Human Rights in Togo - Children's Rights

Children's Rights

Children born in Togo or to Togolese fathers automatically become citizens of Togo. In cases where the father is unknown or is stateless, children inherit their mothers' citizenship. Children are required to attend school until age 15, but parents must pay for books and cover other expenses. Child abuse is common, and the law against child sexual exploitation and child prostitution is not well-enforced. Statutory rape is not illegal. There is a degree of child marriage, especially among Muslims. A 2007 law guarantees a wide range of protections for children, and in 2009 the government set up a toll-free line to report child abuse. But the government does little to help orphans and other children in need. Togo is not a signatory of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Female genital mutilation has been illegal since 1998, but the law is rarely enforced. According to the U.S. State Department, in 2010 the procedure was performed on about 6 percent of girls. A 2012 report by the German Federal Office for Migration and Asylum noted that the “abolition” of FGM “was officially announced and celebrated at a national ceremony in Sokodé on 29 and 30 December 2012.” Thanks in part to a German NGO that has run nationwide information campaigns about FGM, and actively sought to help FGM practitioners find other work, “there has been a continual decline in female genital mutilation.” The German report puts the rate of FGM in girls under 14 at 0.7 percent in 2008 and, contrary to the U.S. State Department report, at 0.4 percent in 2010.” In 2012 it was believed to be even lower.

According to a 2012 U.S. State Department report on trafficking, “Togo is a source and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking....Near the Togo-Burkina Faso border, Togolese boys are forced into begging by corrupt marabouts (religious instructors). Togolese girls and, to a lesser extent, boys are transported to Benin, Gabon, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and subsequently forced to work in agriculture. Children from Benin and Ghana are recruited and transported to Togo for forced labor. Traffickers exploit Togolese men for forced labor in Nigerian agriculture and Togolese women as domestic servants. Some reports indicate Togolese women are fraudulently recruited for employment in Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Europe, where they are subsequently subjected to domestic servitude or forced prostitution.” The Togo government is not doing much to prevent these crimes, but it is trying to do more than it used to. Still, the U.S. State Department issued a long list of recommendations for improvements in legislation, enforcement, prosecution, and prevention.