Mitigating the Plight of children

The challenges being currently faced by children this includes child abuse, child labour, child trafficking exacerbates the plight of children in Zimbabwe  with HIV and AIDS pandemic being the most dominant and the pandemic has left a trail of destruction in its wake, ranging from orphan hood, child headed families and impoverishment. These are some of the issues that require mitigation measures to be put in place. Mitigation thus becomes an essential component of the comprehensive eradication of the plight of children. Conceptually, mitigation is conceived as an act of making less severe, alleviating or moderating the effects of something, in this case the plight of children. For this essay the focus is on coping measures that various players in the management and development sector of children had put in place to lessen the plight of children in Zimbabwe as well as the challenges encountered when trying to mitigate the plight of children.

For children to grow up into full and  productive citizens they require a minimum standards of living that includes parental care and guidance, food, health care, education, accommodation and security, thus according to (Children’ s Act Chap 5:06). Children are a vulnerable group, but in the advent of their parents dying as a result of HIV and AIDS or any other cause, children become a more vulnerable group. A combination of HIV and AIDS and other challenges being faced by children such as child abuse, child marriages, child pledging and child labour constitute a severe plight of the children. In response to the plight of children in Zimbabwe, a number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOS), Community Based Organisations (CBOS) and government departments put in place a of number strategies to mitigate the plight being faced by children. Some of the strategies include promoting access to education, child participation, food, parental guidance and, by implication, security, accommodation, and health care.

According to the Children’s Act (Chapter 25:04), it provides that, primary education is compulsory for all children, however it is quite expensive and beyond the reach of many children. There is no penalty if parents do not send their children to school. The right to education is not also enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. A research by ZNCWC of 2009 on the status of schools in Mashonaland Province shows that school-going children, and especially girls, were dropping out of school to contribute to household production, to care for sick parents, and to look after siblings. Resources were being channelled to purchasing drugs and nutritional requirements, leading to the non-payment of school fees, especially for the girl-child. Orphans and vulnerable children also dropped out of school stationery and uniforms. The government of Zimbabwe has established the Better Education Assistance Module (BEAM) scheme, which caters for children. Through, the BEAM project many children managed to get assistance in the form of school fees, uniforms and stationery. However, it must be noted that even though the BEAM is a good and noble initiative by the government, other respondents expressed concern that it has limited resources and as a result fails to cover the increased number of children requiring assistance. However, through focus group it was noted that people were not happy with the way the scheme was not operated by a member of ZNNP+ from Gweru:

                               Selection of beneficiaries is done only once a year, yet we have children orphaned         on a daily basis. National Aids Council (NAC) funds are not reaching the intended beneficiaries because the BEAM processes are not transparent. In addition, since almost a quarter of the school going children are orphans, how do you select the most deserving children?

As children’s access to education is comprised, this creates a vicious circle of poverty and vulnerability to HIV and AIDS. The above findings confirm the results of a number of studies. For instance, Nyamukapa et al. (2005), in a study of slightly older female orphaned and vulnerable children (15-18 years), showed a high prevalence of HIV and more experience of STI. Furthermore, these children were most likely to have received no secondary education.

To complement government efforts, the research revealed that some community-based organisations were providing educational support to orphans and to vulnerable children, thus promoting access to education. For instance, MASO was supporting 1 500 children in the Midlands Province and was proud of five orphans who had gone through their programme. Two of the orphans were enrolled at the Midlands State University and three at Mkoba Teachers’ College. MASO also provides foster parents for child-headed families. ZINATHA, which runs a number of orphan-care programmes in Zvishavane, Shurugwi and Gweru, also stated that the greatest challenge they faced was the ever-escalating number of orphans as a result of the impact of HIV and AIDS. However, they did not have figures at hand. In addition, the research revealed that with parents dying from HIV and the norm. Some of the reasons for this include the ability to cope with the increasing numbers, poverty, and the rural-urban divide. In other situations, ‘relatives are intent only on accessing resources left by the deceased relative and not the welfare of the children. When this happens some children are so rampantly abused that they usually end up running away to become street children.’ From this research one can note that communities have taken great steps in caring for orphaned and vulnerable children, as it was indicated that non-relatives were forced out of compassion to care of such children. For instance, a woman from ZNNP+ said she was looking after three orphans not related to her. However, she lamented that the problem she has faced in trying to get birth certificates for these orphaned children:

Action Department of Social Welfare take their time to access and make recommendations on suitability of the progressive guardians or foster parents and as a result people give up and it is the children who suffer.

 Then the Director of the Child Protection Society also confirmed this:

Under our ongoing project on acquisition of birth certificates, our observation is that current structures for birth certificate do not take into account orphans, especially the need for adults to assist. But we have child-headed households. Some relatives fail in their illegal attempts to access property of the deceased. When it comes to having birth certificates, they refuse to cooperate by withholding important documents.

Complex processes, and sometimes unresponsive and insensitive judicial personnel, made it made it hard for would-be foster parents and compassionate individuals to access the requisite legal papers – birth certificates or certificates of guardianship. While the Children’s Act, and the guardianship of Minors Act [Chapter5:08] are premised on the “best interests of the child “, operations on the ground indicated the opposite, as a number of the rights  where being compromised, especially the right to adequate standards of living, education, economic exploitation, protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, support of parents and legal guardians in their child rearing responsibilities, and the development of services for the care of children by the state.

Children were sometimes removed from their usual environment so that relatives elsewhere looked after them. An official from PATHAIDS was of the opinion that children should be left in the environment they grew up in, as moving children from urban to rural areas or vice versa could be very traumatic be it at home or in an institution. The rural-urban divide indicated that almost all foster institutions in urban areas, a situation that chief Marupe of Gwanda and the chairperson of Tongogara rural district council in Shurugwi considered unrealistic, as the current economic situation with high unemployment rates favours people going back to their roots. The traditional leaders suggested the establishment of such institutions which could be supported as part of Zunde Ramambo, although they lamented the lack of meaningful financial support to the cause. Although they saw prospects of using Zunde Ramambo for the benefit of orphans and the poor in various communities, a chief of Gwanda was concerned that the level of government support was too low.

     

  

During the constitution making process from May to July 2010, Zimbabwe was in the midst of drafting a new constitution and the opportunity presented therefore resulted in various organisations which deals with children to ensure that children’s rights are recognised, respected, promoted, protected  and fulfilled.  In Zimbabwe many children are often neglected and are left out in many issues that affect them. Children are regarded as incapable of contributing any i5meaningful input to their lives especially girls are often isolated and are not consulted in decision making both at family level and at national level which is very wrong. As a result of the realisation that children are marginalised and they lack child participation, Justice for Children Trust in partnership with other organisations that deals with children such as Child line, Streets Ahead and Ministry of Health and Child Welfare consulted children from various provinces on their views for the new constitution. The project was done in order to ensure that children are involved in the constitution making process so as to promote child participation and to let children represent themselves upon their needs, demands and wants as far as the constitution is concerned.