child labour in africa

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VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN



MONROVIA, Liberia,
Peace came to Liberia in 2003, after 14 years of brutal, devastating civil war. Since then, progress to rebuild the country has been significant: the restoration of infrastructure, public services, the economy and the rule of law is well under way.
Despite positive strides towards a restored society, sexual violence against women and children remains a central reality of life in Liberia, where the United Nations maintains its second largest peacekeeping mission (UNMIL) anywhere.

Children concerned about security

According to police statistics, week after week, rape – especially of girls between the ages of 10 and 14 – is the most reported crime.

Sexual violence occurs across all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds; women may be socialized to accept, tolerate or rationalize it. A weak justice system, the lingering violence of the war and an unwillingness to report instances compound the situation. No one is safe from assault.

Note: Liberia remains one of the poorest countries in Africa with the majority of its population below the poverty line.



The UNMIL Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Rule of Law, Henrietta Mensu-Bonsu, said starkly:
“The children of Liberia have indicated that their one main concern is security and that they are not safe anywhere – not in the home, not at church, not in the mosque, not in the classroom"

They are vulnerable everywhere because so many different groups prey on them.”



Nearly 300,000 refugees and internally displaced persons have returned to their homes in 2005 after the end of a brutal 14-year civil war.
Peaceful national elections have been held, but the re-establishment of state authority and law and order has only just begun.
The state of social services country-wide is still far below pre-war levels.
More than one third of the population, and an even higher proportion of the country’s children, lives on less than $1 a day.
HELP FOR THE VICTIMS

Help for victims of violence

Victims of sexual violence suffer health and psychological burdens that affect every aspect of life.
One 15-year-old told of a horrific attack in her own home, perpetrated by a friend of her father. “He called me in his room,” she recalled.
“He held me and lay me down on the bed. I began to shout. He had a knife beside him. He said that if I talked he would kill me. He then put a cloth in my mouth. I was fighting to get out.”
To help young girls and women reclaim their lives, UNICEF supports a safe-house programme that provides food, medicine and counselling.

“We eat three times a day. The counsellors play with us and joke with us. We play baseball, we play tag. It’s a place where we all can be happy,”

said the thankful 15-year-old.
UNICEF Representative in Liberia Rozanne Chorlton said the safe house is “a confidential location where girls who have been badly sexually exploited can be taken and cared for, and given the kind of intense counselling and psychosocial support they need – until they can re-grasp their lives and restore their dignity and self confidence enough to be able to go back to their communities.”

‘Zero tolerance to rape’

Since the inauguration of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Africa’s first female head of state in 2006, the issue of sexual exploitation and violence towards women and children has become even more salient.

“The President has made it very clear that the international community, together with the people of Liberia, need to work together to combat sexual and gender-based violence,”

said the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Recovery and Governance at UNMIL, Jordan Ryan.

“Courts have to work, prosecution has to work [and] people have to have a zero tolerance to rape.”

Today, as Liberia struggles to recover from its violent past, sexual violence and exploitation is under attack from all angles.
Safe houses, new laws, new partnerships, increased monitoring and additional public awareness of the crime are making concrete inroads to create a safer, more prosperous future for all Liberia’s people.



Major Issues facing children in Liberia

Liberia’s infant and under-5 mortality rates remain among the five highest in the world.
More than 15 per cent of children die before reaching their first birthday.

Preventable diseases like malaria and measles are among the leading killers of children.
Malnutrition and respiratory infections kill thousands of children each year.

Nearly 40 per cent of children under age five suffer from stunting as a result of malnutrition.

Nearly 40 per cent of the population does not have access to safe water, and nearly 75 per cent does not have access to adequate sanitation.


Statistics show an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 5.9 per cent; the actual rate is believed to be higher.
Armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and other diseases have orphaned an estimated 230,000 children.

Half a million children do not attend school.



Two thirds of students are being taught by unqualified teachers. Girls’ enrollment rates lag far behind those for boys.

Despite the cessation of fighting, armed forces along the borders with Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire continue to recruit children into their ranks.

There are many ways you can help. you can sponsor a child online or adopt one if you have what it takes. There are also great organizations like UNICEF, feed the children, habitat for humanity, world vision, etc.
you can support any of these organizations in whatever ways you can to help make a difference.

You can also help by spreading the word to others. You can also help by supporting peace and saying NO to war and violence.
It is never too late. you can save a live today so act now.

STREET CHILDREN IN AFRICA - KEABETSWE'S STORY
Name: Keabetswe
Age: 12
Country: Botswana

Keabetswe lives mostly on the streets and is able to attend school only sporadically. But he knows that the streets are no place for a little boy. Keabetswe's vulnerable nature comes out when he is at Bona Lesedi, a day care center for orphans which literally means "See Hope" in the Setswana language.

At Bona Lesedi Keabetswe leans on Nono Molefe's shoulder, one of the centre's co-directors, and becomes a little boy looking for some attention and a cuddle. And Nono gives it willingly.
Now that Keabetswe has found a place that gives him some hope for a better life, he is glad to stop pretending that he can hack the street life. (life in Africa : urban slums)
"Since the outbreak of HIV/AIDS, the basic needs of many children like Keabetswe have not been met," says Nono. "They need education, love, food and sometimes shelter. We give them clothes, we help them with school work, and they go home just to sleep."

But there are some 2,000 orphans in Kanye alone, and only 200 who come to the center – a stark illustration of how many more children still need to be reached. child labor in Africa: street children
The rising number of orphaned children in Botswana is a direct result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has hit sub-Saharan Africa harder than anywhere else.

Over 12 million children in the region have been left without parents and without a childhood as a result of the epidemic.

In Botswana, the country with the second highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world, 15 per cent of all children have been orphaned and, if the present trend of the spread of HIV infection continues, an unprecedented number of children will be left without parents and traditional caring mechanisms will soon be unable to cope.
These days, for children like Keabetswe, attention centers like Bona Lesedi are the only hope for a better future. (Life in Africa: child labor: urban slums)
Note: Keabetswe's sad life story is better than stories of most children in Africa especially orphans in the rural areas who have no day care centers and nobody to give them even a tiny light of hope. Most of these children have no voices at all. Some die in bushes and some die in rivers unknown. Help give some of these children voice so they can tell their stories. It is never too late. You can help a child today.
POVERTY, HUNGER AND HIV/AIDS - MARY MWASI'S STORY
MARY MWASI'S STORY

There are days when Mary Mwasi does not know where she will find the strength to get out of bed. But sickness, exhaustion and despair will not feed the children or fetch the water, and so, somehow, she wills herself erect and steps into the sunlight of another Kenyan morning.

"I have to look for food for the children day by day," she told a counselor for the US charity World Vision.
"Life is difficult. Unless I get help from well-wishers, we cannot afford to eat."
Like many other residents of Ghaza, a village near the port city of Mombasa,
Mrs. Mwasi is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At least one of her three children is also HIV-positive and the others are often ill -- whether from the disease or malnutrition, she cannot be sure.

Her husband left in search of work two years ago and never came back, so she lives on sufferance on her in-laws' land -- fearful that they will learn of her condition and expel her from the community. Her only financial assets are a few chickens, held in reserve to buy medicine for the kids.
She knows there is no hope for her. Her concern is for her children.

"We say, 'When you pour water on the ground, you cannot pick it up again,'" Mary told the counselor.

"I did not think of so many things before, so many worries. I am trying to leave everything to God."

As HIV/AIDS enters its third calamitous decade, Mary Mwasi's plight has become tragically common in East and Southern Africa, the regions hit hardest by the global epidemic.

With 10 per cent of the world's population, impoverished sub-Saharan Africa is home to two-thirds of its HIV-positive population. But it is only recently that doctors, governments and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS have realized that not only does the global struggle against AIDS have an African face, it is increasingly the face of an African woman. As infection rates mount, scientists and researchers are scrambling to understand the causes and to fashion new policies and programmes in response. poverty Africa

The need for urgency is clear. In July, "UNAIDS" announced that of all Africans aged 15 to 49 who are HIV-positive, women make up a disproportionate 57 per cent. Even worse, noted UNAIDS Deputy Director Kathleen Cravero, of those in the 15 to 24 age group, fully 75 per cent were young women. "That's a remarkable figure," she told Africa Renewal.

"We're actually looking at young women becoming almost an endangered species in Africa due to this epidemic."

Part of the explanation for the staggering rates, she continued, is biological. Because of their reproductive systems, women's bodies are more susceptible to infection by the human immuno-deficiency virus than are men's bodies. That is particularly true of sexually active young women, whose bodies are still developing.
CHILD LABOR IN GHANA - CHILD ABUSE IN WEST AFRICA


CHILD LABOR IN AFRICA (FULL STORY)

Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes
KETE KRACHI, Ghana



Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, Mark Kwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor.

It was time for work. Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile out from shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishing net, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping. He last ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings. child labor in Africa

“I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Mr. Takyi’s earshot.

Mark Kwadwo is 6 years old. About 30 pounds, dressed in a pair of blue and red underpants and a Little Mermaid T-shirt, he looks more like an oversized toddler than a boat hand. He is too little to understand why he has wound up in this fishing village, a two-day trek from his home. But the three older boys who work with him know why.
Like Mark, they are indentured servants, leased by their parents to Mr. Takyi for as little as $20 a year. Until their servitude ends in three or four years, they are as trapped as the fish in their nets, forced to work up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, in a trade that even adult fishermen here call punishing and, at times, dangerous. child labor in Africa

Mr. Takyi’s boys conscripts in a miniature labor camp, deprived of schooling, basic necessities and freedom are part of a vast traffic in children that supports West and Central African fisheries, quarries, cocoa and rice plantations and street markets. The girls are domestic servants, bread bakers, prostitutes. The boys are field workers, cart pushers, scavengers in abandoned gem and gold mines.
By no means is the child trafficking trade uniquely African. Children are forced to race camels in the Middle East, weave carpets in India and fill brothels all over the developing world.

The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, estimates that 1.2 million are sold into servitude every year in an illicit trade that generates as much as $10 billion annually. Studies show they are most vulnerable in Asia, Latin America and Africa. ppp Africa’s children, the world’s poorest, account for roughly one-sixth of the trade, according to the labor organization. Data is notoriously scarce, but it suggests victimization of African children on a huge scale.After you read the rest of this story, you wonder what madness we live in--a global system that allows this to happen. child Abuse: child labor in Africa


Major issues facing children in Ghana

One third of rural populations lack access to safe drinking water, and only 11 per cent have adequate sanitation. Guinea worm, a parasitic infection largely attributable to drinking unsafe water, continues to plague Ghana which reported more cases of Guinea worm than any other country in 2004.
While the HIV prevalence rate seems to be stabilizing in Ghana, the countries’ comparatively low number of HIV/AIDS cases masks considerable variations by geographic region, gender, age, occupation, and to some degree, urban-rural residence. It has been estimated that only 30 per cent of AIDS cases are reported, in part because of stigma, but also due to factors such as reduced health-seeking behaviour, and inadequate access to health services.

Nationwide, only 469 eligible HIV-positive children (aged 0-14) were receiving crucial Anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Given that more than 6,000 children are eligible for ART, there is still an enormous gap in the area of pediatric ART.

Proper iodization and use of iodized salt remain a challenge in Ghana. Figures show that 51 per cent of households consume iodised salt, but only 32 per cent of households adequately iodized their diet.

Birth and death registration continues to be relatively low in Ghana due to severe capacity constraints and the Birth and Death Registries where registration is still largely done by hand.


Although countries like Ghana in West Africa re beginning to show signs of improvement in terms of education and economic improvement, others such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, Nigeria, and Nigeria (with a population of a bout 160 million people) show little or no improvement at all. The living conditions in some of these countries are getting worse by the day despite various efforts put into place to help raise the living conditions in these countries. Bad leadership and corruption are two of the major problems facing most of these countries.

Population explosion in addition to corruption is the main reason why a country like Nigeria remains poor despite all the efforts both internally and externally. Tribal conflicts and political instability in some of these areas drives investors away and halts economic development. Female education is also very poor in some of these countries with very low enrollment rates compared to boys and because of that the rate of teenage pregnancy keeps rising in these communities.



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SEXUAL ABUSE CHILDREN



CONAKRY, Guinea - Dyaritaou Bah, 23, was married at the age of 14 to a man who was 30 years older that herself. She was sent from Conakry to live in Europe with her husband, who sent a stipend back to her family every month.
Dyaritaou's story is very common in Guinea, where many parents allow their young daughters to marry in order to improve their economic lives.

"I was born in the capital city of Conakry into a family with four wives and more than 20 children. My mom got married at 13, herself,” Dyaritaou recalled.
Note: Such sexual abuse stories of children are very common in Africa especially in the rural areas where barbaric traditions reign supreme with very little or no protection at all. Dyaritaou is amongst the few lucky ones who have gotten their voices heard. Millions of child sexual abuse victims in the rural areas of Africa have no voice at all.



Sexual and emotional abuse
From the ages of 14 to 21, Dyaritaou had three pregnancies. However, none of her babies survived at that time because she was being abused. Neither did she have the option of refusing to have sex with her husband. When she refused, she was raped and assaulted.

Her husband also often threatened to send her back to Africa, saying her family would never forgive for leaving the man who was sending them money every month.
Not knowing what to do, the 14-year-old spent seven years enduring severe emotional and physical abuse in an unknown country, far from her home and family.

“I would think about my mom who counted on me to help her improve her life by staying with this very unkind husband, and my dad who also counted on him to send my older brother to Europe for education,”
Dyaritaou said.
She said she felt like she had “the pressures of a 40-year-old woman on my shoulders.”


VICTIMS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE



Violence against women

Dyaritaou’s first experience with violence towards women was at the age of eight, when she was a victim of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), another common practice in Guinea. Approximately 96 per cent of women in the country have experienced FGM.

“My grandmother took me to the bush with a woman who had knives and other materials in her bag,” Dyaritaou said.
“They put me on the ground… and cut something from me. It hurt so much, I cried my head off for days while others where celebrating my initiation to womanhood – it was just the beginning.”



Now helping others
By the time Diaryatou left her husband at the age of 21, she had lost most of her childhood.
She could neither read nor write, nor could she speak any language other than her native tongue, Fulani.
Thankfully, Diaryatou was eventually helped by a social worker women in France, who taught her to write and become literate.

Diaryatou then wrote a book about her life and started a non-governmental organization (NGO) called 'Association Espoir et combats de femmes' to help women who have been victims of sexual violence.

UNICEF Guinea has partnered with several NGOs like Association Guineenne des Assistantes Sociales (AGUIAS), who works with communities to provide medical care, counselling and safe housing.

AGUIAS has branches in five communities within Conakry, where they provide education and job training to children who have been victims of child trafficking, domestic violence, child abuse, gender-based violence and FGM.


Major Issues facing children in Guinea

Children under age five in refugee camps have lower rates of malnutrition than those in the general population. Fully one third of children are stunted.
Just over half the population has access to safe drinking water sources.
A cholera epidemic affected 2,500 people between April and October 2005, killing 85. Outbreaks of yellow fever were also reported.

HIV/AIDS has orphaned thousands of children. Orphans and other vulnerable children usually have to leave school and work to survive.

Children who are separated from their parents often become the victims of violence, abuse, exploitation or trafficking, or are recruited into militias.
Girls’ school enrollment rates lag significantly behind those for boys.

Major Issues facing children in Benin

Under-5 mortality is still very high: About 150 of every 1,000 children born in Benin will die before their fifth birthday.
Widespread poverty is increasing the vulnerability of children and hindering the implementation of many social programs.
Only half of children who begin attending the first grade will complete primary school.
Benin’s educational system faces a shortage of trained teachers (especially female teachers) and well-constructed schools. Teachers’ strikes have disrupted efforts to enroll and retain students.
Many children have to travel long distances to the nearest school, which poses a particular hurdle to girls’ attendance.


Ghana shows great signs of improvement

Data suggest that Ghana has already achieved gender parity at the primary and junior secondary levels.

In partnership with key government and non-government actors, Ghana has worked successfully toward improving the level of girl’s education in 15 districts where parity levels were low.
Seventy-eight per cent of the population is now using an improved source of drinking water and 60.7 per cent have access to improved sanitation. The sanitation figure presents a significant increase over comparable household surveys completed in 2003.

An integrated maternal and child health campaign included distribution of 1.5 million long-lasting insecticide treated nets to children 0-11 months of age, administration of vitamin A to children under 5 years and to lactating women, de-worming of 2-5 year old children (nationwide) and administration of 3 million supplemental doses of polio vaccine to children under 5 years.

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