Enjoyment of human right to health as it is widely known is vital to all
aspects of a person’s life and wellbeing and is crucial to the realization of
all the other fundamental human rights and freedoms. This right includes
the right to health facilities, access to goods and services to be
guaranteed to all without discrimination of any kind.**
52.The efforts undertaken by the State Party in realizing this right should be directed
towards the prevention of diseases and health problems, and the provision of the
necessary health care services. In ensuring adequate nutrition and safe drinking water
to all children, the CRC committee emphasized that school feeding programmes, and
the provision of safe and clean drinking water are essential to combat disease and
malnutrition.*°Failure to provide safe drinking water amounts to a violation of the right to
the best attainable health under the Charter.°°
53.Looking at the case under consideration, the poor conditions in the daara, combined
with a lack of clothes and shoes for the long days on the street, increase the
vulnerability of the talibés to different forms of health challenges. Forced to beg for food,
many are also extremely malnourished. The Committee notes that when the falibés get
sick their marabout rarely provides medicines, in some instances requiring them to beg
even greater hours in order to pay for their own treatment. More often, despite their ill
health the talibés continue begging to satisfy the quota.
54.The Respondent State has the obligation to assure that children are not deprived of
access to health care services. It should further take all the necessary steps to avert
any kind of institutional, cultural and financial obstacle to accessing health care
services.°’ The State should not tolerate any practice which violates the right to health of
children.** It must assert that third parties do not deprive children of their right to access
medical service.
55.As submitted by the complainants, the talibés are not practically entitled to adequate
sanitation and nutrition which in effect endangers their health. The Committee notes that
the marabouts as caregivers have failed to ensure that the talibés get medical service.
56.Hence the Committee concluded that the Respondent State has failed to provide the
necessary sanitation and nutrition to the talibés and it has also failed to take measures
against the marabouts, who accommodate talibés in squalid health conditions. The
Respondent State has not taken appropriate steps within its available resource to
prevent
disease
and
malnutrition,
as
well
as
to avoid
barriers
to access
the
health
4 Communication 241/2001, Purohit& Moore v The Gambia, Decision at the 33° Ordinary Session of the African
Commission, May 2003, 16" Annual Activity Report, Para 80
*8 Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 15, Article 24 on the right of the child to the
enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, 2013, Para 2(c)
*° Communications 25/89, 47/90, 56/91, 100/93, Free Legal Assistance Group, Lawyers’ Committee for Human
Rights, Union Interafricaine des Droits de I'Homme, Les Te’moins de Jehovah v Zaire, October 1995, para 47
*7Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 15, Article 24 on the right of the child to the enjoyment
of the highest attainable standard of health, 2013, Para. 1
*®SERAC v Nigeria, Communication No. 155/96, para 2
a5.