(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 3 31 PROTECTION OF THE CHILD UNDER THE AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM Under the African human rights system there are particularly two instruments which are of significance in the protection of the rights of children, namely, the African Children’s Rights Charter and in the case of the girl child, the African Women’s Rights Protocol. These two instruments are undergirded by the rights protected in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter), but, for the current purposes, reliance will be placed on the former two instruments, insofar as they provide more extensive protection of the rights of the child. However, where there is no relevant provision on a specific right in either of these instruments, regard will be had to the African Charter itself. This section will deal with the vulnerabilities set out above under specific but interrelated themes of rights, starting with the rights/principles at the core of the African Children’s Rights Charter and then looking at rights related to a clean environment, education, migration and access to information and participation, in an attempt to ascertain the responsibilities which this places on African states. 3.1 Basic principles in the African Children’s Rights Charter There are a number of principles which are set out at the start of the African Children’s Rights Charter, which form the bedrock of the other rights protected in the Charter, but which are also rights in themselves.37 The first in the right to non-discrimination, which is set out in article 3 of the Children’s Charter and provides that every child is entitled to the enjoyment of the rights in this Charter, irrespective of a number of grounds of discrimination, including ethnic group, colour, sex, language and social origin.38 The right not to be discriminated against is a right which applies both by itself, and in conjunction with other rights. As a right in itself, the prohibition of discrimination on the ground of sex, for example, means that there may not be discrimination against girl children. However, while formal equality may be easy to 37 These ‘four pillars’ were originally identified by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child as forming the basis of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but they equally apply to the African Children’s Charter. 38 The right to non-discrimination and equality is also a general principle of human rights and can similarly be found in article 2 of the African Charter and article 2 of the African Women’s Rights Protocol, with slight variances as to the grounds of discrimination which are prohibited, the latter obviously focussed on sex and gender. Various provisions under the African Women’s Rights Protocol have also been interpreted as having a character of transformative equality, which goes beyond formal and substantive equality in order to change the values and ‘underlying structure’ of a society. See S Fredman ‘Beyond the dichotomy of formal and substantive equality: towards new definitions of equal rights’ in I Boerefijn et al (eds) Temporary special measures: accelerating de facto equality of women under article 4(1) UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (2003) 111.