Research Articles (Centre for Child Law)

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Age determination of unaccompanied migrant children : an appraisal of the jurisprudence of the Committee on the Rights of the Child
Quan, Gertrude Mafoa; Skelton, Ann (Taylor and Francis, 2025-03-04)
Unaccompanied migrant children arriving in Europe without documentation face an immediate hurdle to access the special protection measures that most states have in place for them. Many European states seek to establish the chronological age of a person using methods of age determination that the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which oversees the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, has found unreliable and to infringe children’s rights. This article examines the Committee’s jurisprudence through a consideration of its General Comments and a series of decisions under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure. It concludes with reflections on the contribution that the Committee’s jurisprudence makes to states’ guidance on age determination methods that are consistent with children’s rights.
Cash strapped! Can the multi-lateral human rights system survive the UN financial crisis?
Skelton, Ann (Sage, 2025-12)
The United Nations is facing a financial emergency so acute that it threatens not only the day-to-day functioning of its institutions but also the very architecture of the multilateral human rights system. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the institutional anchor of global rights protection, recently announced a shortfall of around US $60 million in its core budget, having received only US $179 million of the US $246 million allocated for 2025. Extra-budgetary funding, on which many of its programmes rely, has simultaneously been cut by another US $60 million. These are not abstract numbers: they translate into treaty bodies forced to cancel sessions for the first time in their history, special rapporteurs restricted to a single country visit each year, and commissions of inquiry struggling to secure the staff and resources needed to investigate atrocities. The crisis raises an unsettling question – are we witnessing a temporary budgetary glitch, or the beginning of a deeper unraveling, in which states no longer have the political will to sustain the human rights project they created? This column takes up that question by tracing the roots of the UN's financial shortfall, examining its immediate and long-term consequences, situating it against pre-existing weaknesses in the system, and exploring whether its timing – coinciding with an increasingly hostile global environment for human rights – is mere coincidence or symptomatic of a more profound shift. It concludes with reflections on survival: not through unbounded expansion, but through consolidation, reform, and above all, solidarity.
The role of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in strengthening accountability for attacks on education in armed conflict
Skelton, Ann (Frontiers Media, 2025-12-19)
Education is increasingly under attack in situations of armed conflict, with increasing incidence of schools bombed, repurposed for military use, education politicized, and children denied access to learning. This1 opinion piece examines how the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) is responding to these violations by integrating international humanitarian law (IHL), international human rights law (IHRL), international criminal law (ICL) and global accountability mechanisms into its recommendations. Drawing on recent concluding observations to the Russian Federation and Israel, the article highlights the Committee's evolving role in protecting children's right to education in conflict zones. It argues that the Committee is not only interpreting the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as a living instrument but also asserting its relevance within a broader legal and political context. The analysis concludes that the Committee remains a vital actor in the global effort to strengthen accountability in responding to attacks on education.
A case for enhanced collaboration between experts and diplomats in the United Nations to enhance girls’ rights
Swartz, Wendy; Skelton, Ann (Routledge, 2026)
Women's and girls' sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including access to comprehensive sexual education (CSE), are fundamental human rights recognised under international law. However, these rights are frequently restricted or denied, despite international frameworks intended to protect them. This article examines the relationship between diplomats and child rights experts within UN bodies, focusing on how diplomatic engagement either supports or undermines the work of experts advocating for girls' SRHR and CSE. It explores the political tensions and polarisation that arise when girls' rights are embedded within broader, often contentious, issues. These tensions impact how rights are interpreted and implemented at the international level. The article finds that, while UN documents increasingly acknowledge these rights, challenges remain in achieving consistent definitions and shared understanding among stakeholders. It concludes by calling for improved collaboration between diplomats and experts to ensure diplomats are better informed about SRHR and CSE developments. Strengthening this relationship is crucial to advancing and safeguarding the rights of girls within global human rights frameworks.
Child rights jurisprudence without borders : developments in extraterritorial jurisdiction
Skelton, Ann (Pretoria University Law Press, 2023)
This article elaborates on the development of a global child rights jurisprudence emerging from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (the CRC Committee), drawing from other treaty bodies and supranational bodies. It also considers whether the CRC Committee is ‘pushing the boundaries’ of international law on extraterritorial jurisdiction in its recent decisions, one of which concerns the repatriation of the children of foreign fighters in the camps in North East Syria, and the other relates to transboundary harms caused by climate change. The article concludes that these two decisions show evidence of a jurisprudence that crosses the boundaries of different bodies and courts, and which has extended the concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Realising the right to basic education through strategic litigation in Kenya
Skelton, Ann; Mutu, Perekeme (Pretoria University Law Press, 2024-06)
In pursuit of creating an inclusive and equitable society, the right to basic education stands as a cornerstone, serving as a catalyst for individual empowerment and social progress. It is not surprising that in Kenya’s Vision 2030, education stands as one of the pillars to actualise the objectives set out in that document. The constitutional framework of Kenya recognises education as a fundamental human right, which is the basis for the development of a knowledgeable and skilled citizenry. This article examines the crucial role that strategic litigation can play in actualising the right to basic education in Kenya, exploring the constitutional provisions that underpin this legal strategy and emphasising the pivotal role of the judiciary. The article argues that the Kenyan Constitution and the entire legal framework provide a solid legal background for civil society organisations and other interested parties to deploy strategic litigation to pressure the government for the realisation of the right to basic education in the country. However, the success of such efforts is largely dependent on how the judiciary understands its crucial role in driving the transformative potential of the Constitution.
Report on enforcing the rights of children in migration
Binford, Warren; Bochenek, Michael Garcia; Cernadas, Pablo Ceriani; Day, Emma; Field, Sarah; Hamilton, Marci; Liefaard, Ton; Mezmur, Benyam; Mulatu, Fasil; Skelton, Ann; Sloth-Nielsen, Julia; Stuart, Joao; Van Loon, Hans; Verhellen, Jinske (MDPI, 2023-10-19)
The ILA Study Group began its work by identifying guiding principles that should frame and inform state practices with respect to children in migration. These principles included, but were not limited to, non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival, and development; the right of the child to express their views on all matters affecting them; and the right to an effective remedy. The Study Group identified some of the most common rights violations for children in migration such as arbitrary age assessment practices; inadequate and age-inappropriate reception policies and facilities; and immigration detention of children and other coercive practices. The Study Group undertook a multidisciplinary approach by summarizing the research documenting the harmful effects of these practices on child health and well-being. It surveyed (1) treaties and international instruments that might recognize a right or remedy for children on the move; (2) regional and international fora where the claims of children could be heard; and (3) the growing body of regional and international jurisprudence upholding the rights of children in migration. Finally, it identified gaps in the international and regional frameworks and formulated recommendations as to how to ensure children in migration are able to enforce their rights and access justice.
Lack of access to insulin : undermining the rights of the child
Heller, Olivia; Duperrex, Olivier; Jaffé, Philip D.; Goldhagen, Jeffrey; Abidha, Carol A.; Skelton, Ann; Otani, Mikiko; Heller, Yvon; Vassalli, Jean-Dominique; Beran, David (Elsevier, 2024-07)
2024 marks the centenary of the League of Nations' Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The Geneva Declaration highlighted the health needs of children and proclaimed the duty of governments to respond to these needs.
Children's rights to access to justice and remedy : recent developments
Skelton, Ann (Sage, 2024-04)
No abstract available.
Turning the rights lens inwards' : the case for child rights-consistent strategic litigation practice
Nolan, Aoife; Skelton, Ann (Oxford University Press, 2022-12)
The last three decades have seen an explosion of academic, advocacy and policy-maker interest in both the theory and the practice of children’s rights. There is a growing global body of strategic litigation focused on the advancement of those rights through positive legal and/or social change. In this context, child rights have primarily played an ‘outward-facing’ role: used as a schema that should constrain or mandate the actions of external decision-makers that are the targets of litigation. However, children’s rights have not generally been used as a framework by which to assess, and as necessary, critique strategic litigation practice—i.e. as a lens to be turned inwards by litigators to consider the extent to which their practice is consistent with child rights standards. This article considers the case for child rights strategic litigation (CRSL) practice that is child rights-consistent. In doing so, it identifies CRSL-relevant rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and outlines how such rights arise in the litigation process. It ultimately posits that child rights can serve as a clear, multi-faceted framework that enables litigators to strengthen their existing practice in a legitimate, unified and coherent way.
Renewal and reform : special Issue on ‘realising the rights of children to quality early childhood development in South Africa’
Ally, Nurina; Ozah, Karabo; Peacock, Tess N, (Routledge, 2022)
Access to holistic, quality early childhood development (ECD) services is needed to support the health, nutrition and early learning needs of young children. While South Africa has made some advances in increasing access to ECD services for children in the democratic era, significant gaps and challenges remain. Almost two-thirds of young children live below the poverty line, a majority of the country’s poorest children do not meet learning and physical expectations for their age, and the position of children with disabilities is even more dire.
Giant leaps or baby steps? A preliminary review of the development of children’s rights jurisprudence in Zimbabwe
Magaya, Isabel E.K.; Fambasayi, Rongedzayi (Pretoria University Law Press, 2021)
This contribution provides an overview of children’s rights adjudication in Zimbabwe with a specific focus on emerging jurisprudence under the 2013 Constitution. After a summary of Zimbabwe’s performance in implementing children’s rights under both international and African regional law, the authors examine how Zimbabwean superior courts have dealt with the protection of children's rights. In order to give a fair assessment, we begin by reflecting on the Lancaster House (LH) Constitution (1980) and the resultant jurisprudence thus shedding light on how courts conceptualised children’s rights in the absence of a specific child rights provision in the Constitution. This is followed by an analysis of the emerging jurisprudence under the 2013 Constitution which specifically entrenches children’s rights. We focus specifically on cases decided between 2013-2019. A focus on seminal court judgements and how courts adjudicated children’s rights will guide the authors in ultimately deciding whether or not Zimbabwean courts have made giant leaps or baby steps in the protection and promotion of children’s rights under the 2013 Constitution.
Age of consent : a case for harmonizing laws and policies to advance, promote and protect adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health rights
Tallarico, Renata; Ozah, Ronaldah Lerato Karabo; Orievulu, Kingsley S. (Women's Health and Action Research Centre, 2021-04)
The article assesses the legal and policy frameworks that have an impact on adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health rights (ASRHR) in East and Southern Africa (ESA), confirming the interconnectedness of the ages of consent to sexual activity, marriage, and services and its influence on adolescents’ human rights. It reviews international, continental and national legal instruments used to identify relevant provisions on ASRHR in the ESA region. The region demonstrates substantial disparities between realities of sexual debut among adolescents, national (statutory and customary) laws and policies on ages of consent to sex, marriage and medical services, and international standards around these SRHR issues. These disparities constitute negative consequences: criminalising adolescents, entrenching child marriage, and excluding adolescents from accessing medical services required to secure and promote ASRHR. While some ESA countries lack clear laws and policies on the three issues, cases of internal contradictions and disharmony with international standards abound. This impacts on the full realization of sexual and reproductive health rights of adolescents and young people in the region.
Childhood sexuality in Africa : a child rights perspective
Kangaude, Godfrey Dalitso; Bhana, Deevia; Skelton, Ann (Pretoria University Law Press, 2020)
It is an undeniable fact that children in Africa face many challenges in their sexual health and development trajectories. One of the challenges that children face is ideological, that is, the social construction of childhood sexuality and the effects of that construction on law and policy and on what information and services children may access regarding sex and sexuality. Adults tend to represent children as sexually innocent and incompetent, and their actions toward children focus on preserving this sexual innocence and averting sexual risks. The article discusses how this ideological positioning of children shapes sexuality education, and the criminalisation of sexual conduct between consenting adolescents. Legal instruments and related interpretive instruments such as court judgments and the General Comments and Recommendations of treaty-monitoring bodies play an important role as they construct meanings of childhood sexuality that align with or contradict dominant representations of childhood as sexual innocence which has effects for children's sexual rights. The article analyses how General Comments of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the African Committee of Experts have represented childhood sexuality. It argues for the transformation of views about children toward perceiving children as having sexual agency to the extent of their evolving capacities, as a prerequisite to addressing challenges that children face in Africa relating to sexuality. It recommends that the African Committee of Experts should, in its interpretation of the African Children's Charter, construct childhood sexuality positively to represent children as sexual agents rather than positioning them as sexually innocent which also implies viewing any sexual activity of the child as inherently harmful or as a mark of deviance or corruption.
Too much of a good thing? Best interests of the child in South African jurisprudence
Skelton, Ann (Pretoria University Law Press, 2019)
The South African Constitutional Court is often lauded for its application of best interests in its judgments. This article acknowledges the positive aspects of the Court's approach, especially in the earlier cases, but also poses a question - does the Court go too far in applying best interests, in situations where an equally or more appropriate right in the Bill of Rights is available - or where a right can be more fully interpreted through recourse to international law? Two recent cases are analysed to demonstrate the concern. It is argued that the most rights-based approach is achieved with the Court pronounces on a clear rights violation, either in the Constitution or the Convention, and then use best interests to either weigh rights, justify a derogation of a right, to fill in any normative gaps where a particular right is not clearly enunciated in the Constitution or international law, or where it is necessary to show that the impact of an impugned provision would impact on children more heavily than on adults. It is concluded that the flexibility of best interests is useful, but it should not be used so ubiquitously that it prevents normative development of children's rights.
Foreword: “Imagining children constitutionally : 20 years of strategic litigation and advocacy”
Ozah, Ronaldah Lerato Karabo (Pretoria University Law Press, 2019)
In December 2018, the Centre for Child Law hosted a conference under the theme “Imagining children constitutionally: 20 years of strategic litigation and advocacy”.
The law as a tool to guarantee the inclusive education of the Nigerian child
Onuora-Oguno, Azubike; Onuora-Oguno, Blessing (Educor Holdings, 2018-12)
Educating a child with special needs or disability in Nigeria continues to raise concerns of a lack of quality. While education is provided for in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, it is seen as more of an obligation than a right by the majority of Nigerians. From the Nigerian child with a hearing impairment to the one with vision or mobility challenges, the question of their rights in education remain violated and neglected. The absence of equal treatment affects the dignity of the Nigerian child. It is on the above premise that the authors adopt a multidisciplinary approach to analysing the education of children with special needs in Nigeria. The study draws from international and national legal frameworks and argues that more needs to be done to ensure quality in education. In addition, the study advances the legal basis for holding governments accountable for failing to meet its obligations in the education of the Nigerian child. The paper is structured in different sections which deal with the legal framework, conceptual clarifications, and the advancement of the basis for demanding equal and quality education for the Nigerian child. Finally, the paper makes some conclusions and recommendations.
(De)criminalizing adolescent sex : a rights-based assessment of age of consent laws in Eastern and Southern Africa
Kangaude, Godfrey Dalitso; Skelton, Ann (Sage, 2018-10)
Age of consent criminal laws imposed on African states during colonialism were inherently patriarchal and gender-stereotypic, and continue to influence country approaches toward adolescent consensual sexual conduct. There are two major policy positions: a punitive and a nonpunitive approach. Most countries adopt the punitive approach. Mostly, legislation does not explicitly criminalize consensual sexual conduct between adolescents, and this leaves a gray area to be filled in by social and cultural norms that perceive adolescent sexual conduct negatively. Punitive approaches have been justified as necessary to curb harms to adolescents resulting from sexual conduct, including teenage pregnancies and sexual abuse. Age of consent laws, especially in their original colonial formulation deny adolescents, especially girls, sexual autonomy and agency. States focus more on punishment than on taking measures to address the structural antecedents of harms associated with sexual intercourse. States should reform age of consent laws to decriminalize consensual sex between adolescents in accordance with recognized rights of the child.
The right to basic education : a comparative study of the United States, India and Brazil
Veriava, Faranaaz; Skelton, Ann (Routledge, 2019)
The developing South African jurisprudence on the right to basic education suggests that the courts have adopted a substantive approach to interpreting the right. The Supreme Court of Appeal in its judgment in the case of Minister of Basic Education v Basic Education for All held that every learner is entitled to a textbook in every subject at the commencement of the academic year. The judgment further explicitly noted that the corollary to this entitlement is the duty of the state to provide these textbooks to each and every learner. The lower courts have similarly identified other entitlements that make up the content of the right to basic education. However, while the courts appear to be firmly veering in the direction of a substantive approach to interpreting the right to basic education, no discernable test for determining the content of the right is apparent from the jurisprudence. Furthermore, many of the education provisioning cases have necessitated repeated visits to court and increasingly creative, even coercive remedies to ensure compliance with court orders. This article will, therefore, undertake a comparative study of the United States, India and Brazil. It will examine the approach of the courts in each of these jurisdictions to interpreting the right. It will examine the efficacy of some of the remedies adopted by the courts in each of these jurisdictions to realise the right, whilst simultaneously mediating the institutional concerns in respect of the doctrine of the separation of powers. It will further examine the role of civil society in education litigation in each of these jurisdictions. The aim of the article is to draw on the lessons provided by each of these comparative jurisdictions so as to strengthen public interest litigation in respect of the right to basic education in South Africa.
Separation of children from parents in situations of migrancy : avoidable trauma
Skelton, Ann (Sage, 2019-03)
No abstract available.

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