While driving from South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, to the commercial centre of Johannesburg this week, Jody Kollapen — chairperson of the Human Rights Commission — said he spotted a collection of shacks that were housing families.
“I don’t know whether they have running water or electricity,” he told a gathering to mark the unveiling in Johannesburg of South Africa’s contribution to ‘1000 Wishes for the Children of the World’: an initiative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
“I also saw children by the roadside begging. I don’t know where they slept last night and whether they had dinner last evening,” he added. Not too great a distance from this location, however, another reality presented itself: “When I drove further, I saw a different face of South Africa — children living in beautiful houses.”
“This is the reality of the new South Africa,” said Kollapen.
His comments provided an apt backdrop for Wednesday’s ceremony. The Unicef initiative began when German school children painted their wishes for the world’s children on a giant canvas measuring some 600 square metres. Other children in the United States and Brazil have added to the artwork — and now, South Africans.
From Johannesburg, the painting will travel to Japan, and ultimately be presented at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens to generate global awareness of children’s rights, concerns and dreams.
The unveiling of the South African contribution to the painting included recitals and presentations by members of the Soul Buddyz Club — a children’s organisation — and pupils from the German International School in Johannesburg. The club and school have helped facilitate the South African leg of the project.
About 100 South African and six German children attended the ceremony.
Patricia Musabene, a student from Johannesburg, said of her wishes, “I hope people will take action about child abuse. I hope a cure could be found for HIV/Aids. I also hope that children could have good education all over the world.”
His comments about the plight of shack dwellers notwithstanding, Kollapen also noted that the lives of South Africa’s children had improved since the demise of apartheid ten years ago. “During apartheid we would not be gathering here and listening to the voices of the children today,” he noted.
“During apartheid, I was a child. I was always reminded of the colour of my hair, the colour of my skin and where I must live. I didn’t have the chance to speak my mind as these children (do) today,” he added.
The same cannot be said of all other children in the Southern African region, however — and indeed in the rest of Africa.
In Angola, 30 years of civil war have given the country the dubious distinction of having one of the worst infant death rates in the world. A third of the population has been displaced by the conflict, and thousands of families split up.
Although the war is over, two million Angolans still depend on aid for their survival — more than half of them children. “They are in desperate need. Many children were forced to fight, and girls abducted by armies for sexual purposes. Less than half Angola’s children ever go to school,” says the British-based non-governmental organisation Save the Children in one of its latest reports.
In Zimbabwe, poverty has been exacerbated by runaway inflation of over 600% — one of the highest rates in the world — as well as food shortages and the HIV/Aids pandemic. Many parents now find it impossible to send their children to school.
Half of Zimbabwe’s population requires food aid, and it appears as if the country is set to continue facing acute food shortages: early estimates of 2004 food production indicate a potential deficit of up to one million tonnes of cereals, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Further afield in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), children have borne the brunt of a five-year conflict. Since fighting broke out in 1998, more than three million people are estimated to have been killed or to have died from the effects of war in eastern DRC.
As many as two million people have also been internally displaced, including some 400 000 children ‒ this according to the London-based human rights watchdog, Amnesty International.
Wednesday’s unveiling coincided with South Africa’s Youth Day celebrations and the Day of the African Child — both established to commemorate the 1976 protest by thousands of black South African children against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Police opened fire on the students, killing some — and sparking additional protests that provided one of the pivotal moments in the fight against apartheid.
“There is an urgent need to support the African family to provide nurturing and safe environments, environments fit for children. It is a continental need, because many countries in Africa, as well as around the world, are wracked by war and abuses of children’s rights,” Misrak Elias, Unicef’s representative in South Africa, told those at Wednesday’s ceremony.
Sam Ramsamy, President of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa, further noted: “It’s useless to talk about the right of the child when it’s not translated into action by parents. To me, there’s nothing called ‘problem children’. We have ‘problem parents’.”