‘Year of justice for Africans and people of African descent through reparations’: Can Mauritius lead by example or remain a spectator?
Posted: 26 March, 2025 Filed under: Lakshita Kanhiya, Michael Gyan Nyarko | Tags: 37th Ordinary Assembly, administration of justice, African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Court Protocol, African Union, Anil Kumarsingh Gayan, beacon of democracy, colonial heritage, economic stability, historic declaration, human rights, Mauritian legal system, Mauritius, quest for justice, reparations, Year of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations 1 Comment |
Author: Lakshita Kanhiya Legal Associate, Initiative for Strategic Litigation (ISLA) in Africa |
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Author: Michael Gyan Nyarko Deputy Executive Director, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) |
The Heads of States and Governments of the African Union (AU) have declared 2025 the ‘Year of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations’. This historic declaration, made during the 37th Ordinary Assembly held in Addis Ababa in February 2024, resonates deeply within the broader quest for justice, human rights, and the long-overdue reckoning with colonial legacies across the continent. As the continent prepares to collectively reflect on justice and reparations, it becomes imperative to critically assess the structures and systems that hinder the realisation of justice for African people. One such structural barrier lies in the reluctance of several African states, including Mauritius, to fully embrace the jurisdiction of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court) through direct access for individuals and NGOs under article 34(6) of the Protocol establishing the African Court (African Court Protocol /Protocol).
The conundrum of combating child trafficking in Zimbabwe
Posted: 11 March, 2025 Filed under: Zororai Nkomo | Tags: abuse of power, child trafficking, Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, desperate jobseekers, emotionally vulnerable, fraud, human trafficking, Palermo Protocol, profit, sexual exploitation, use of force, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s Trafficking in Persons Act 2 Comments
Author: Zororai Nkomo
African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC)
Introduction
In 2014 Zimbabwe domesticated the United Nations (UN) protocol that aims to prevent, suppress, and punish human trafficking, especially of women and children – the Palermo Protocol, through the promulgation and subsequent enactment of the Trafficking in Persons Act of 2014 ( TIP Act). The 2023 and 2024 Trafficking in Person Report shows that Zimbabwe is among Southern African countries still grappling with trafficking of children for labour exploitation. Young people are being exploited in the mining and farming sector. The recent United Nations Global Report on human trafficking revealed that there is a 25% increase in children being exploited globally. The most prevalent forms of trafficking children face are forced labour, sexual exploitation and forced criminality.
More of the Humourist
Posted: 4 March, 2025 Filed under: Saniamu Ngeywa | Tags: abductions, art, cartoonists, cartoons, democracy, freedom of expression, governmental persecution, increased taxes, Kenya, lawless treatment, print media, rights of all to receive information, tools for creatively, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, violence Leave a comment
Author: Saniamu Ngeywa
LLM, University of Groningen, Netherlands
No Laughing Matter
Retrogressive times and events have taken Kenya back to an all-too-familiar phase, rendering citizens, funny guys, dissidents, and rights defenders shivering. Social media enthusiasts banter that political positions should have an undisputed requirement that the applicant must be able to take a joke, lest an exaggerated doodle puts a cartoonist in, to put it lightly, a sticky situation – governmental persecution, abductions, and lawless treatment.
African countries have, in the past, seen their artists persecuted for wordlessly conveying opinions. The pen, wielded as an instrument of resistance, has led to those in power bringing a gun to the proverbial knife fight against the satirist. Kenya, as a nation that prides itself in democracy, finds itself in an ironic position as it silences the ‘different’ opinion, hazardously blurring the line between democracy and dictatorship. The recent abduction and much-delayed release of cartoonists remind us that despite constitutional protections for freedom of expression, the political elite’s intolerance mirrors that of regimes far less free.
AfricLaw 