Focus On Children's Rights-A Welcome Move

Monitor Editor | Monday May 14, 2018 11:56

Representatives from the two entities have been hard at work scheduling meetings with political parties, the first step being to establish a working relationship that will see children’s rights adequately addressed in the parties’ manisfestos.

The project, which is funded and supported by the European Union is a welcome development, more especially because while challenges faced by our children are rarely discussed, action on issues affecting them is also very limited. The voices of the little ones are not catered for in policy-making, and other decisions that affect them.

Projects such as this one are a step in the right direction to start advocating for children’s rights, as well as making sure that their little voices are heard. The project as stipulated by SSI seeks to, amongst others, ensure that “child protection becomes a priority in Botswana through public and CSO advocacy to policy makers and government by mid-2019.

SSI has partnered with #IShallNotForget! movement in delivering this objective. SSI, through its review of political party manisfestos, established that children’s rights and child protection are “not a priority area in the Botswana political agenda, yet child abuse remains a heinous and prevalent crime in Botswana”.

It is time that political parties make children’s rights and protection a priority. There is also need for a big campaign to sensitise the nation about the vulnerability of children. It is painful that in this day in age, we still have so many cases of child abuse, child neglect, defilement and so forth.

There are still certain segments of our society who misinterpret certain cultural practices to suit their sick and twisted intentions of violating the rights of children.There are many Setswana idioms such as ‘Lore lo o jwa lo sale metsi’, that certain individuals quote when abusing children.

The saying in itself is meant to capture that it is important for parents to impart good practices on their children at an early age, but others willfully ignore its proper message and end up abusing children, mostly beating them execessively.

There is yet another saying, ‘susu ilela suswana gore suswana le ene a go ilele’. While this aphorism makes a lot of sense, people often ignore its meaning, because as mentioned earlier, they to misinterpret culural practices and claim that a minor is not supposed to answer back to an elder, even if they are being accused of something they did not do.