Publisher's Synopsis
This series of 19 essays represent the winners and honorable mentions from the African Essay contest on human rights abuses and corruption in Africa. It was run by the International Human Rights rt Festival's African Secretariat, and its President Wole Adedoyin. In Africa, the idea of human rights is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Contributing to the establishment of human rights system in Africa are the United Nations, international law and the African Union which have positively influenced the betterment of the human rights situation in the continent. However, extensive human rights abuses and violations still occur in many sections of the continent. Most of the violations can be attributed to political instability (as a consequence of civil war), racial discrimination, corruption, post-colonialism, economic scarcity, ignorance, illness, religious bigotry, debt and bad financial management, monopoly of power, lack/absence of judicial and press autonomy, border conflicts, unauthorized intrusion of privacy, establishment of laws barring specific of free expression, criminal defamation laws that are usually indistinct, restrictions on freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and association, corruption of government officials, lack or absence of independence and neutrality in the judiciary, gross domestic violence against women, prohibition of same sex activities, sexual abuse on LGBTI persons, and human trafficking.
