Child Rights in ECOWAS : A Continuation of the United Nations and African Union's Positions on Child Rights?

Children have been subjected to abuse in West Africa despite the pro-child rights position of the Economic Community for the West African States (ECOWAS). Politics of identity, greed, warlords' activities, and poor government approach to development and multinational corporations' (MNCs) illicit adventures in the sub-region are among the prime suspect of contemporary erosions of child rights. Despite a plethora of international treaties, protocols and conventions subscribed to by the ECOWAS, and sometimes domesticated at state level, enforcement of child rights remains a pipe dream. From child soldiers, trafficking, prostitution, forced labour to activities of ritual killers, children's rights hardly receive proper attention in West Africa. The aim of this paper is to, through social constructivist theory, examine the interpretation, codification and enforcement of child rights in the world of unequal exchange. The paper concludes that neo-liberal arrangement is a snag in the realisation of child rights in the region.