Protecting the Rights of Pastoralist Children
blurb:isstoday3oct08Children
3 October 2008: Protecting the Rights of Pastoralist Children
According to a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), pastoralist children in the Horn of Africa face some of the greatest challenges and are among the most vulnerable in the world. However, whenever calamities occur in these regions, the plight of children is never accorded enough attention. Unfortunately, it is the pastoralist child who bears the brunt of the suffering inflicted by these harsh realities.
The remote and arid expanse of northern Kenya and the struggles of pastoralists are by and large invisible to the world, safe for occasions when catastrophic drought, floods or cattle rustling capture the general populace and government’s attention. Most obscure to the inherent pastoralist problems are the pastoralist childrenwhose plight is exacerbated by scarcity of basic services and infrastructural underdevelopment in the region.
Access to healthcare in pastoralist Kenya is a major problem. Many pastoralists have to travel an average of 40km to a health centre and just as far to the nearest water points. It has been reported by UNICEF that in Wajir district in the northeast Kenya, there are only four functioning health centers and one hospital to cater for over 350,000 people living across 56,000 sq km. For this reason, a child in this region is 15 times less likely to access healthcare services in comparison with a child living in the better resourced Nyanza province.
Long distances and the time it takes to reach a health facility can be particularly dangerous for children and pregnant women in need of skilled obstetric care. Sadly many parents and their children, weakened by hunger and thirst, succumb to their ailments before accessing a health facility. However, even for those who manage to reach a health facility find little or no help due to lack of medicine, vaccines and safe water. As a consequence, malnutrition rates in children have surpassed the UN World Health Organization’s emergency threshold rate of 15 percent after successive droughts and flooding in 2005 and 2006.
Access to the much-publicized free education by the Kenyan government remains at best a dream to the majority of pastoralist children in the northeastern province. Only 22 per cent of the children attend primary school while the national figure stands at 80 percent. There are few schools and limited educational mobile outreach facilities. The situation is worsened by a lack of effective government initiatives that should make it compulsory for these children to go toschool.
Girls are at a particular disadvantage because of women’s perceived lower status amongst some pastoralists. One out of every ten girls is estimated to attend school whereas the figure is slightly higher with regard to boys; two out of every 10 boys attend school. In the unlikely event of indeed attending school, many girls are not motivated to complete primary education due to the high economic value attached to them - being married off at the earliest possible age.
Apart from lack of sufficient learning institutions and facilities, the isolation of pastoral areas and lack of basic infrastructure also makes it difficult to recruit and retain qualified teachers. Furthermore, lack of food and water in schools combined with long distances to the already scarce institutions are major disincentives for enrolling for ‘free education’.
Certainly the plight of pastoralist children cannot be overemphasized. It is incumbent upon the government of Kenya, as the custodian of every child’s rights, to effectively address these concerns. Pastoralist children must be afforded equal opportunities and therefore should not be discriminated against on the basis of their unfortunate place of birth.
Non-realization of the basic rights of pastoralist children is disastrous to their individual human and general social development. Stringent measures should be implemented in an endeavor to salvage and restore human rights and human worth of these children. For example:
- Enough resources must be allocated to the newly created ‘Ministry of Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands’ so as to help enhance the livelihood of pastoralist communities in general and realize the basic rights of the pastoralist child.
- The Ministry of Education on the other hand should develop an educational curriculum that is relevant to a nomadic lifestyle.
- Pastoralist children must be taught appropriate skills that will improve enrolment and retention.
- Mobile schools and health centers that travel along with family clusters is an option that should be pursued by the government of Kenya and such mobile facilities must be adequately financed
- Great incentives should be provided for civil servants and professionals working in this region and especially those working in health and educational sectors
As correctly observed by Paul Letiwa in an article published by Daily Nation in Nairobi, “children born into conflict know no other life and think theft (of livestock) is legitimate. In order to save pastoralist children from cattle rustling which in some areas has become a sport, it is absolutely critical that the government should commit itself to enhancing the interests of pastoralist children. Presently, their future is certainly bleak and their rights are not guaranteed.
Bernard Ateka, Intern, Mifugo Programme, ISS Nairobi
