265. Article 29 of the African Children’s Charter reads as follows:73
State Parties to the present Charter shall take appropriate measures to
prevent:
(a) the abduction, the sale of, or traffic in children for any purpose or in any
form, by any person including parents or legal guardians of the child.
(b) use of children in all forms of begging.
266. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons
Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (‘the PALERMO
Protocol’)74 defines ‘trafficking in persons’ as follows:
[t]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons,
by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of
abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of
vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve
the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose
of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of
the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour
or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal
of organs.
267. The Court notes that the Respondent State has ratified the Optional
Protocol to the CRC, which obliges it to ensure at a minimum that offering,
delivering or accepting a child by whatever means for the purpose of transfer
of organs of the child for a profit is criminalized.
268. The Court further notes, that the Ouagadougou Action Plan to Combat
Human Trafficking75 obliges states to take measures to eliminate harmful
73
Ratified by the Respondent State on 16 March 2003.
Adopted on 15 November 2000; entered into force on 25 December 2003; Ratified by the Respondent
State on 24 May 2006.
75 Ouagadougou Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings, Especially Women and Children
as adopted by the Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development, Tripoli, 22-23 November 2006.
74
61