Celebration Of Day Of African Child 2016

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Wars and conflicts put children in situations where children‘s rights are violated, including the right to life, the right to live in a family environment, the right to health, the right to education and the right to survival and development. New trends in armed conflicts in Africa have resulted in new challenges for the protection of children .Africa is officially the fastest growing continent in the world.

Sadly, it is also the most conflict-prone region with three out of 10 African children living in fragile, conflict-affected regions or countries, and an estimated 12 million children internally displaced throughout the continent and with 40% of Africans aged 14 or younger.

During conflict situations, children are affected, in that they are subject to killing or maiming as civilians, despite taking no active role in the conflicts. Therefore, it is considered inhumane to perpetuate violence to civilians including children, in particular murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture in terms of customary international law. The Geneva Conventions provide for the protection of civilians against hostilities and the prevention of unnecessary collateral damage resulting from combat operations. These protocols apply to both states and non-state armed groups and in all situations of armed conflict. At all times children need to be protected from serious injury as a result of the armed conflicts, and they should be afforded an inherent right to life regardless of hostilities surrounding them.

During conflict children are often denied the right to access universal primary and secondary education, thus limiting their chances for better education. The proportions of school going children and the out of school children becomes unbalanced when the conflicts continue, school dropout often increases due to security reasons, thus increasing the number of illiterate children. It is therefore an international call that the targeting of schools and hospitals must be forbidden because it violates children‘s rights to access the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

To a large extent, the challenges in ensuring the elimination of armed conflicts and crises in Africa, center around the social, economic, political, environmental, cultural and religious factors. Therefore, any intervention to curb Africa‘s challenges in eliminating conflict and crises should place the best interest of the child as a primary consideration

Africa is endowed with an abundance of minerals and natural resources, which have a potential to change societies. The development of the African natural resource base requires improved governance, in order to avoid conflict. Environmental degradation due to extraction of natural resources such as water resources and climate change, have the potential to increase conflict. The global challenge of climate change requires a global solution as it depletes Africa‘s natural resources. The sustainability of Africa‘s natural resources is at risk and children may be robbed of the chance to enjoy and benefit from the natural resources of the continent if the climate change challenge is not resolved.

The challenge of poverty and inequality cannot be separated from conflicts and fragility. Africa has currently many conflicts and instability as a result of inequality, where the gap between the rich and poor continues to increase exponentially. The social-economic situation of many of African communities requires political and economic solutions that will proactively deal with the high levels of poverty and inequality, resulting in local level violence.

The celebration of the DAC 2016 focusing on ―Conflict and Crisis in Africa: Protecting all children‘s rights, comes at an opportune time as the continental study on the impact of armed conflict on children in Africa would have been completed. This provides a deeper understanding of the impact of armed conflict on children in the continent. In the celebration of the DAC 2016, focusing on conflict and crisis in Africa: Protecting all children‘s rights with the plight of African children in conflict situations characterized by six grave child rights violations: recruitment into armed forces; killing and maiming; sexual and gender-based violence; attacks against schools or hospitals; abduction; and denial of humanitarian access, it must be understood that in the devastation that accompanies conflicts and crisis, children, being one of the most vulnerable segments of the civilian population, are negatively affected in various ways. The protection of all children‘s rights is therefore critical and must be prioritized.

African conflicts are characterized by a large number of child soldiers employed by governments and rebel groups. Boko Haram carried out mass abductions including the kidnaping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. The students were allegedly forced to convert to Islam and into marriage with members of Boko Haram. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility of the kidnappings vowing, among other things, that the girls should not have been in school and instead should have been married since girls as young as nine are suitable for marriage. As a result of the activities by Boko Haram, an estimated 10, 000 pupils have been forced out of state schooling by the groups‘hit-and-run attacks.

IDAY calls on human rights bodies, the governments, regional economic communities, and the international community to urgently elevate the Child Protection Agenda for children affected by conflict situations and to prioritize the protection of life and wellbeing of African children, specifically:

• Emphasize the importance of creating and maintaining a safe and conducive environment for children to grow, develop and mature properly during the period of childhood

• Establish an integrated stakeholder forum, where governments, international organizations, regional organizations and civil society can work collaborative to strengthen the mechanisms for ensuring that the Six Grave Violations against Children are eliminated.
• Establish a systematic framework for the coordination of humanitarian responses for children in conflicts and crisis in Africa.

• Promote the ratification and domestication of the African Children‘s Charter, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography; and the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
• Regional Economic Communities to increase the collaboration amongst Member States and other AU human rights’ frameworks to help strengthen preventative and responsive action towards conflict, and to condemn and prosecute sexual and gender based violence, irrespective of the perpetrators. This also necessitates strengthening case referral mechanisms and creating awareness of their existence.