June 16 was a day to remember
Faith Siako | Thursday June 18, 2015 14:39
Students, community leaders and members of the public went home fully informed on various presentations on challenges that faces many children and how they can address those challenges.
Paving the way were the pre-school children from Lephoi Centre who delivered a poem based on love and protection of children.
The message behind the presentation was that parents should love their children unconditionally, treat them as children and protect them from any form of danger and unacceptable behaviours.
In one of the messages, the pre-schoolers recited: “Parents should not deny their children education as it is the key to success”.
Jacaranda Primary school pupils also played out an emotional drama showing a child being forced into marriage with an older man by her father in exchange for money.
The drama showed the outcomes of child marriages, which include physical and psychological abuse, resorting to drug abuse, pregnancy at an early age and dropping out of school.
Selepa Junior Secondary School shared skills on how their peers can fight challenges they are faced with. The educational piece was advising youngsters to engage their teachers whenever they have problems, as well as reporting matters to the police on issues that involve incest, rape, child marriages and others.
The elders also had their say, and one- the chairman of the District Commemoration Childs Forum (DCCF, Cantona Bolokang, said clubs like PACT help students share their experiences and problems above.
Bolokang said peer pressure also forces some students to be victims of defilement, as they get in relationships with sugar ‘mummies’ and ‘daddies’ to get expensive gadgets like mobile phones and pocket money to get along with their friends. “Parents are also failing to talk to their children about sex education and it is considered as a taboo to talk to children about sex related issues,” he said.
On his part President of Monarch Customary Court, Gunny Moses said that people are living in denial that there is child marriage.
He said that the evidence can be seen in the outskirts of Francistown and people know it.
“Some people do it because of culture while some do it because women get older faster than men but people are bound to change as people get more educated,” Moses said. He said that parents should stop abandoning their children to SOS and grandmothers. Moses asked parents to be honest with the children and let them know their biological parents because denying them that right may cause children to misbehave.
Moses also accused parents that stay single rooms with their children where they are exposed to things which they are not suppose to see. “Such children would go and experiment what they saw,” he added
He also encouraged students to focus on their schoolwork and refrain from drugs abuse as well as engaging in sexual relationships.