Constructing a conception of childhood in Africa

Abstract

The thesis argues that there is a common core conception of childhood in traditional African communities and that this understanding of childhood is different from the image of childhood in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Children‟s Charter. In order to successfully implement children‟s rights in Africa care must be taken to ensure that the cultural norms and values that inform the conception of childhood in Africa is accommodated. Failure to do this is problematic on at least two grounds. First, it increases the economic and social costs of implementing children‟s rights in many African communities. Second, implementing children‟s rights norms that are considered by some communities in Africa as alien without adopting those norms to the African context will continue to increase the resistance of local communities to children‟s rights. Such an approach will be seen as replacing local cultural values with alien cultural norms. This could result in multiple-lived experience for children, weakened family structures and support and, possibly, compromised cultural identities of children. To minimise these consequences, the thesis recommends the application of the norms in these two children‟s rights treaties in a context-and child-specific manner. It is further argued that a „universal pluralistic‟ theoretical framework will facilitate reasonable deference to local contexts that further the cause of children‟s rights and.