Human right education in sub-Saharan Africa: An overview of some challenges and prospects

This analysis takes up the issue of human rights education in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that human rights education is necessary for shifting the status of sub- Saharan Africans from subjects—mostly to local and international power relations—to citizens: with rights and responsibilities. The feasibility of this process is analyzed by looking at the challenges to its materialization, mainly those factors that have denied human right awareness to a majority of persons in the region. These include the question of culture, entrenched power structures including socio-economic hierarchies, and some matters arising from the transfer of knowledge from one to another in the process of human rights education.   Key words: Human rights, education, Africa.