CHILDHOOD THREAT IN AFRICA

A child strapped in his mothers back does not know how far the journey is as it is surrounded with love, care, protection and security.
However, poverty denies children their dignity,endangers their lives and limits their potential.
conflicts and violence robs them off a secure family life, betrays their trusts and hope. HIV/AIDS kills their parents, teachers, doctors and nurses and even the children themselves.
Millions of children are under threat in many African countries. Pictures of children, boys and girls scavenging for remains of food in the rubbish piles,coerced into carrying riffles in the jungles, forced into prostitution on the streets, orphaned by the killer disease AIDS are very common.
Pictures are replicated changing the image of children as they grow up in poverty, caught up in poverty, armed in conflict or made vulnerable by AIDS pandemic.
Child labor,exploitation and abuse face today's African child. According to to the convention of children, every child has a right to: non discrimination,identity, family relations and parental guidance, special care if disabled, education, benefit from social security,protection from abuse and neglect, protection from child labor, trafficking, sexual and drug abuse.
Children have been often considered the property of their parents. Any inherent value was thought to derive from their potential economic productivity thus making wrong forceful decisions for them.
I will end my piece of journal with words from former UN secretary, Koffi Annan that that only as we move closer to realizing the rights of all children, will countries move closer to their goals of development and peace.