Addis Ababa - African nations must invest in services such as education that address the root causes of conflict and promote peace, thereby reducing the risk for current and future generations relapsing into violence conflict and crisis.
This was a central theme that emerged during the Day of African Child that was celebrated all over Africa on Thursday.
In Ethiopia, it was held in Gambela Regional State with refugees from different countries living in camps joining in celebrations.
Ethiopia is the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa hosting close to 300 000 South Sudanese refugees, among which the majority are children.
Out of the total refugees and asylum seekers in Gambela, around 12 percent are living within the host communities and sharing all basic social services.
The theme for this year’s Day of the African Child was “Conflict and Crisis: Protecting Children’s Rights”, a theme Catherine Wanjiru Maina, senior social worker at the secretariat of the African committee of experts on the rights and welfare of the child (ACERWC) at the AU, says is a pertinent one.
“Conflict, fragility and insecurity are among the most significant development challenges of our time,” she told African News Agency (ANA) via phone from Gambela.
Globally more than 230 million children live in places fraught with conflict, fragility and instability and nearly 90 million children under the age of seven have spent their entire lives in conflict zones, UNICEF estimates.
The Day of the African Child has been celebrated every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organisation of African Unity. It honours those who participated in the Soweto Uprisings in 1976 on that day. It also raises awareness of the continuing need for improvement of the education provided to African children.
In Soweto, South Africa, on June 16, 1976, thousands of black school children marched in a column more than half a mile long, protesting the poor quality of their education and demanding their right to be taught in their own language.
Hundreds of young students were shot, the most famous of which being Hector Pieterson who died that day.
More than a hundred people were killed in the protests that followed, while thousands were injured.
Last year, the ACERWC commissioned a continental study on the impact of armed conflict on children in Africa as part of its efforts to elevate its child protection agenda.
“Children living in conflict are often exposed to extreme trauma, putting them at risk of living in a state of toxic stress, a condition that inhibits brain cell connections with significant lifelong consequences to their cognitive, social and physical development,” Maina explained.
“Currently Africa has so much conflict and it is the children that suffer a lot. Childhood does not wait. They tell us their dream and their desire to go to school and have proper medical follow ups. Sadly we don’t know their future.”
Access to quality education can minimise inequalities or grievances among conflict affected communities and it can strengthen skills, attitudes and values that support peace, she added.
– African News Agency