Day of the African Child 2022

The 16th of June marks the International Day of the African Child. The date was given its designated status in 1991 by the African Union and marks the anniversary of the 1976 massacre in Soweto, South Africa, where students were killed during a protest against the inequality of the apartheid and educational injustice. It is a day earmarked to reflect on the need to protect and promote children’s rights, and therefore a day of significance for ACT who helps children otherwise forgotten.

This year’s theme for the day was ‘Eliminating Harmful Practices Affecting Children: Progress on Policy & Practice since 2013’. In 2013 too, the theme of the day was eliminating harmful practices, and 9 years later it is important to see what has been achieved but what problems still face African children.

While work continues to be done to ensure children in Africa have the rights they should, there are still many problems that face the youth of the continent, especially those out of school.

Child Marriage

UNICEF estimates that more than 1 in 3 young women in Africa were married in childhood. While the levels of child marriage vary across the different countries in Africa it is notable that of the 10 countries globally who have the top rates of child marriage, 9 are located in Africa. Child marriage comes with increased risk of domestic violence, higher chance of contracting HIV, and the potential for more high risk pregnancies – it is also fundamentally against a child’s human rights.

Child labour

In Sub-Saharan Africa alone there are 86.6 million children involved in child labour, and there are strong views that the work to decrease this number has stalled especially due to the impact of Coronavirus. The pandemic made many children more at risk to child labour due to more children being out of school. It cannot be overstated how important education is for children.

The above are just two examples of a plethora of issues that children in Africa can face, and it demonstrates how work must continue the work to ensure their rights.

ACT marks the day

At ACT we marked the day with an event run by our partners CDLI in Nigeria, who operate in the Ipaja region. It was an outreach event to those in the local community to emphasise how important it is for children to achieve a universal basic education. Those involved, including CDLI’s UK diaspora volunteer, went house to house distributing gifts to mark the day including clothing, food items and sweets for the children. The core message was how ‘education still remains the best legacy’ that children can have. Even if there is cause to drop out children should not give up, they can still re-enrol, while families with special needs children were encouraged to take their children to appropriate schools that can help them achieve their potential.

Students at the Soweto protests were marching because of the importance of fair and equal education. Today it is right that the same message is still raised, and ongoing problems brought to the agenda. When a child is enrolled in school they are much less likely to face issues such as child marriage or child labour, and is more likely to achieve their full potential – help us in our mission to help children otherwise forgotten by donating here.