Friday, 31 July 2015

Bringing the plight of the African Child to the Fore



Bringing the plight of the African Child to the Fore
Global attention is today focussed on the plight of the African child and efforts directed towards ameliorating their predicaments. Since 1991, June 16 every year has been observed as the International Day of the African Child. It is a day set aside to celebrate the life of African children.
The Day was set aside by the defunct organisation of African Unity (now African Union) in remembrance of the massacre of innocent children and adults who participated in June 16 Soweto uprising in apartheid south Africa in 1976. On that day, some children who joined a marched in protest of the declining quality of education and demanded their rights to be taught in their native languages were shot and killed. The day was established to mark not only the courage and sacrifice of those in Soweto but to give a voice to the plight African children.
Each year, a particular issue of significance to the African child is assigned for the world to especially direct attention at. This year’s theme is: planning and budget for children, our collective responsibility. The imperative for joint initiatives in planning and scheduled budgets for projects pertaining to African children was underscored by statistics revealing that about thirty eight million children across the continent still remain out of school. Data also show that as many as fifty thousand African children under the age of five will lose their lives as a result of preventable or curable diseases. These figures are staggering and urgent steps are no doubt needed, to address the situation.
Children of Africa’s fifty four countries are all unique and diverse; nonetheless they share the same struggle for daily survival, as diseases is often rampant., with child labour and deployment of children for combat as child soldiers are common on the continent, their diversity aside the children of Africa are often displaced by force of urbanization than any other continent. They suffer more than any other nations from HIV/AIDS. Education is a right all too often  missed while child labour and trafficking often surpasses its demand.
Child survival, protection and development are not only universal aspirations enshrined in the millennium Development Goals; they are also human rights issues ratified in the international convention on the Rights of children and the African charter on the rights and welfare of the child. Thus, investing in the health and education of African children is a sound economic decision and one of the surest ways for a country to secure its future.
Although the official MDGs 2008 report show that there is widespread progress in primary school enrolment, fees for items such as uniforms, stationery and meals as well as reduction  in armed conflict however, lack  of birth registration, child labour and HIV/AIDS still keep about thirty eight million African children of primary school age out of school. Reports paint a grimmer picture of conditions for girls as more devastating, the higher the ladder of education, the wider their rate of dropout.
Collective efforts at planning and budgeting would no doubt ensure that vulnerable and marginalised children are enrolled and remained in school. The step will propel governments to embark on targeted programmes and interventions, such as setting up satellite schools in remote areas, eliminating school fees, providing school meals, ensuring a safe school environment and promoting later marriage. It has also been proven that political commitment plays a significant role in addressing the challenges confronting the African child today. Countries like Rwanda, Malawi Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and Ghana are good cases.
Malawi for example has moved from being a country devastated by hunger to a regional food supplier in recent years. It is second to Costa Rica globally in reducing child mortality by more than three quarters in the past years. Zambia has made great strides in HIV testing, prevention and education after late president Levy Mwanawasa declared a national emergency in 2004. By the end of the year he had surpassed his goal of providing thousands of its citizens with antiretroviral treatment.
When it seemed impossible for pastoral communities in Kenya to access education, the government designed mobile classrooms in which the children of nomads access education as they wander about in search of water and pasture for their cattle.
Other African countries should take a cue from these examples by giving children the attention they deserve. Governments on the continent should summon the political will to address the plight of children. More so as it has unarguably been proven that any country that neglects the wellbeing of its children does so at its peril.
BY GARBA .A. USMAN
U14/MCM/2016
KUW/MCM/Group/20

No comments:

Post a Comment