A Children Rights Advocacy group in Katsina has embarked on “Stop War on Children” (SWOC) campaigns, aimed at drawing attention to the plight of children that are daily exposed to social vices in their respective communities.
Speaking at the flag up of the campaign in Katsina, the Speaker of Children parliament in the state, Abdulrahman Kakare said children were among the most vulnerable groups and must be protected.
According to him, children’s life had become a race for survival, saying that “if you open your eyes, you will see children unarmed but fighting different kind of wars in the street”
“Our society today is littered with hopeless, defenceless, unprotected and uneducated children whose future is bleak, whose vision is dim, whose life is ebbing away before our own eyes due to actions and in actions” of the communities, he said.
On her part, Murjanatu Kabir, a community engagement and Advocacy Coordinator at Save the children International, who supports the group, said “War against children comes in forms of denial of rights, abuses be it sexually, physically or mentally.
“Our in-action of war happens in the form of lacking laws to protect the children, not prosecuting culprits of abuse, not paying attention to most of their salient needs and few minutes to hear them out.
“War on children does not only happen in war fronts. War on children is as diverse as it gets, it is as complex as you see, it is as widespread as you imagined,” she added.
