CHILD PROTECTION WEEK

Lehlohonolo Lesomo

Every year from 29th May to 5th June is children’s rights awareness week. Many children and adolescents who exposed to violence, develop externalizing behavioural problems such as aggression, juvenile delinquency and poor social functioning.

They are more likely to steal, play truancy, use drugs and alcohol or turn into hardened criminals. This hurts and frustrates the efforts of making their communities safe. Children who experience violence fall far behind at school, while others end up in jail because they take alcohol and drugs and this leads to violent behaviour. There must be extra mural activities that children should focus on such as sports and other hobbies. I remember a few years back when we had girl guides at school, they taught us everything a woman should know. They even taught is how to sew and cook, but nowadays there’s nothing like that anymore.

Now we see older men from the mines taking advantage of these kids because of money. These days our children, from as young as twelve years have a right to abort pregnancies. The local clinic rolls out pills that prevent them from being infected with HIV, they are called pre-exposure prophylaxis. I had an interview with young girls and they told me that they these pills like chronic treatment. Young girls depend mostly on male mine workers for financial support and that gives men power to demand unprotected sex, and their only option is PrEp.

Nurses and Social workers need to go to schools to teach our children about their rights. The police need also to go to schools and teach our children to draw a distinction between wrong and right. Children who witness abuse at their homes have a right to report their parents because they end up wanting to emulate that, others resort to bullying and they will become abusive themselves when they grow up. Teachers must be equipped with counselling skills and be able to notice signs of abuse because we found out that a lot of abuse go unreported in our area.