key: cord-0728467-yw6uqfw6
authors: Amadasun, Solomon
title: Covid-19 palaver: Ending rights violations of vulnerable groups in Africa
date: 2020-06-25
journal: World Dev
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105054
sha: 5c21e2b2a9dedcf38cff7e9647bfe62e0cc9ceaa
doc_id: 728467
cord_uid: yw6uqfw6

This letter amplifies the rising spate of human rights violations exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. It notes that while governments in the region have declared restrictions on social gathering, in a bid to curtail the deadly disease, violations of human rights of vulnerable groups by State security operatives are on the increase. It argues that the underlying rationale for such abuses emanates from the dearth of a rights-based approach to police-public relations combined with inadequate public health and social care infrastructures for large sections of the populace. Policy implications are drawn out while suggestions are offered to social work professionals given their longstanding commitment to national security and national development.

Today, more than ever before, State political structures are premised on contractual agreements between the governing class and the governed. Social contract theorists have long spoke about commensurate relations among the ruling class and the followers in which the former, via the ballot, determines the outcome of policy-making. From idealism to pragmatism (Haack, 1976) , such contractual principle-under the auspices of a democratic architecture-have now become a normative venture across political dispensations and transitions in many regions of the world, including Africa. With a history of colonialism and chequered but corrupt civilian rule, as well as tyrannical military regimes; many African countries have now successfully overcome these dark past through the enthronement of a relatively stable democratic structure in the polity. Currently, with a minimum of more than a decade 1 experience of democratic governance, does it portend an uphill task to anticipate a decline in human rights violations, typified by the highhandedness of law enforcement officials? Since human rights reflects an integral aspect of democratic rule, how long will it have to take to become institutionalized in Africa especially given that many state officials are quick to announce the entrenchment of democracy in their respective countries to the rest of the world? At about the time when these state-sponsored rhetoric was beginning to gain traction in global human rights discourses (Amadasun, 2020c) , the COVID-19 pandemic has irrevocably shed light on the double standards and despotic dispositions of many African leaders. Across the region, there are reported cases of violence against citizens by security forces who were deployed to enforce curfews and lockdowns (UN, 2020a; France24, 2020) . Suffice to say that such rights violations are not a matter of an isolated case since deaths and injuries resulting directly from these excessive use of force have been reported in many African countries including Nigeria (Human Rights Watch, 2020; AFP, 2020; Khalid, 2020), Zimbabwe (Ndangana, 2020) , Kenya (Odhiambo, 2020) , and South Africa (Siviwe, 2020; Kunene, 2020) . Pointedly, reports emerging from Nigeria-Africa's largest population and economy-indicate that more than one hundred cases of rights violations, resulting in eighteen deaths, have occurred between March and April alone (Human Rights Watch, 2020). Beyond this, gender-based violence have intensified in countries where promulgation of shutdown or stay-at-home orders have been implemented (UN, 2020b; Odhiambo, 2020; Beech, 2020) . In a strict sense, this comes as no surprise as prior evidence suggests that public health emergencies can exacerbate multiple forms of violence that women and girls already contend with (UNICEF, 2018) . Again, if we expand on human rights to include social and economic rights which prioritizes access to pivotal healthcare services, then children's rights are equally being denied on a frightening scale (UNICEF, 2020). This situation is warrantless and poses legitimate concerns to social policy response and social work professionals (Amadasun, 2020a (Amadasun, , 2020b .

In addition to the desirability of social justice, social policy response must address root causes that heightens the vulnerability of people to abuses. As have been noted, people who are most susceptible to abuses are those at the fringe of society (Amadasun, 2020c; Amadasun and Omorogiuwa, 2020) . In this regard, instituting framework for the retraining for law enforcement agents and which should address their compliance level, and that provides feedback from the citizens is cardinal to preventing and stymying future rights violations, and restoring trust among the public and security officials. On the other hand, providing accountable leadership that prioritizes investments in pivotal healthcare infrastructure and social protection programmes is a policy imperative. On their part, social work professionals-given their longstanding insistence on social justice and respect for human rights (Amadasun, 2020a) can form alliance with African Human Rights Commission to challenge human rights abuses across the continent. This could be achieved through active involvement in policy practice and advocacy, from where they can lobby with policymakers. Also, since human rights is a universal principle, social workers (through their national bodies) and other key stakeholders can liaise with regional and international voluntary, statutory, and/or quasi-government actors to call to order African leaders who directly or subtly abets violators. Taken together, by instilling a rights-based consciousness among security officials (through seminars, workshops, and symposia, for instance), enlightening the public of their fundamental human rights (through the mass media), and promoting investments in public health and social infrastructures, the trenchant curve of human right violations of undervalued groups in Africa may become flattened.

The youngest democracy in Africa is Tunisia, and the country's path to democratic rule began in 2010, following the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi when the country's police-state tried to confiscate his vegetable cart.

2 Many African government, directly and indirectly, supports human rights abuses on their citizens either through their actions that openly gives moral to security operatives to continue the dastard acts or through their inactions which is construed as approval by law enforcement officials. Kicking against violations connote calling out violators, at the minimum, in the stead of keeping mum.

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