Search
  1. Home
  2. Southern Africa
  3. Angola

Children demand end to abuse

    JOHANNESBURG

    About 2,000 children marched through Luanda, Angola’s capital on Friday, demanding an end to their abuse and exploitation. News reports said the children waved placards saying ‘Do not touch our children’ and ‘We want to grow and live in peace’.

    The march, organised by the National Institute for Children (INAC), came after 70,000 people in three of Angola’s 18 provinces signed a petition calling for an end to the abduction, conscription, and exploitation of children in the country. The signatures were handed over to Mussagy Jeichande, Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Angola.

    News reports quoted INAC director Eufrazina Maiato as saying that the signatures expressed the concern of all peace-loving Angolans who demanded the “unconditional liberation of all children under captivity”. Pledging that the petition would be delivered to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Jeichande added that it was a clear message from Angola’s children that they were tired of being abused in Angola’s war. “This simple, humble and apparently fragile gesture of the children of this tormented country reveals that they can no longer silence their deep willing to live in a country reconciled with itself,” he was quoted as saying.

    The march came in the wake of one of the most widely publicised abductions in Angola in recent times. On 5 May UNITA rebels who attacked the town of Caxito, about 60 km from Luanda, abducted at least 95 children - 60 of them orphans from a school run by the international aid group ADPP. The children from the school were returned to a church more than 200 km away from Caxito. About 35 children abducted from the town have still not been accounted for.

    It is believed that many hundreds of children have been - and continue to be - forced into combat in Angola’s 26-year-old war. Many others are abducted and forced to work while in captivity. Wilton Fonseca, Public Information Officer for the UN Office in Angola, said the march was significant because it was non-partisan and the first of its kind in Angola.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

    Share this article

    Our ability to deliver compelling, field-based reporting on humanitarian crises rests on a few key principles: deep expertise, an unwavering commitment to amplifying affected voices, and a belief in the power of independent journalism to drive real change.

    We need your help to sustain and expand our work. Your donation will support our unique approach to journalism, helping fund everything from field-based investigations to the innovative storytelling that ensures marginalised voices are heard.

    Please consider joining our membership programme. Together, we can continue to make a meaningful impact on how the world responds to crises.

    Become a member of The New Humanitarian

    Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

    Join