based in Switzerland which has established a mechanism in West African
states to work on reintegration of children in West Africa.
Item 7: Experience sharing by partner organizations
EAC child policy addressing cross border issues in the region
Morris Tayebwa, representative of the East African Community (EAC)
Secretariat, made a presentation regarding the various cross-border issues and
initiatives in the EAC. It was noted that EAC undertook a baseline study to
identify issues affecting children, which included cross border issues. The
cross-border issues identified are child trafficking, harmful traditional practices,
statelessness, use of children in smuggling illegal items in cross border towns,
unregulated transfer of children from within the region under the guise of intercountry adoption, radicalization/terrorism/extremism and cybercrimes. Root
causes of cross border issues in the EAC region include poverty, unregulated
cross border movements of children, weak and unregulated borders, harmful
cultural beliefs, Gender inequality and orphaned and displaced children due to
civil strife.
The EAC has a child policy with ten priority areas, which is harmonized
with the UNCRC and the ACRWC. Priority 4 is aimed at addressing cross
border child rights violations. This priority areas puts in place various strategies
and activities to ensure the protection of children affected by cross border
issues. Among the gaps in the EAC mechanisms is budget analysis, there is a
need to assess how countries budget for children’s issues. It was noted that
proportions of national budgets allocated for children are very minimal, if they
are identified at all.
The challenges identified include traditional expectations that child
protection falls under the purview of family responsibility rather than the state;
fragmented policy approaches and regulatory mechanisms; lack of government
capacity (weak child protection systems and lack of resources); definition of the
child; lack of documentation; criminalization of irregular migration, even of
children. Various opportunities have been identified. These include regional
frameworks on migration, refugee management and EAC child policy;
collaboration with African Union and RECs, Inter agency collaboration
(UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM, ILO…) and partnership with CSOs.
GiZ Support to the African Union Border program (AUBP)
Karin Pluberg, representative of GiZ, briefed the participants on the
support of GiZ to the African Union Border Program (AUBP). It was stated that