Children’s rights cases topped the list of complaints received by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) last year.

Of the 10,525 complaints received in that year across human rights, administrative justice and anti-corruption — the three mandates of the commission, namely children’s rights complaints, which fall under the human rights mandate, topped the list of complaints with 3,509 cases.

The children’s rights complaints received were mainly on failure to pay maintenance; provision of necessities of life for the child in respect of food, education, health, clothing and shelter; right to paternity, custody, inhuman treatment, right to be named, and early and forced marriages.

A Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mercy Larbi, who disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said of the 10,525 complaints, the commission was able to resolve 9,915 of them, representing almost 94 per cent of the complaints.

She said the 10,525 complaints constituted a 0.5 per cent decrease over the 10,574 complaints received in 2022.

CHRAJ’s mandates

Giving a breakdown of the complaints received last year under each of the three mandates of the commission, Ms Larbi said human rights mandate, which comprised of areas including children’s rights, women’s rights, socio-economic and cultural rights; civil and political rights; rights of people living with disabilities and migrant rights, recorded the chunk of the complaints, with 10,156 as against 9,909 complaints received in 2022; 8,421 in 2021 and 8,379 in 2019.

Also, 332 complaints were received under the administrative justice mandate, which covers complaints such as premature retirement, wrongful termination of appointments, unlawful dismissals, failure to pay salary under entitlement, arbitrary confiscation of properties by the state and public officials, destruction of properties, failure to prosecute, delay in dispensing justice and abuse of power.

Ms Larbi said 37 complaints were recorded under CHRAJ’s anti-corruption mandate, covering extortion, conflict of interest, abuse of office and corrupt practices.

Providing further explanation on the huge number of complaints received under children’s rights, she said, it meant the rights of children in the country were being violated and there was, therefore, the need for attention to be given to that area.

She called on parents to take good care of their children and stop violating their rights, pointing out that when they neglect their children and also fail to provide them with basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing, they violate their rights.

Human rights

Making reference to the trend of complaints received under human rights, she said, it showed that the country was making progress and people were now aware of their rights such that when they were violated, they knew where to seek redress.

“If you know you have a right and someone violates it, but you don’t have any place to seek redress, it is dangerous. The constitution has spelt out a lot of places you can seek redress and CHRAJ is one,” she said.

On the way forward with this report, Ms Larbi said in compliance with the law, the report would be submitted to parliament, which had the responsibility to interrogate it and come up with laws or reforms where necessary.

For CHRAJ, she said, it would have to intensify its education on human rights where it received a lot of complaints, adding that the public needed to know their rights.