The children are the future leaders
The rights of children are fundamental and inherent rights of all human beings below the age of 18. These rights are applicable to every child, irrespective of his/her origin, race, colour, sex or creed.
The essential message here is equality of opportunity. Girls should be given the same opportunities as boys. All children should have the same rights and should be given the same opportunity to enjoy an adequate standard of living.
Child rights may be broadly classified as the rights of all children to: survival, development, protection and participation.
Child rights are important to be upheld due to the fact that children are innocent, trustworthy and full of hope.
Their childhood should be joyful and loving. Their lives should mature gradually as they gain new experiences in life. But for many children, the reality of childhood is altogether different. Through history, rights of children have been abused and exploited. They suffer from hunger and homelessness, like African countries work under harmful and dangerous conditions, suffer high mortality rate, lack basic healthcare and limited opportunities for basic education. In Sierra Leone today the street children do not have any privilege from government. As a childhood can and must be preserved, children have the rights to survival, development, protection and to participate in decisions that impact their lives.
These should be the basic rights of all children across the world as defined in the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – an international human rights treaty to which 191 countries are signatories.
The Charter of Child Rights is built on the principle that “ALL children are born with fundamental freedoms and ALL human beings have some inherent rights.”
A case study to show that the reality of childhood is altogether different is those used by destitute parents to aid them in earning their daily living as beggars.
The million dollar question that begs for a reasonable and tangible answer on this issue is what does the future hold for these children who are left to languish, perish as a result of exposure to all sorts of criminal and harmful street lives.
They are supposed to be future leaders but see how pathetic it is it that they are not treated as such.
Most or all of these disadvantaged children this writer had spoken to expressed interest in education. The fact is, however, their parents cannot afford the expensive education system in the country, and hence they have no alternative but to follow them in the degrading act of begging.
One of the destitute, an old blind man named Pa Momodu Kamara intimated that it is not his wish to use his only child in Sierra Leone to beg, but he is left with no option other than what they are presently engaged in as he cannot afford sending his child to school.
It is in the strong view of this writer that if only securing or working towards a better future for this our beloved nation Sierra Leone is something serious in the minds of the governments, these are some of the issues that need to be addressed with all the seriousness and urgency attached.
These children are not meant to be in the streets; their rights as children need to be preserved. The children deserve better than this. They are not meant to languish in the streets of Freetown but their rights must be preserved.
By Samuel Henry Taylor; Freelance Journalist
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Kelvin Thomas
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14 September 2010 – The United Nations advocate for children caught up in armed conflict today highlighted the special challenges facing young people uprooted within their own countries by war, stressing the need to ensure that they are protected and their rights are ensured.
“There is no child in the world today more vulnerable than a child internally displaced by armed conflict, forced to leave home and community behind,” the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said today.
Presenting her annual report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ms. Coomaraswamy noted that there are more than 13.5 million internally displaced children in the world today.
They are often denied documentation and access to basic services and infrastructure, face restricted freedom of movement and are at increased risk of being recruited or sexually abused, she stated.This journalist is quite right and keep it on sir.
10th November 2011Kadia Sesay
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The Government need to protecting innocent African children from the ravages of man-made and natural disasters is the reason behind the Day of the African Child, a world-wide celebration on June 16 that will focus international attention on the needs of African children. There are other problems as well. Illiteracy rates are high because African nations lack the financial resources to properly educate their children. While industrialized nations spend more than $8,000 a year on each student, underdeveloped African countries can only spend $2 per child. Sadly, many schools are without books, paper, pencils, chalk or even classrooms in some instance . Government need to do something .
16th June 2011Abdulia Jallah Cesay ( Journalist )
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The Commission on Human Rights,
Recalling its resolution 1993/81 of 10 March 1993 and General Assembly resolution 48/136 of 20 December 1993,
Welcoming the special attention given to the rights of children in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (A/CONF.157/23), in particular in part I, paragraph 21,
Recalling the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a major contribution to the protection of the rights of all children, including street children,
Reaffirming that children are a particularly vulnerable group in society whose rights require special protection, and that children living under especially difficult circumstances, such as street children, deserve special attention, protection and assistance from their families and communities and as part of national efforts and international cooperation,
Recognizing that all children have the right to health, shelter and education, to an adequate standard of living and to freedom from violence and harassment,
Deeply concerned about the growing number of street children worldwide and the squalid conditions in which these children are often forced to live,
Profoundly concerned that the killing of and violence against street children threaten the most fundamental right of all, the right to life,
Alarmed at continuing serious offences of this nature against street children,
Recognizing the duty and responsibility of Governments to investigate all cases of offences against street children and to punish offenders, and the Commission on Human Rights and of the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, within their mandates, to pay particular attention to the plight of street children.
Thanks to this Journalist for his online Artlicle.
7th June 2011Mary Hassan
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Dear Taylor ,
16th May 2011Thanks for your online article because we can see what happened with our Sierra Leonean Defenseless Disabled youths in Sierra Leone when a riot police officers The police routed them out of a building and now they are with home and our government did nothing, the youths have issued demands to the government and held meetings with the President of Sierra Leone to provide alternative accommodation and held a series of advocacy discussions for a solution to the matter no avail. I regret the rough treatment by police officers against defenseless disabled persons and what big sham for our Sierra Leone Police .
Rodney Shawller
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Hi Taylor,
13th February 2011Am very happy to see such article online because so many street children are in the street and the government did not want to know about them and also United Nation have to do better for the street children in africa because they really exposure to all sorts of criminal and harmful street lives.
Mr Edibo John
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Dear Writer Sierra Express Media,
12th December 2010Thanks for your kind article online because the right of the children is very important in the world, because the problem of children’s right is Strongly affecting the world .Even when basic rights of all children across the world as defined in the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child . Still the problem is growing from different families.
Mr Edibo John
Miss Gloria Johnson
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Dear Samuel ,
12th December 2010I love your article because i am a parent with four children, it’s better for journalists to tell we parents what to do with our children and the right the children deserve for future. And in Sierra Leone today and other West Africa countries children did not have any right from their parents because they can do what even they want to do with the children. Ex- like what we so-called Bondo Society in africa countries we forcefully join them inot the society and take their right from them.
Miss Gloria Johnson
Mr Mends
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Dear Samuel ,
12th December 2010I love your article because i am a parent with four children, it’s better for journalists to tell we parents what to do with our children and the right the children deserve for future. And in Sierra Leone today and other West Africa countries children did not have any right from their parents because they can do what even they want to do with the children. Ex- like what we so-called Bondo Society in africa countries we forcefully join them inot the society and take their right from them.
Mr Mends
Mrs Rosetta Bull
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Dear Writer,
Thanks for your online article because we parents did not know even These should be the basic rights of all children across the world because the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child with international human rights treaty to which 191 countries are signatories to, some parents did not know that they still take the right from the children without sending them to school. That’s why the children today are engaging with drug practice around the world.
Mrs Bull
12th December 2010Mr Peter Jones
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Dear Samuel ,
12th December 2010Indeed our children are the future leaders for tomorrow, because our african leaders did not know that. They just think of their own family and pocket and forget the children of the nations , also some african parents did the children are future leaders instead they send their girl child to street for prostitution and the boy child for beggars.
Thanks for your article because the world will know about this problem.
Mr Peter Jones