Day of the African Child: We have to deliver on the promise

By The NewsDay | Jun. 17, 2017 | 6 Min read

Yesterday, June 16, was the International Day of the African Child. It is the day intended to commemorate the children of Soweto killed by the South African apartheid government in 1976. It is the day we, as Africa and as Zimbabwe, celebrate our achievements for children. It is also a day we are supposed to take stock and introspect about whether we are delivering on the promise.

Guest Column: SIBUSISIWE MARUNDA

This year’s theme for the day was: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for Children in Africa: Accelerating protection, empowerment and equal opportunity. This theme calls upon all policymakers, parents and caregivers to examine progress made and build upon it. We need, therefore, to have by now made progress on protection, empowerment and equal opportunity for our children so much so that we are getting into the acceleration mode and should be focusing on reaching every child. Sadly, practically, we are still a long way from delivering for children enough progress that could make us ready to accelerate. This poor progress applies mainly at family level and to some extent at policy level.

Policy environment

The Constitution of Zimbabwe does provide for child protection comprehensively. It does define child rights and defines who a child is and demands that all decisions and actions concerning children be in the best interests of the child. If we were to align all our child protection legislation with the Constitution we would have taken a step towards delivering on the promise of the Day of the African Child. There has been some progress in policy formulation as illustrated by the following

National Action Plan for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Phase III (NAP III, 2016-2020) provides a national framework for the co-ordinated response to support orphans, other vulnerable children, and their families in Zimbabwe.
The National Social Protection Policy Framework of Zimbabwe (2015) articulates issues affecting the well-being of children in the country
The Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development led the development of a Girls and Young Women’s Empowerment Framework addressing education, economic empowerment, safety and protection, reproductive health and decision making and leadership
The government of Zimbabwe’s National HIV and Aids Strategic Plan

Legislation like the Domestic Violence Act, the Children’s Act are designed to protect families and children.

Recently the courts have made very progressive rulings on issues pertaining to child protection. The most recent one being the Mangota judgment of corporal punishment. The court made an overdue finding that corporal punishment in whatever setting was unconstitutional.

While these are significant steps our biggest gap is in what ultimately accrues to the child as a result of these positive policy commitments.

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A scarred generation

What accrues to the child is still characterised by evidence of a scarred generation where

One in every three girls get married before their 18th birthday (MICS 2015)
Zimbabwe has the sixth-highest number of annual adolescent Aids-related deaths in the world.
About 570 000 children aged 0-15, are orphaned as a direct result of Aids ( Zimbabwe National and Sub-National HIV and Aids estimates 2014)
The high primary school enrolment of 93,7% drops drastically to 51,9% for secondary school enrolment (Descriptive Child and Youth Equity Atlas: Zimbabwe 2015)
43% of Zimbabwean girls aged 13-17 had experienced unwanted sexual intercourse (NBSLEA 2011)
50% of both girls and boys in the same age group had experienced physical violence in their lives(NBSLEA 2011) Clearly children’s lived realities do not have any evidence of the annual promises of the Day of the African Child.

The children of Soweto faced violence that no child should ever face, they faced bullets from the State machinery. Today, we as a nation are not meting out that kind of violence, but we are still inflicting our own kind of violence on children through corporal punishment, child abuse and child marriage. The promise of the Day of the African child is the aversion to violence and a solemn oath to our children to say “never again will we let African children face violence”, but we break that promise everyday in our homes, schools and other spaces. As long as the girlchild faces child marriage as the only option out of blocked opportunities and violence from her boyfriend then we will not be able accelerate protection, equal opportunity and empowerment for her.

Child marriage

My dialogue on this piece is with parents, caregivers and communities. I know we would like our policymakers to do more for our children. We, however, need to honestly ask our selves what we have done at individual level within the policy environment that is available to us. The courts have done their part, they have said child marriage is unconstitutional, but we continue marrying off our children. Have we sat down to interrogate why, it is only when we honestly admit the reasons for this practice that we can stop it. Arguments about poverty have been proffered. Personally, I am not convinced that poverty is the major reason for child marriage. It might the secondary reason, but the underlying reason is society’s view of the girlchild as an object, the female body as currency. If the girlchild was viewed as equal to the boychild with potential to be a functional citizen who can contribute to society whether or not she is married then it would not even occur to us to marry her off the moment we are hungry. She is a target of child marriage because whether we admit it or not she is still a symbol of wealth to be redeemed as soon as she is biologically ready. This view of girls has nothing to do with whether the practice is legal or not it has something to with what we perceive to be right in the privacy of our thoughts, our homes and our villages. If we want to accelerate equal opportunities and empowerment for girls we need to start by changing the way we view the girl child and women in general. We need to make an effort to educate ourselves and our friends and relatives about the retrogressive effects of child marriage on families and communities.

Violence against children

Our communities do exactly the same thing when it comes to violence against children, corporal punishment, in particular. Children continue to be maimed and even killed in the name of discipline in this and yet the Courts have outlawed corporal punishment as unconstitutional and a violation of the child’s right to bodily integrity. Our challenge is that what happens in the courts and in public spaces is very different from what happens in private spaces such as homes and schools. We, therefore, need to work towards behaviour change at a very personal level if we are to accelerate child protection. We need to learn from those who have taken time to study human behaviour and from our own experiences to see that not only is corporal punishment detrimental to child development and innovation but its also damaging to the critical parent child relationship.

HIV and Aids

Our adolescent children continue to be the only group where we are failing to contain the incidence rate of HIV and yet we continue to pretend they are not sexually active. The norm is that we do not talk to our children about sexual reproductive health and HIV is still not a dinner table topic in most homes. We are averse to these topics and expect our unmarried daughters to be virgins until their wedding day. I am apparent to girls, I also expect that of my daughters, but I am also aware that if I do not talk to them about sex, sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV their only source of information is going to be the TV, social media and their friends and we all know what those sources are saying about these topics! As parents caregivers and communities we need to will ourselves to get into a space where we accept adolescent sexuality so that we can guide it and support our children where they have challenges.

The narrative has to change

As we celebrate our children we need as communities and families to resolve to change the narrative for them We need to honestly admit we can do better within the limitations of the resources we have. We need government to create an enabling policy environment for child protection, empowerment and creation of equal opportunities but we do not need government to police us on providing these things at family level. If we make an effort to provide for these aspirations in private spaces our children will be better equipped to compete for and access them in public spaces. If we get it right at family and community level we will be more able to demand an improved policy environment. We have to deliver on the promise of the Day of the African Child or our children will continue to struggle!

Sibusisiwe Marunda is the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative Zimbabwe country director