The United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) together with its partners has commemorated World Children’s Day with a youth takeover dialogue in Accra.
It was under the theme: “African dialogue 2017: The Africa I want.”
The dialogue brought together 10 boys and girls from Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo to deliver talks on issues affecting children and the youth on the African Continent.
The children spoke on issues of child neglect, hunger and malnutrition, child abuse and female genital mutilation and child denial to formal education, sanitation, child marriage and food security.
These issues they believe are quite prevalent in most of the member countries and suggested solutions to address the ills to safeguard their future and help them realize their full potential.
Jaden Michael, a 14-year old activist and UNICEF advocate said, “World Children’s Day is about listening to us and giving us a say in our future. And our message is clear, we need to speak up for ourselves, and when we do, the world must listen.”
Speaking in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, Anne-Isabelle Lecercg Balde, UNICEF’s Communication Specialist, West & Central Africa Regional Office, said there have been burning issues affecting children across the world which demand that they are given a platform to speak about them to help reduce their frustrations.
“The time has come to motivate these children with the objective to talk about issues that are affecting them for solution,” she said.
She explained that UNICEF provided the platform to encourage the children to make their case because it is their plight and they can express it better to draw the attention of the policy makers in their distinct countries.
A UNICEF survey conducted on children between ages 9-18 in 14 countries exposes various forms of unfair treatments that children are subjected to.
According to the report, children across the 14 countries expressed worry about the issue of terrorism, poor education, violence against children and poverty as their prevalent issues that they would like world leaders to address.
It said, migrant children in the various countries experienced all forms of unfair treatments where migrant children in Mexico, Brazil and Turkey experienced the heist form, a situation that all international treaties and protocols frown on but still persists.
By Emmanuel Kubi