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From California to Ghana: An International Perspective
Benjamin N. Lawrance
Benjamin N. Lawrance teaches history at the University of California-Davis, and his research and teaching expertise includes child labor and child soldiers in Africa. A member of PROTECT's national advisory board, Dr. Lawrance met with and advised members of the California legislature on the Circle of Trust bill. In this essay, he offers a global view of children's civil rights and how waves from the Circle of Trust victory might be come ashore across the Pacific Ocean. His website is www.lawrance.org.
By ratifying this instrument, national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children's rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community. But the Convention is a document. And like any other document, without the power and urgency of enforcement and implementation, it has made little difference in the lives of children in Ghana, Togo, Benin and elsewhere. Change and protection of children in these countries and other developing countries is contingent on the desire of the respective regimes to legislate, implement and enforce existing and new laws to protect children.
The passage of SB 33 demonstrates a commitment on the part of the State of California to mandate protections that are woefully lacking in developing nations and it provides a model for countries commited to improving the lives of children, countries such as Ghana.
Over the past few years, Ghana has seen a remarkable transformation in the legal protections afforded children. The 1993 Constitution of the 4th Republic enshrines the fundamental freedoms of women and children and Article 28 mandates that Parliament enact laws in the best interests of children. In contrast no such constitutional vehicle exists in the Californian or US constitution. In 1998 Parliament passed the Children's Act, stipulating the rights and protections of children. The Child Law Reform Advisory Committee in Parliament has over the past several years also provided for the reform of Criminal Procedure pertaining to children (2002) and Juvenile Justice (2003).
Like child law reform in the US and now California, many of the reforms in child protection and children's law accompanied similar improvements in the rights of women. Laws banning female genital mutilation focused on girl children. Laws have also been passed banning forced betrothals and dowry transactions, and mandating a minimum age for marriage.
Successful prosecutions of violations of these new laws have accelerated child law reform. The Children's Act (1998) has paved the way for new laws on child labor. The Human Trafficking Act (2005) is about to receive Presidential Assent this month. Most victims of trafficking in Ghana and West Africa generally are children. The new law provides for prohibition and offenses relating to trafficking, complaints procedure, rescue, rehabilitation and re-integration, a fund to fulfill these mandates, a national task force and new multi-jurisdictional authority under the Department of Women and Children's Affairs.
Ghana is blazing a trail in children's law reform and its subsequent enforcement, but it still has a long way to go. SB 33 will hopefully provide new impetus to Ghanaian reform. In 1998 Parliamentarians had an opportunity to equalize child rape and incest prosecution and punishment. After much deliberation, MPs decided to create a two-tier punishment. Carnal knowledge and/or defilement of a non-familial or non-custodial child carries a minimum eight-year prison sentence. Rape of a child by a family member, in contrast, carries a minimum three-year sentence. While this discrepency is not nearly as egregious as the current California incest loophole, the 1998 Criminal Code Amendment Act, like the 1981 California criminal code articles, will remain a lasting stain on the hands of legislators until it is remedied.
Copyright © 2005 Benjamin N. Lawrance. All rights reserved.
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