Assessing The Legal Framework And Institutional Impediments In Protecting The Rights Of Street Children In Zambia: A Study Of Lusaka Urban

This dissertation focused on assessing the legal a frame work and institutional efficacy in a bid to protect the rights of street children as enshrined in the Universal Declaration for Human Rights of 1948 and the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights of 1981 to which Zambia is a signatory. For the purpose of this research, the institutions referred to are the law enforcements agents, Healthy Institutions, Educational Institutions, the judiciary, Family, the social welfare institutions, Government and the Non-Governmental Institutions. Despite having these institutions, the street children phenomenon and children‟s rights violation are on the increase seeking a more robust legal frame work to eradicate the vice. The study reveals that to curb this iniquity there is need to adopt an institutionalized integrated purposeful legal approach. The objective of this research was to audit and assess the laws which are child protection related. Inter alia, the major challenge discovered is the lacuna and discrepancy between effective law regime and the ineffective enforcement regime of the same. 

In its approach, the research was qualitative and quantitative in nature as it was through desk research in which secondary data sources such as various legislations, legal commentaries and other publications including unpublished works related to the subject have been consulted. Primary sources such as interviews and focus group discussions were also employed.

Change to the street children phenomenon was posited but can only be tackled attending to the macro and micro factors. While Macro factors are the external and uncontrolled factors such as economic, demographics, legal, political and social conditions, technological changes and natural forces, micro factors are small internal forces such as the public, family, institutions and other stake holders. It was also discovered during the research that there is a co-relationship between the macro-micro factors and the bio-ecological factors in the manner they impact on the development of a child. Notwithstanding the rapid erosion of family structures the number of street children is being exacerbated in an effort to find safety to the street. In this pursuit the family was given its protective and rightful place in the growth of a child. It was also revealed that the abuse of street children‟s rights is caused by correlated factors some of which are causative yet imbedded in weak laws.