UNICEF warns against marginalising children

Children are maginalised from decision-making about their lives which is blighting their future, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday.

At the launch of its annual State of the World’s Children report in Addis Ababa, it said that the voice of young people must be heard.

The report spelt out the scale of misery in which many children in Africa live. The highest levels of mortality for under-fives are in Africa. Education levels are lower than the rest of the world and immunisation rates against disease are also lower than many other countries.

The study, which involved more than 40,000 children on four continents, made it clear that many felt disenfranchised about their role in society, UNICEF said.

Bisrat Gashaw Tena, vice minister at Ethiopia's ministry of labour and social affairs, said that children and their rights must be paramount in government.

“Children’s survival, healthy development and active participation are pivotal to the healthy future of any society,” she noted.

She said it was vital that government decisions, both at a local and national level, must bear in mind children and their protection under international laws.

Sam Nyambi, the UN’s representative in Ethiopia, said children must be encouraged to ask questions about their future.

He praised the annual UNICEF report as an effective tool in advocating the rights of children. He pointed out that in the Horn of Africa, more than half of the 180 million population are children and they must be taken into account.

“We cannot continue to have business as usual,” he added. “The business of work, the business of living, the business of problem solving somehow remains in the hands of adults. We have to find ways of moving away from that and involving more and more the young people.”