Back to Index

January 2012 e-newsletter
Justice for Children Trust
February 15, 2012

Download this document
- Acrobat PDF version (414KB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking here

A glimmer of hope towards constitutionalising children's rights

As the drafting of the new constitution unfolds, there is notable hope that children's rights will be enshrined in the new constitution. This is based on the 1st draft of the constitution that has been published in The Herald of the 10th of February 2012. The proposed Chapter 4 on Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms Part 2 has children's rights under section 4.29 of the constitution. The rights include the right to equal treatment before the law, including the right to be heard, education, health care services, basic nutrition, shelter, to be protected from economic and sexual exploitation, child labour and from maltreatment, neglect, abuse and degradation. The inclusion of children's rights in the constitution is a sign of the commitment of the state to respect, protect and promote childhood.

The draft Constitution has taken into consideration JCT's advocacy issues on the need for the incorporation of children's rights as contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. This is because the current constitution had glaring inadequacies due to the failure to enshrine children's rights, socio-economic rights and other fundamental principles that underpins democracy. Such inadequacies led to the constitution reform process under the auspices of the Global Political Agreement signed in 2008. This presented JCT with an opportunity to advocate for the inclusion of children's rights in the constitution.

The organisation embarked on advocacy initiatives that include Children's Summits on the Constitution in Harare where the Co-Chairpersons of COPAC attended and country wide consultations which culminated in the National Summit where children from all the 63 administrative districts attended. The National Summit was named "COPAC National Consultative Outreach for Children" due to the attendance of COPAC where they adopted the issues that were presented by children in the other districts of Zimbabwe. Children's views that were adopted by COPAC provided the guide for the constitutional reform process hence the inclusion of children's rights in the Draft constitutions.

This is a major milestone towards the inclusion of children's rights in the constitution. The writing of the new constitution is at an advanced stage and if adopted it will inevitably give a yardstick for the protection and promotion of children's rights by the state and courts. Children's welfare and care would be the primary care of the state and they will have the full protection of the law. This gives a lot of enthusiasm for organizations in the child rights sector to see how the imminent Second All Stakeholders Conference and the referendum will provide the basis for the inclusion of children's rights in the constitution.

This is part of a series of articles to be run in the e-newsletter in order to update stakeholders and partners in the child rights sector on the progress of the constitution making process vis-a-vis the inclusion of children's rights.

Download full document

Visit the Justice for Children Trust fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP