Congo sets penalties for involving children in drug use and trade

The Republic of the Congo’s child-protection law, signed on 14 June 2010, punished encouraging a child to use drugs or employing a child in drug production and trafficking. The listed penalty was one to five years and a fine of 1–10 million CFA francs.

Drug policy already had a prevention mandate

A committee created in 1994 was meant to support prevention, treatment, social integration and research. Yet the government’s 2010 report on children’s rights described severe operating difficulties and an anti-drug project that had stopped functioning.

The same report discussed children living in the street, young people and former combatants among those affected by drug and alcohol problems. It also described work by the health ministry, local associations and UN agencies to provide care and prevention activities.

The law addressed both use and exploitation

President Denis Sassou-N’Guesso signed the child-protection law after adoption by the National Assembly and Senate. Its general definition covered people under eighteen who had not already reached majority through a special legal rule.

The drug section prohibited encouraging a child to consume narcotics, drugs or alcohol. It also prohibited using children in producing or distributing those substances.

A neighbouring rule addressed the worst forms of child labour. It included using, recruiting or offering children for illicit activities, particularly narcotic-drug production and trafficking. The protections therefore reached the adults involving children in the drug market.

A specific penalty backed those protections

The criminal-penalty chapter set one to five years and a 1–10 million franc fine for inciting a child to use the substances or using a child in their production and trafficking.

The government’s report described existing laws as insufficient to protect children and called for stronger action. It also recorded prevention work through school clubs, public information and organisations working with vulnerable children.

These legal duties sat alongside practical difficulties: police and customs lacked training and equipment, and the report said the judicial-police drug service had only two officers.

The later drug law kept the child-law reference

When Congo adopted its general drug law in 2025, it expressly referred to the child-protection penalty while setting a separate offence of knowingly supplying controlled substances to a minor.

The two laws placed children’s protection within Congo’s drug legislation through rules on encouragement, supply and recruitment into production or trafficking.^[1][2][3]