126 3 4 5 6 1 Mezmur/18th birthday of the African Children’s Rights Charter The commitment to be bound: ratifications, and reservations ...................... 130 Examples of substantive provisions ...................................................................... 133 4.1 4.2 4.3 Definition of a child .............................................................................................. 133 Child marriage ...................................................................................................... 135 Children and armed conflict................................................................................. 139 The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.............................................................................................................................. 142 5.1 5.2 State party reporting............................................................................................. 142 Individual complaints and investigative missions............................................... 143 Concluding remarks .................................................................................................. 147 INTRODUCTION The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Children’s Rights Charter or Charter) came into force on 29 November 1999. The coming into force materialised a month after the 15th instrument of ratification was submitted to the then Organization of African Union (OAU, now the African Union (AU)). November 2017 thus marks the 18th anniversary of the Charter, counting from the years since it has come into force. For children, and in children’s rights discourse, 18th birthdays are very important. For an individual, 18 years marks, in the large majority of countries in Africa as well as globally, the age of the legal transition from childhood to adulthood. It is considered to be a time at which full legal autonomy is acquired. It is also often accompanied by full responsibility of the individual. In other words, it is a time that is often characterised by the assumption of acquiring maturity. A stock-taking exercise of the various anniversaries of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), for instance its 18th as well as 25th anniversaries, have been undertaken by different stakeholders. These stakeholders include academics,1 UN agencies,2 and treaty bodies.3 A similar exercise by stakeholders in relation to the African Children’s Rights Charter would assist to inform progress, but would also reflect on the work that remains to be done in maximising the potential of the Charter to contribute to the creation of an Africa that is fit for children. Admittedly, it is not an easy task to determine causation, or establish a linear relationship, between the ratification of the African Children’s Rights Charter by a State, on the one hand, and subsequent behavioural change in the form of law and policy reform, and the design and implementation of programmes, on the other. In the same streak, the link between the obligations to undertake ‘other measures’ (such as 1 See, for instance, K Arts ‘Twenty-five years of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: achievements and challenges’ (2014) 61 Netherlands International Law Review 267-303. 2 See, for instance, UNICEF ‘25 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Is the world a better place for children?’ (2014) available at https://www.unicef.org/ publications/files/CRC_at_25_Anniversary_Publication_compilation_5Nov2014.pdf (accessed 10 October 2017) 3 See, for instance, Institut international des droits de l’enfant (IDE) and OHCHR ‘18 candles: The Convention on the Rights of the Child reaches majority’ (2007) available at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/crc18.pdf (accessed 10 October 2017).