[child-rights] Children are Africa's greatest resource

***Learn more about the International Day of the African Child, 16 June
2006: http://www.hrea.org/feature-events/african-child-day.php

 
NEW YORK, 16 June 2006 – UNICEF celebrated the Day of the African Child
today, calling on the world to recognize that children are Africa’s
greatest resource.

“On this Day of the African Child, we celebrate children as the future of
Africa,” UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said Friday. “But we
also recognize and address the considerable problems they face – from
extreme poverty and conflict to malaria, malnutrition and HIV/AIDS.”

The Day of the African Child is celebrated on June 16, the day in 1976
when thousands of black school children in Soweto, South Africa, took to
the streets to protest the inferior quality of their education and to
demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young
boys and girls were shot; and in the two weeks of protest that followed,
more than 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.

“This landmark event was a demonstration of great courage and conviction
by the children of South Africa, who stood up for what they believed,”
Veneman said. “It is a powerful reminder of the decisive role that
children can have in bringing about change and of the importance of
ensuring a quality basic education for all.”

To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who
marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every
year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of
African Unity. The Day also draws attention to the lives of African
children today.

The theme of this year’s Day of the African Child is violence against
children, which threatens the physical, emotional and psychological
well-being of children. Violence is a particularly pressing threat to the
current and future well-being of Africa’s children because of the
continent’s disproportionate burden of conflict, extreme poverty and
HIV/AIDS.

Children in emergencies are at particular risk of gender-based violence
given their limited ability to protect themselves and the disruption of
family and community protection.

“It is hard to think of an act against girls and young women that can be
more damaging or enduring than sexual violence,” Veneman said.

“Sexual violence is also a major factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS, which
is having a devastating impact on children, particularly in sub-Saharan
Africa. Rape is routinely used as a weapon of war, and the poverty that
conflicts bring often leaves girls and young women destitute. For many of
them, trading sex for survival becomes the only option.”

Women and children who flee their homes because of armed conflict become
dramatically more vulnerable to violence, abuse and exploitation – which
in turn heighten their risk of HIV infection. In Darfur, for example,
where nearly 2 million people have been displaced by conflict, it is
estimated that at least one-third of the victims of rape are children.

And because of HIV/AIDS, Africa’s children are losing their best
protection – their parents. In sub-Saharan Africa, 12 million children
under the age of 18 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Supporting
these children, as well as children living with HIV/AIDS, is one of the
goals of Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS, a global campaign to
limit the impact of HIV and AIDS on children and halt the spread of the
disease.

The impact of violence on children in Africa, and throughout the world,
will be examined in the upcoming Secretary General’s Study on Violence
against Children. The global study, to be released in October, looks at
violence in five settings: the home and family; schools; other
institutional settings; the community and on the streets; and work
situations. It will make recommendations for preventing and responding to
violence against children.

Veneman said that violence against children in Africa, as elsewhere, not
only undermines children’s health, self-confidence and ability to learn,
but also holds back global development.

“If children are not protected from abuse, progress toward the Millennium
Development Goals will be undermined,” Veneman said. “Poverty, illiteracy,
early mortality and other challenges facing children are exacerbated by
abuse.”

UNICEF Press release