a milieu within which all those implicated in crime come to realise the need to uphold the principles of the law, co-operating in an endeavour to discern the best way to achieve this. [4] In other words, restorative justice is concerned with resolving crime and conflicts. It focuses upon the end result (harmonious community relations) and it is characterised by community participation that involves both the victim and the perpetrator, with a view to restoring rights that have been abused.

In fact, Mato Oput, which in the Acholi language literally means "to drink a bitter potion made from the leaves of the ‘oput’ tree" is one of the mechanisms for forgiveness and reconciliation among the Acholi people in Northern Uganda. The drinking of this bitter herb means that the two conflicting parties accept the bitterness of the past and promise never to taste such bitterness again. The payment of compensation follows the ceremony. The victim or his/her family is compensated for the harm done, for example, in the form of cows or cash. Is such kind of compensation is enough to satisfy people? It is believed by many Acholi that Mato Oput "can bring true healing in a way that formal justice system cannot.” [5] It doesn't aim at establishing whether an individual is guilty or not, rather it seeks to restore marred social harmony in the affected community.

The question of using Mato Oput for gross violations of human rights: The Kony’s Case

The referral of the Northern Uganda conflict to the ICC in December 2003 and the subsequent issue of warrants of arrest for Joseph Kony and other four high-ranking LRA commanders, [6] have sparked considerable controversy in Uganda and in the international sphere.

Not everybody welcomed these arrest warrants. On the one hand, proponents of prosecution argue that individuals who commit crimes against humanity should be punished for the sake of justice. They say that it would be unprincipled - as well a dangerous message worldwide - for the prosecutor to submit to the demands of armed thugs who have been maiming, raping and killing with impunity. On the other hand, opponents of prosecution argue that the ICC should give peace a chance, as it is more important to save civilians than to judge perpetrators.

Moreover, withdrawal by the ICC would not mean the end of accountability, they argue, but the beginning of indigenous justice processes. This group prefers traditional justice to the ICC, and argues that modern justice will have a negative impact on the peace process in Northern Uganda. For them, the arrest warrants would make further peace negotiations impossible.

This is a typical case of balancing peace and justice as the trend in Uganda now, is how to use the traditional form of justice named Mato Oput instead of the ICC. Barney Afako (2002) states that:

“The unacceptably high costs of civil war have caused Ugandans to re-assess approaches to resolving conflict. Among the Acholi of northern Uganda, the bitter experience of unending conflict has generated a remarkable commitment to reconciliation and a peaceful settlement of the conflict rather than calling for retribution against the perpetrators of serious abuses… This call for amnesty was underpinned by their faith in the capacity of the community and cultural institutions to manage effective reconciliation even against the background of serious offences.

Many conflicts yield meaningful distinctions between victims and perpetrators. Yet the majority of Acholi recognize that most combatants in the LRA were forcibly abducted and have themselves been victims. This generates the realization that anyone could be subjected to the conditions that produced the perpetrators of the crimes experienced in the conflict. Combined with a profound weariness with the war and the suffering it has caused, this creates a moral empathy with the perpetrators and an acknowledgement that the formal justice system is not sufficiently nuanced to make the necessary distinctions between legal and moral guilt. As a result, most Acholi have decided to promote reconciliation through traditional mechanisms, rather than a retributive understanding of justice, to create conditions to end the war and reintegrate the community.” [7]

However, there are always tensions between the requirements of the criminal justice system and those of non-punitive approaches to gross and systematic human rights violations. Therefore, one could ask if the Mato Oput is an attempt by Uganda to justify or disguise impunity? Answering to this question one should test if this Mato Oput mechanism implies good faith.

That is true because restorative justice employs integral responses that focus upon redressing the harm to the victims, holding perpetrators accountable for their actions and engaging the community in a conflict resolution process. It is highly participative, is forward-looking and is based on values of respect for all participants and community empowerment. Is the Mato Oput designed to generate more truth, more justice, reparations, and genuine institutional reform? If the objective is to evade the State and society’s legal, ethical and political obligations to their people, it should be rejected. If not, someone could say that the purpose of this Mato Oput mechanism is just to shield some perpetrators (Kony and others). In this hypothesis, the process will violate international law and will not be in the interest of justice (society as a whole).

Therefore, the answer should be found in the design of the process itself, but also in the degree of participation, consultation, and transparency that surrounds this Mato Oput mechanism.

How to conclude?

We conclude with a quote from Juan Mendez that “We need to be careful to counter attempts to disguise impunity with fanciful adjectives. ‘Restorative justice,’ for example, is a concept that in its proper setting is valuable and does have its place in a transitional justice policy. [8] Often, however, the term ‘restorative justice’ is used to advocate some alternative to criminal justice, to honest truth telling and full investigation of abuses. When used in such a way it is no more than an attempt to justify or disguise impunity.” [9]

Suffice it to say that the paradox between peace and justice is an open question that we should all try to answer.

* Yav Katshung Joseph is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo and an Advocate at the Lubumbashi Bar Association. He is the Executive Director of CERDH, and Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights, Peace, Conflict Resolution and Good governance. He has published numerous articles on human rights, law and transitional justice in scholarly journals. For contact: [email][email protected] or [email][email protected] Cell: +27724342896

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

[1] Tina Rosenberg, “Afterword: Confronting the Painful Past”, in Martin Meredith, Coming to Terms:South Africa’s Search for Truth, 1999, p 328

[2] The ICC has insisted that Kony and four other LRA leaders must face justice, but the Ugandan government says it will convince the Hague-based court to lift the indictment… See UGANDA: Balancing forgiveness with justice. At: http://www.ligi.ubc.ca/admin/Information/543/Roco%20Wat%20I%20Acoli-20051.pdf
[6] See The International Criminal Court, "Warrant of Arrest Unsealed Against Five LRA Commanders," ICC-20051014-110-En, 14 October 2005, available:http://www.icccpi.int/pressrelease_details&id=114&l=en.html
They are accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Northern Uganda since July 2002

[7] Barney Afako, Reconciliation and justice: ‘Mato oput’ and the Amnesty Act (2002), at: http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/northern-uganda/reconciliation-justice.php

[8] Miriam J. Aukerman, “Extraordinary Evil, Ordinary Crime: A Framework for Understanding Transitional Justice,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 15 (2002): 39-97; Pablo de Greiff, “The Role of Apologies in National Reconciliation Processes: On Making Trustworthy Institutions Trusted,” in The Age of Apologies, Mark Gibney and Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, eds. (forthcoming).

[9] Juan E. Méndez, “How to Take Forward a Transitional Justice and Human Security Agenda: Policy Implications for the International Community”, Cape Town, April 1, 2005

Ever heard of street soccer activism? In Zimbabwe, the Uhuru Collective is using soccer to fight for social justice, mobilizing residents and encouraging them to challenge their local council on rates fees.

The full story is featured on the website a Zimbabwean portal on civil society, but it’s not only the use of street soccer for activism that is interesting, but the way in which Kubatana have integrated short audio recordings into the story. The result is not only a web-based story that provides context and background, but through the power of voice conveys the story first hand through those involved.

And so you can listen to Sam Farai Monro, the co-ordinator of the Uhuru Collective, talk about what they aim to achieve through soccer activism, how commentators at the matches highlight important social concerns, and why unfair social delivery needs to be challenged.

The spoken word is not new to storytelling or information dissemination, with radio being popular worldwide. But while the potential for distributing audio via the internet is a possibility that has existed since the first websites, it has only recently become more feasible due to developments that allow easy production and distribution.

Portable recording devices allow anyone to produce high quality sound. Easy editing and mixing – previously the domain of professional sound buffs – is made possible through software packages. Giant steps taken in the ease with which one can create a personal website and upload written, audio or video content makes it possible for anyone to be heard – theoretically speaking at least.

As a result mega-industries have sprung up and there are a growing number of internet search engines that specialize specifically in audio or video files. Even giants like Google =http://video.google.com/ have been forced to add video search functionality and hosting to their services.

The new craze has given rise to its own terminology - podcasting. As defined by Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, “Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like 'radio', can mean both the content and the method of delivery.”

Sadly, if you type Africa into any of the search engines listing podcasts, the returns are not very satisfactory. In Africa, low internet access and high access costs mean that in large parts even downloading email can be a problem and that’s if you even have access to a computer. Listening to audio distributed through the internet is a rarity. The podcast trend is driven by North American and Western European interest and voices.

This is not to say that it doesn’t have potential for Africa. The medium has the ability for people to get their voices heard without having to navigate the complex gate-keeping of mainstream media; it has the power to reach a global audience; and it has potential for networking and activism. Africa has made some strides in internet access and many countries are now rolling out broadband internet access – the real sweetener when it comes to internet audio and video.

Distribution of audio via the internet in Africa is in its infancy, but with growing number of broadband users and Africa’s huge Diaspora population the audience is out there. It remains to be seen whether all the factors needed for the growth of the technology will eventually lead to a culture of listening online.

If you want to start listening, here are some starting points. Broadcasting weekly out of Berkeley, California, is Walter Turner’s Africa Today programme (http://www.kpfa.org/1pro_bio/1b_afric.htm). One of his more interesting recent interviews is with the journalist Gary Younge, who is the correspondent for the London Guardian in the United States. You can hear Younge talking about his latest book ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, being black in Britain, international solidarity and the oddness of living in America. “You see people walking around with cellphones and yet you still get the feeling that they think the world is flat,” Younge tells Turner.

Check out Indymedia South Africa http://southafrica.indymedia.org/ for audio and video content on what South Africa’s social movements are up to. The latest video content from the site is about a march to the Israeli embassy to protest against the recent war between Israel and Lebanon. The video shows the march with clips from speakers Sallim Vally from the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Willie Madisha of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). Also on the site are a series of audio files discussing the World Social Forum’s Bamako appeal, including an interesting speech from Samir Amin.

Further offerings can be found on the website of One World Radio Africa =http://radioafrica.oneworld.net/, which has a series of regularly updated files, the latest being a discussion on climate change. Democracy Radio =http://www.idasa.org.za, on the website of South Africa’s Idasa, includes a series of recordings on child poverty in South Africa, political party funding and the struggle for women’s rights. These recordings are dated from 2004/05 but are still worth a visit.

Africa Files produces a regular podcast called ‘Africa Files: The Pulse’, with Silence Genti as the host. You can access the programme by visiting

For the first episode in our series on trade justice, Pambazuka News talks to Sizani Ngubane of the Rural's Women's Movement based in South Africa where women continue to be thrown off their lands when their husbands die and how this intersects with trade justice. See the for more details.

On September 26, a gorgeous African woman, about whom no one is indifferent, turned 70. She has lived more lives than the proverbial Cat of nine lives. But she still manages to retain her poise, grace and popular appeal through what we can all agree is more than a fair share of personal and political trials and tribulations. She was born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela in the Village of Bizana, Pondoland, South Africa,in 1936. She became more famously known world wide as Winnie Mandela after marrying (in 1960) a divorced upwardly mobile Black Lawyer, Nelson Mandela, who later became world famous for his political activities and incarceration. It was not a ‘normal’ marriage because politics interfered with any attempt by the couple to settle down. By 1962 the apartheid state had sentenced Mandela along with his comrades to either life or long term imprisonments. Mandela remained in prison for the next 28 years becoming the symbol of the yearnings of the oppressed Black people for freedom.

He was not to see the outside of the prison walls till 1990. Two years after his release their unusual marriage ended in separation in 1992 and divorce by 1996.

Many of us grew up on Hugh Masekela’s famous tune “Bring back Nelson Mandela, bring him back home to Soweto, I want to see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandela……no more war”. It was never to be for long. We constructed a romantic canvass on the lives of these two people regardless of the empirical fact that they have lived apart for such a long time. At a human level it is daunting enough to catch up on almost four decades of separation let a lone such extraordinary lives lived in very public glare. Public and private disolves when it came to Winnie and Nelson.

There were those who had somehow expected that after those defiant fists that walked hand in hand with Mandela out of the Prison gates in 1990, Winnie was going to step aside, even go back to the kitchen and be ‘the good wife’. In the very public disagreements that visited their separation and divorce, Bishop Tutu famously chided her for not living up to this expectation suggesting in an unfortunate pre feminist choice of words that Mandela needed someone to bring his slippers.

It was a relationship in which everyone had an opinion and even more than a decade after the divorce opinions are still divided. Some people think it is an act of betrayal to admire Mandela and like Winnie and vice versa. But the issue cannot be that clear cut. Many struggle with admiring both and the inevitable contradictory emotions. The ambiguities are made more complicated by Mandela marrying, Graca Machel, the widow of another iconic man, Samora Machel.

Both Winnie and Graca share the double burden of being prominent in their own right but also for the men they married. It is a case of the chicken and the egg. There is an endless debate about whether these women would have been as prominent as they are if they had not married these great men. It is an argument from a reactionary ideology of patriarchy that does not value women in their own right but see them only in the shadows of men whether their fathers, uncles, brothers, husbands (or lovers) or even sons! But looking at the lives of both women they would have been prominent politically. Graca married Samora after his first wife Josina died and she was already active in the struggle for the liberation of Mozambique through FRELIMO. They married as comrades who met in the struggle.

The fact that most women married to, or in a relationship with famous men do not end up being famous should caution those who believe that Women can only be something under a man’s umbrella. Ironically those who argue this way do not argue the opposite as true. Why are Men married to famous women not famous by virtue of their sleeping arrangement too?

In the case of Winnie I doubt if anyone below the age of 50 years today would have known Nelson Mandela but for Winnie. She is the Mandela that kept Nelson in our consciousness. She did marry him young but she grew up politically mostly outside of his tentacles. By the time he came out of prison she was a political figure with a huge following in her own right. Men in general, even the greatest amongst us, consciously or unconsciously, find it difficult to adjust to famous partners. Things were not helped by the brutal battles for power within the liberation movements and the maneuvers around the transition. It was not just personal distance of many years that had to be faced but also salient political differences between a more reconciliatory Mandela and the more radical Mandela whose whole life had been shaped by confrontation with the apartheid state and also factional struggles within the movement and control of township militias.

The crux of the matter is that Winnie is generally judged by many people as a woman, wife and mother, not as a politician. How many men we greatly respect and admire and at the risk of heresy, Madiba himself, will still be standing if we apply the same gendered judgments? If the situation had been reversed and Winnie was inside and Mandela was outside would anyone had been surprised that he took interest in other Women? There is no doubt Winnie made many mistakes and made personal and political choices that are questionable. As she admitted at the prompting of Bishop Tutu in the famous encounter at the TRC: ‘Things went horribly wrong’. But who among the other liberation leaders has not made any mistake? She has been charged with everything imaginable both by the apartheid state and sadly even under the ANC government. The persecution complex is futher sttrenghtened by the ease with which previous pillars of apartheid slipped into post apartheid respectability without remorse, all in the name of National reconciliation! Without excusing Winnie’s serial lapse of judgment, it is difficult for many of her admirers including this writer not to conclude that she is being persecuted. But somehow she emerges triumphant, head unbowed. Even at 70 Winnie is neither down nor out. Perhaps her parents saw the future when they named her, Nomzano, which means ‘Trial’ in the Xhosa language. Happy birthday Mama Afrika!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

"We talk of globalisation, of the global village, but here in Africa, we are under the impression of being that village's septic tank," says Senegalese ecologist Haidar al-Ali in an article appearing in South Africa's Mail and Guardian.

Cholera has claimed 21 lives among 206 infected people in Niger following seasonal rains that have flooded communities and left them unable to cope with a health crisis. The United Nations has sent emergency aid to Niger following the flooding, which has affected 43,000 people.

On 23 September 2006, Gambian president Yahya Jammeh repeated one of his long standing anti-press statements, hinting that he would be more ruthless in dealing with journalists and the media in his third five-year term of office.

Efforts to address sexual and gender-based violence in the conflict ridden northern Uganda have received a boost with the commencement this month of a joint project of the Government of Uganda, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has appealed to its members nationwide to refrain from embarking on a strike action for better conditions of service, since it has not declared a strike. That, according to the Association, was due to the fact that the Association had already negotiated for 2006 and was presenting its inputs on behalf of all teachers to Government for inclusion in the 2007 budget for consequent negotiations.

The Girl Guides Association of Zimbabwe (GGAZ) will next term introduce an HIV/Aids awareness campaign in children's homes and primary schools countrywide. The project was launched at Chinyaradzo Children's Home and president of the association, Mrs Maria Chaniwa, said this would help in reducing the Aids scourge.

"The FXI is disappointed with today's judgment of the Constitutional Court (CC) dismissing an appeal by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to broadcast the appeals of Schabir Shaik and others in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). The FXI has read the judgment and considers it to be retrogressive for media freedom and open justice in South Africa."

President, Consumer Rights Advocacy League (CRAL), Mrs Cordel Okafor, has described as life threatening, the general environmental conditions under which the Nigerian consumers carry on. Stating this yesterday at the organisation's 6th Annual Workshop/Awards in Lagos, Okafor said a recent inspection carried out by CRAL in Lagos, indicated poor environmental condition under which food are served to consumers.

The one-and-half year old East African Community Customs Union faces serious problems according to a report compiled by a special committee of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA). The report, the result of a two-week tour of border towns by a team led by EALA legislator Dr George Nangale, has disclosed a number of critical problems impeding the smooth functioning of the Customs union.

The following report presents a situational analysis of the conditions of internally displaced persons living in Adjumani district. Located in Northern Uganda, Adjumani district has suffered from the effects of sporadic violence and armed conflict for several decades.

At a time when asylum applications are falling worldwide, the Swiss government is seeking to raise the obstacles faced by people seeking a country of safe refuge from persecution at home. By rendering access to this landlocked country more difficult, Switzerland is failing not only those fleeing persecution and mortal danger, but is also shifting the burden of their initial reception to its Mediterranean neighbours on the periphery of the European Union.

A top United Nations envoy warned that the Darfur peace agreement was on the verge of collapse and lambasted the Darfur Ceasefire Commission (CFC), which is responsible for monitoring and implementing the accord.

Kenya may be forced to set up an additional refuge camp in Dadaab to cater for a new influx of Somali refugees as the instability in the neighbouring country starts to bite. In a conversation with The EastAfrican, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Emmanuel Nyabera, said that although the camps had the capacity to handle the influx at 300 refugees per day being experienced currently, the situation was likely to worsen with the escalation of the conflict in the country.