Protecting West Africa’s Street Children: ECOWAS Parliamentarians Issue Urgent, Strategic Recommendations in Freetown
Meeting from April 8 to 12, 2026, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as part of a joint committee meeting of the ECOWAS Parliament, West African deputies placed at the heart of their work the theme of “regional legal and policy frameworks for the protection of street children in the ECOWAS region.” This issue, once considered a peripheral social concern, is now recognized as a regional emergency requiring concerted, sustainable, and cross-border responses.
During five days of intense exchanges, parliamentarians from the committees on social affairs, gender, human rights, trade, as well as peace and security, examined in depth the structural causes of the growing presence of children in West African streets. Between persistent poverty, armed conflicts, population displacement, the breakdown of family structures, and the accelerating effects of climate change, the debates highlighted a multidimensional reality that weakens millions of children across the region. For example, in countries like Nigeria and Mali, climate-induced droughts have driven rural families into urban slums, where children often end up on the streets to survive. Similarly, the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin has orphaned thousands, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking.
The work was enriched by expert presentations, notably that of Chigaemezu Regina Amadi from the ECOWAS Commission, who provided an overview of existing legal frameworks while highlighting the limitations of their implementation. Although regional instruments such as the Child Policy 2019-2030 and the 2017 strategic framework exist, their application remains hampered by a lack of resources, insufficient institutional coordination, and a deficit of reliable data. For instance, many member states lack dedicated child protection budgets, and inter-agency collaboration between ministries of social affairs, education, and justice is often fragmented. Without accurate, real-time data on the number and location of street children, interventions remain reactive rather than preventive.
Throughout the sessions, parliamentarians also held public hearings and conducted field visits, which allowed them to compare analyses with lived realities. These activities highlighted the difficulties of reintegrating children, the inadequacy of psychosocial support, and the weakness of coordination mechanisms between the various services responsible for child protection. The testimonies gathered reinforced the sense of urgency and the need for more coherent regional action, particularly in the face of cross-border challenges such as child trafficking and exploitation. For example, children from Burkina Faso are often trafficked to Côte d’Ivoire for forced labor on cocoa plantations, while those from Guinea are moved to Senegal for street begging. Without cross-border protocols, these children fall through the cracks of national systems.
Discussions also focused on new threats, including online exploitation and cyberbullying, which further complicate the protection of vulnerable children. In this context, parliamentarians insisted on the need to strengthen existing regional mechanisms, notably the ECRIMS information system, to improve data collection and sharing. ECRIMS, the ECOWAS Regional Information Management System, is designed to track cross-border crime and vulnerable populations, but its child protection module remains underfunded and underutilized. Expanding it could enable real-time alerts for missing children and coordinated rescue operations across borders.
At the conclusion of the work, the joint committee formulated several major recommendations. In particular, it advocated for:
- Cross-border protection and referral systems to ensure continuity of care for children on the move, including standardized intake procedures and case management across borders.
- Secure repatriation and reintegration protocols to prevent the risks of trafficking and abusive separation, with a focus on family tracing, psychosocial support, and vocational training.
- Strengthening regional data-sharing mechanisms through the expansion of the ECRIMS system, including dedicated child protection dashboards accessible to all member states.
- Development of specific, adequately funded national strategies that integrate access to education, healthcare, legal identity, and justice adapted to children’s trauma. For example, a child-centered legal aid fund could help street children obtain birth certificates, which are often a prerequisite for school enrollment and healthcare access.
These recommendations, derived exclusively from the work of the joint committee meeting in Freetown, constitute a first step in the parliamentary process. They must be submitted to all deputies of the ECOWAS Parliament for review, possible amendments, and adoption in a plenary session. If adopted, they will become binding guidelines for member states, potentially unlocking regional funding and technical assistance.
Beyond the commitments made, parliamentarians recalled that the protection of street children is no longer just a humanitarian imperative but a strategic issue for the stability, security, and sustainable development of West Africa. Street children are often recruited by armed groups, exploited by criminal networks, and denied basic rights, perpetuating cycles of poverty and violence. By investing in their protection, ECOWAS can break these cycles, reduce migration pressures, and build more resilient societies. The parliamentarians thus called for increased mobilization of states and regional institutions to translate these guidelines into concrete actions, including the establishment of a dedicated regional fund for child protection.
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