Press Release

June 16, 2008

The International Day of the African Child: Somali Children Are Still Suffering from Preventable Man-Made Causes

The Somali children are recruited by both Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and oppositions as soldiers to fight for them in order to achieve their political agendas without giving deserved consideration to the children rights. Consequently, thousands of children have lost their lives in the wars and conflicts others got disabled.  

Child labour is another factor escalating the problem. Almost every industry of the private sector recruits children as cheap labour. Restaurants, retailers, wholesalers and hotels are big abusers of child rights. Due to economic hardships for poor families, girls work as maids and boys as hawkers. Somali Diaspora also involve in child trafficking business. 

Mogadishu alone, more than 80 percent of school aged children don’t go to schools due to insecurity and daily conflicts between government troops and their Ethiopian ally one side and armed opposition groups on the other side. School premises are not respected by the warring faction, for the reason that some schools were used as a military barracks and interrogation facility. This has profoundly paralyzed the civil society’s effort toward reviving education system in Somalia.

In the last five years, thousands of Somali teenagers died in the Gulf of Aden, the dessert between Sudan and Libya and the Mediterranean Sea, while escaping from the wars and poverty. Also hundreds of them were killed in South Africa and the perpetrators have yet to be brought to justice.  An estimated three thousand illegal Somali young immigrants are held jails in among others Tanzania, Mozambique, Libya, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.  

Way forward

Awareness campaign 

Establish employment opportunities

Advocate new education centres