Goma, Congo – It had already been a long day when Case No. 4, woman with delinquent husband, walked into the chambers of the so-called Children’s Parliament.
The aggrieved woman sat in front of a large wooden desk, where skinny, 14-year-old Eddy Musoke – the Honorable Eddy, to his parliamentary colleagues – recorded her story with the seriousness of a seasoned attorney.
“The case was of a woman with six children,” he explained afterward, glancing down at the fresh file. “She came to accuse her husband of being an irresponsible father. He has six children, and for three years, the father has paid no school fees.”
Life in Congo can often veer toward the absurd. It is one of Africa’s richest countries in terms of mineral wealth, but its people are among the poorest on Earth. Federal employees go to work each day, but most have not been paid in more than a decade.
With government institutions, including the courts, hobbled by decades of corruption and neglect, one of the few bodies still reliably administering justice is a parliament run by, and mostly for, children.
Launched in 2002, the U.N. initiative has taken on a life of its own, with 150 members and little day-to-day adult supervision.
One recent Friday, there were no adults in sight except those pleading for help from the children. The parliament’s officers took a break from a busy schedule – lobbying to free children from prison that morning, four cases in the afternoon – to discuss their work.
“Mostly children bring cases here,” said Arthur Omar Kayumba, 16, seated at a desk on which a folded piece of paper read “Vice-President.” “Sometimes they are accusing their parents of not taking care of them, or women are accusing their husbands of not supporting the children,” he said. “Since January, we’ve had more than 105 cases.”
Although the parliament cannot render legal rulings, officers do offer recommendations – “moral advice,” Kayumba called it – based on their study of Congolese law and U.N. conventions on children’s rights.
In Case No. 4, for instance, “if the father says, ‘OK, I will take care of my children,’ he will have to sign a document promising he will,” Musoke said.
“We listen to both parties and try to assist them based on the conventions and the constitution,” Kayumba added. “And we show them the consequences of not respecting the law.”
Most adults listen to their decisions, he said, but “if not, we contact the special police.” The police do not always follow up, but when they do, consequences can range from a reprimand to fines to jail time, depending on Congolese law, Kayumba said.
The United Nations has initiated other children’s parliaments in Africa, which are meeting at a convention later this year to discuss, among other topics, how to address the plight of children worldwide.
The original officers in Goma were selected by their teachers on the basis of their academic records. Now, officers are elected by the parliament’s members.
The precocious leaders strictly enforce rules requiring that members be younger than 17. Adults can be honorary counselors if the members agree.
