country is considered State Party to the Charter, and when an initial report should be submitted after ratification. Question were also raised with regards to the kinds of challenges the ACERWC faces concerning reporting of States and the standards of the ACERWC on State Party reports including collection of data and statistics. In response to the questions raised, the Secretariat of the ACERWC first indicated that a country is considered to be a State Party once it deposits its ratification instrument in the African Union Commission (AUC). Upon ratification, a State Party is obliged to submit its initial report to the Committee in two years and every three years afterwards. The Secretariat informed the Forum that the Committee has allowed the submission of combined reports and also for States to use the report they submitted to UNCRC by contextualizing it to the Charter. Concerning challenges, it was underlined that lack of deposition of the ratification documents in the AUC and lack of reporting to the Committee while submitting reports to the UNCRC are challenges the Committee is facing. Regarding the issue of the support available to States, the Secretariat highlighted that as a matter of priority States should allocate budget to the process of reporting to the Committee, but that supports is also available from UNICEF and other organizations. It was also emphasized that the Committee engages with other human rights organs to enhance ratification and report including the African Governance Architecture Platform to which all human rights organs are a member. The Committee also has a joint task force with the UNCRC. It was finally mentioned by the Secretariat that, reservations remain until a country withdraws its reservations despite the Committee pronouncing that certain reservations are against the objective and purpose of the Charter. 7. Relevance of State Party reporting This session was conducted through group discussions (two Anglophone and two Francophone). The Facilitator raised the following questions to guide the group discussions: - Why do countries report and others don’t? Why do countries make reservations? How does a state party benefit from reporting? Why should we invest in reporting? What are the introspection aspects in your country? How does State Party report help in the protection and promotion of children’s rights? Following the group discussions, each group presented their findings on the discussions. 8|Page