‘Give us a voice’

THIS year we are advocating Government to address issues affecting children which we feel have been neglected for many years or have not been given enough attention.

These issues include child marriages, STEM, child prosecution and improved education facilities.

Our concern is that a growing number of girls are being sexually abused and reported cases do not get fair prosecution.

It is in that regard that we are saying we need a speedy alignment of laws with the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

This, we hope, will see the Government establish systems or mechanisms that look after girls who are victims of rape and sexual abuse.

We have situations where perpetrators are sent to jail and that is the end of it.

But the victims remain behind in trauma and having to look after the child born after such unfortunate circumstances.

We feel that the environment does not give adequate support to child victims of rape.

There are also situations where a child may commit a crime, but we must accept that they are still victims.

The way we deal with an adult cannot be the same way we deal with a child who has committed a crime.

We should consider that it is the environment that leads children to commit crime.

Hence, the Government should ensure we have a good economic, political and social environment that keeps children away from criminal activities.

We have heard the Justice for Children Trust (JCT) recently saying they are receiving complaints from juvenile prisoners.

It appears that our correctional services are still more punitive than rehabilitative.

We need to ensure that the institutions for rehabilitation of the child offenders do so in a manner that prepares the child for re-admission into society.

But right now, the prisons are toughening the juveniles into hard core criminals.

This is true because in most cases, when the juveniles return from prison they engage in more serious crime.

When we look at this year’s theme for the Day of the African Child, we are focusing on accelerating protection, empowerment and equal opportunities for children.

But we feel the equal opportunities part is absent if we are mostly focusing on science students.

Zimbabwe is not going to be built by scientists only. We need law makers from the students doing arts subjects and accountants to manage the economy from those doing commercial subjects.

Therefore, students doing non-science subjects should also be supported by Government the same way science students are being supported through STEM.

In line with the theme and with the point we raised about STEM, we feel there is need to accommodate every child.

The other issue affecting children is that of quality education which we feel can be improved.

The teacher to student ratio is high and most education facilities are poor.

We have children learning in tobacco bans, under trees and dilapidated buildings, especially in new resettlement areas.

The Government should speed up the construction of proper learning facilities.

Some of these issues have been talked about for years, but no action has been taken.

We want Vocational Training Centres (VCT) to be resuscitated and Government should put more resources to ensure they play their part in skills development.

VCTs should enrol school going students during holidays and not wait for one to finish school. We should now realise that children have a voice.

It is high time for policy makers to stop coming up with polices that affect children without consulting us. ◆ Takudzwa Mhuru spoke to our reporter Sharon Munjenjema soon after his election as Child President last week.