It is generally agreed that if you want to know the future of any country, you should check the provisions made for the children and youth. Together with women, these groups are the most vulnerable and bear the heaviest brunt of disasters, wars and epidemics. This situation is as acerbated by some of the life-denying cultural and traditional beliefs that disadvantage women children and youth. These sectors of society are most times not considered as priority and especially children, are considered mostly as a second thought. Even in this 21st century if you ask a household Head how many people there are in his household, it is common for him to say 7, plus 5 children. Children are most times not counted as full members of the household.
Despite the promulgation of the convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its domesticated statutory documents like the Child Rights Act, children in particular are grossly depraved and are left scavenging on the streets with little or no attention paid to them. The Day of the African Child, June 16, has come and gone with various activities for children.
The Ebola scourge that this country recently went through exposed a lot of deficiencies in especially our health service delivery. Almost a year on, I am not sure we have demonstrated that we have learnt our lessons. I say so because the issues that aggravate diseases are still with us. Children are the unfortunate recipients of the ineptitude of the adults placed in work places that are supposed to provide services to the public.
In the principle of First Call, no matter the situation of the government or parents, children’s full complement of their rights should be met. It should not be made conditional. Of course you might say this is a tall order in a country like ours, but I say it is not.
In development one of the most overused word is “Empowerment” which can be described as,” an all-embracing process of enhancing capacities of individuals, organizations and communities in the areas of human, logistics, economics and technology for sustainability”. Sometimes when I look at the very high rate of illiteracy in Sierra Leone hovering around 75% and the alarming school drop-out rates, I wonder in the next 50 years what our education and development situation will look like. Any way right now our leaders will like us to be talking about prosperity when the poor and depraved illiterate farmer in Nomo Farma is still on subsistence farming, thanks to the Ministry of Agriculture’s outlandish and grandiose projects, the bulk of which has not taken us to another level.
The huge challenges we have in Sierra Leone seem so huge that it could well be larger than the country itself.
We can hardly curb corruption with the brand of megalomaniac strategies among our high and mighty. What beats my imagination is that people with tainted credibility are often and again recycled into the system to perfect their rotten trade and mentor younger ones to impoverish the nation.
In all this, how generally secure are our children and women. We all know that the empowerment of women is critical to the survival of the child. Even with all efforts made, in this 21st century it is still largely a man’s world. The power relations in the homes and community do not favour women. Command and control is firmly the domain of the man. The resultant negativism of this is that the survival of the mother and her kids remain in the hands of the father especially in rural communities.
We need to open up our country side and develop it socially, educationally and technologically; more and more parents will be sending their children to the regional headquarters to go to school because better facilities abound there. Now some or most of the children sent to the big towns are not with direct relatives and sometimes even, they are in independent living and thus the girls stay exposed to sexual exploitation and harassment.
So far we are yet to see stronger political commitment to the child protection policies and related Acts like the Child Rights Act, the Devolution of Estates Act, Sexual offences act and The Domestic violence Act. Some of these were enacted as far back as 2007 but we are yet to see visible impact as there remains very weak support for actualization. Even in this Freetown there are cases of early marriage and childhood betrothal.
We are yet to see firm deterrent actions. It is good that authorities have started taking birth registration seriously. Without birth registration our birth dates could be any body’s guess. This also creates issues for elections. We have a huge number of under-aged children allowed to vote on the basis of the grown heights. These days when mothers are more enlightened on diets for their children, you can have 15 year olds actually tall enough to be mistaken for 18 year olds. The failure to register our children’s births is the beginning of the trampling on the rights of our children’s rights.
Another protection issue is the parental abandonment, albeit by default. Parents who are both preoccupied in this work-a-day world, may hardly have time to take direct care of their children. Most times they rely on some other person. When this happens the child is at the mercy of these so –called Nannies, House Boys or House Girls. Some times in fact it is these who lead the kids astray in their bid to be flexible and endear themselves to them. What many people fail to understand is that the Nannies also have their own children to take care of but can’t because they have to make some money to take care of the home. It’s a catch 22 situation. Is it morally right for a Nannie to abandon three kids in order to take care of one kid of a rich man? How much is the pay any way?
In the schools there are many instances where kids are bullied by older ones and sometimes nothing absolutely happens. School going should be a pleasure. In the 60s we looked forward to going to school even on Saturdays and Sundays. Yes with 1 cent we could have our fat pan cake soaked up with palm oil and pepper and that’s it. We also had the bulgur wheat and Cornmeal… God bless the US of A that donated them. You see American dominance of the world did not start yesterday. Today most kids go to School on empty stomach. The fortunate ones are given money for transportation and lunch. Good as this might be, it has introduced our kids to money. They now carry money on them and one disadvantage is that they now know the value of money so much that they always want more money. It also encourages kids who are not given money to steal from those that have. Some kids forgo the transport and lunch and buy little electronic games that in turn take up so much of their interest and time at the expense of their studies.
In addition to all this, many school authorities have now learnt how to remunerate themselves out of sheer advantage over the pupils. In most schools kids are asked to give money for all sorts of things. Most of these issues are never discussed with the SMC or the CTA. Where salaries are not paid on time, it is the kids that suffer. When teachers strike, it is the kids that suffer. We can all remember early 2014 when ACC had to quiz some school authorities for asking for money from pupils before they could get their results.
How heartless! I wonder if these are really trained and qualified teachers and administrators. What is more, this is happening in both government assisted schools and private schools. Shameless! I taught at the Albert Academy for five years in 1977 to 1981. Oh those were part of the glorious days of education in Sierra Leone. Almost all teachers were trained and qualified. Those from Margai College were grilled before graduation. I can remember when we took home bundles of our kids’ books to mark assignments. The Teacher had dignity and respect. How about now?
By Beny Sam
Tuesday June 28, 2016
ADVERTISEMENT