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Momodou
Denmark
11826 Posts |
 Posted - 26 Jun 2007 : 18:59:28
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POVERTY CAN SEPARATE A CHILD FROM FAMILY -Halifa Sallah
By Abdou Jeli Keita
June 16 was set aside by the then OAU and now AU for all African countries to commemorate as a reflection of the condition and plight of African Children, in particular, the school children of Soweto in South Africa, "who were massacred by the then barbaric, racist, and extremely cruel apartheid regime in 1976. This year's theme is "Child Trafficking." Halifa spoke on "The role of families and communities in protecting children from trafficking".
According to Halifa, "When the world was young and communities were separated by forest and wild animals, human beings were confined in small communities because of inability to cross rivers and forests, when there were no televisions or radio stations, when people knew only what existed in their communities, society was very small, peoples movement were very much restricted and families were very close to each other." He said that during such an era, "Parents were responsible for the upbringing of the children," noting that "they transferred knowledge and skills and values to children." He indicated that mothers took charge of instilling in children respect for human life and fowl play by making animals speak the language of justice. Mothers, he said, made different stories to fight different forms of injustices. Since step-mothers, step-fathers, used to maltreat orphans, they developed stories of children who were orphans. Stories of somebody like, Samba and somebody like Kumba would enable children to reflect on the suffering of these orphans from the discrimination and injustice perpetrated by a family who gave regard to their biological child at the expense of the orphan." He said that these fables always ended by depicting how the favoured child ended up in tragedy and the child who is discriminated emerged successful and victorious. He emphasized that these stories were meant to inculcate values. "This is what one calls socialization, that is, inculcating values into the mind of the person so that one knows the type of life one should live. Halifa added that as societies developed, and the communities expanded, the frontiers were broken. That development and change reached a point where communities could provide adequate food in the past, could no longer provide what was needed, it could not even cloth the children. Many families for one reason or another would send a small child away in search of economic means to be able to address wants." He gave as example that in our sub-region families would ask their children to say go to a particular area where they could work during holidays to earn what they needed to go to school. "Others did so to prepare for marriage. This has happened here and it is still happening," he noted. "We are aware of cases where children are transported outside of this country to another land. Yes, young girls have been transported to other lands where they were treated like slaves, without any rights. They have been subjected to exploitation and some of them even came back home poor and wretched," he added. He said that today these people are adults, "Adults still living in poverty, adults still living shattered lives. It is unfortunate that we are yet to document the experiences of these people and I would strongly recommend that this is done. We should reach them to learn from their experiences. We should get them to talk to the young to help them to really understand what is child trafficking by explaining what they went through. They are better teachers, because, they have experienced what we are talking about."
Halifa drew the lesson that it is these injustices against the child, the vulnerability of the unprotected child, that led human society to put the discussion on child rights on the historical agenda. The issue of child rights is highly misunderstood by many people in the society today. Halifa indicated that our experience teaches that poverty leads to the separation of a child from the family that should be the major protector of the child. Greed can make another person in the community take in that child and subject him/her discrimination and exploitation. He said that there have been cases where people are told that they can get "diamond by sacrificing a human being."
Such people snatch children and offer them as human sacrifice. He argued that we can see that when society breaks down and lacks the capacity to take care of its young the young becomes vulnerable and can be the subject of the trafficking of human beings; that Furthermore when people are not imbued with human conscience, when they do not treat other human beings as worthy of living the quality of life that their children are living, greed can lead them to discriminate those children, to exploit and to even kill them just for their own gain.
He said that the reason why we have these conventions is to help us to understand what a human being is entitled to, to foster commitment to such principles. Halifa emphasized that we cannot put an end to child trafficking until we put every aspect of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice. He said the Convention provides the guide on how to put an end to child trafficking. He said Article 5 of the Convention states that, we must respect the rights and responsibilities of parents to provide guidance on how children should learn then rights according to their evolving capacities; that parents have the responsibility to care for their children, children have a right to care, parents must care for their children. He said a parent cannot guide a child unless one is close to the person,' you must be with your child, to be able to help that child to grow and exercise his/her rights'. Such a child cannot become the subject of child trafficking he intimated. He said that Article 7 of the Convention entitles the child a right to a name. "We have developed a system whereby we gather on the seventh day of existence of the child to give the child a name. Adults assemble because of the importance of the child. Most of us think of somebody we love and respect among our fathers, mothers, relatives, friends to name after. In this way the child is seen to belong to a community. This makes the community to recognise and respect the child. Once this is done we should recognise that the members of the community have equal responsibility to help that child to become the type of adult who will be named after. He emphasised that, if we build that value system a child cannot end up being missing. He said a child who is known and respected by the community would not be a subject of trafficking, it will be impossible. Halifa then observed that "we are talking about restoring real concern, the culture of concern for children. Since it is indisputable we believe that the child is a part of the community, then the community must also be a part of the child," It means that the society we have today which embodies a community of people who are separated from each other, people who do not share the same values, who do not even speak about child up-bringing, cannot protect the child from trafficking. "If we want to build communities that can protect the child we must do what you are doing now, the young people today are engaged in peer group socialization, that is why you are here today. It is essential then for us to realise that the reason why we have this Convention on the Rights of the Child is to help provide us the guiding principles to help society to develop socially, economically, culturally so that parents will be to able to safeguard the rights of the child to protection and development.
"If we don't develop they head towards self destruction, they also destroy us along. So it is important for us to realise this. If we do not accept to develop, circumstances will dictate what we do. The life we save is the very life that will save us or the lives of our children. We should organise radio programmes and educate the public on the dangers of child trafficking.
Parents may form community groups to discuss how to build families and communities that can protect children. Children should also form peer groups associations for their own self protection: The media should be utilized to promote greater understanding of rights and duties. Young people must realise that they must either take charge of their society or the adversities of life will push them into the self destruction."
Halifa added that the community must also accept its responsibility to protect the child. That the life one protects is the life that will protect those of others including oneself. That if we leave people to head towards self destruction they will end up pulling the rest of the community down with them. That each must be the other's keeper. That is the only type of world fit for us to live in.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 72/2007, 22-24 June, 2007
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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