Preventing Violence against Children as a way to achieve Sustainable Peace in Africa

EVERY CHILD has the right to live up to their full potential. Children cannot reach their full potential if they are not in good health, if they do not receive an education and if they are not protected from violence. In Africa, one in every four children lives in conflict. 420 million children globally live in conflict affected areas, 14% of whom are in Africa. As wars and conflicts on the African continent and in other corners of the world increase, so too does the risk of recruitment and use of children as soldiers. In 2022 alone, six African countries were reported as conflict hotspots including Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Northern Mozambique, and the North-West and South-West regions of Ethiopia and Cameroon. These conflict situations expose children to becoming both victims and perpetrators of violence.

The International Day of Peace is a great opportunity to recognise the significant efforts that have been made to create frameworks that promote and protect the rights of all children while encouraging compliance with international laws and facilitating an active change of behaviors and attitudes towards this obligation by all stakeholders. At a global level several frameworks were adopted on the subject matter including the establishment of the Convention on the Rights of The Child, and most recently the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Geneva Conventions and their two Additional Protocols. In the same spirit, the Vancouver Principles were launched in 2017 in an effort to make child protection a priority in UN peacekeeping missions. Despite efforts to encourage and promote the increased prioritisation of child protection in global peace and security, children remain victims of violence.

The recruitment and use of children as soldiers is one of the six grave violations against children in armed conflict for which perpetrators, military commanders and political leaders are meant to be held accountable by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, national laws, and military codes of justice. Despite efforts to protect children from violence, the UN Secretary General’s most recent report on Children and Armed Conflict reported that 23,982 grave violations were committed against children globally. Reported violations affected more boys than girls affecting overall 19,165 children (13,633 boys, 5,242 girls, 290 sex unknown). The highest numbers of violations were the killing (2,515) and maiming (5,555) of 8,070 children, followed by the recruitment and use of 6,310 children and 3,945 incidents of denial of humanitarian access. Children were detained for actual or alleged association with armed groups (2,864), including those designated as terrorist groups by the United Nations, or for national security reasons. These numbers pose a serious threat to society and the future of our children.

The dynamics of conflict have changed over the course of years making it difficult for communities, policy makers and advocates to keep track of these crimes. The center of these dynamics and tactics is the use of children which is an inhumane activity and extended terror to the African child. The spread of violent extremism, growing transnational criminal networks and intercommunal violence continue to expose children to child labour, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and indoctrination by both armed forces and armed groups involved in terrorism. These dynamics challenge the protection of children.

Rwanda has framed the issue of children in armed conflict, and particularly the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, as a specific priority concern for the security sector. The country has led regional efforts to effectively implement the Vancouver Principles as a major troop contributing country to the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping missions and also as the host of the Dallaire Institute’s Centre of Excellence, which serves as the Institute’s regional hub on the African continent. The Centre of Excellence brings together nations from across the globe to learn about the Dallaire Institute’s prevention-oriented security sector training approach to understand the early warning signs of recruitment and improve their early response to the needs and rights of children. The Centre of Excellence is also a knowledge base and research convenor on peace and security agendas that puts the protection of children at its very core.

The Dallaire Institute has contributed to these efforts through great cooperation with the Government of the Republic of Rwanda on interventions facilitated by the Rwanda Defence Force and the Rwanda National Police. Working with Rwanda’s security forces on preventing the recruitment and use of children as soldiers in armed conflict has strengthened the capacities of the military and police to protect children from armed violence. The Dallaire Institute adopts a multi-dimensional approach to support action plans on the prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers through high-level advocacy which we combine with a grassroots, community-based approach. Importantly, our community-based approach to prevention seeks to increase the accountability and responsiveness of security sector actors to the needs of the community they are mandated to protect.

The Dallaire Institute will continue to work with key partners to stress the importance of preventing the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Research shows that we can’t achieve peace without protecting children from violence, an imperative to end intergeneration wars and conflicts but beyond that we need to protect children for humanity reasons to prevent the enormous impact of their participation in violence on their childhood and the adverse effects they suffer in their adult life.

Francisca Mujawase, Dallaire Institute for children, Peace and security.

Rising from a Young Statistician to a Leader

Francisca Mujawase is a Rwandan female statistician. Her score as the best student in high school earned her an opportunity to join the National University of Rwanda in the department of Applied Statistics in 2005. During her time in school, admission to the department was quite competitive with only 40 seats which required undertaking a selection test on top of the student's overall score in the first year at the University. Her performance owned her a seat in the department, which was underrepresented by female scholars. Only less than 10 percent in the 2007-2010 cohort were female. These numbers speak to the United Nations women in science report for 2019 which indicates that only 5 percent of global enrolment in mathematics and statistics are females. The Gender gap was not only visible in the student’s enrolment rates but also among lecturers. For all the academic years in the departments, I remember being taught by only 2 female lecturers. 

The newly established department of Applied Statistics in Rwanda intended to advance the Government of Rwanda's vision to build a comprehensive national statistical system and capabilities to drive the national statistical agenda. Although this was a new department, it is said that before the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda hosted one of the regional schools in Statistics Engineering representing the great lakes region. This means that the country prioritized the importance of statistics as a key pillar to building a nation for many years.

While we prepared to become statisticians, specialists and researchers, the strategic vision on the statistics development and delivery by our country and the continent was even bigger. At the university we studied statistical methods, data and metadata management and information technology. The areas of study included social, economic, population, labour and environmental statistics. These courses were complemented by leadership skills gained from the ISIBALO capacity building program.

Young statisticians were given many opportunities to acquire scientific skills, enjoyed the benefits of practicing field activities including participating in national surveys and censuses through the existing partnerships between the University of Rwanda and the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda. The same was done in many other African countries. Beyond boarders, the ISIBALO capacity building programme, a continental convener for young statisticians in Africa was established under the Statistics South Africa to empower and facilitate young statisticians to become future leaders.

The ISIBALO programme positioned young scholars to participate in policy discussions and decisions on the Africa's development agenda including at events organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Centre of Statistics and their home statistics bureaus. Generally, African leaders who aspired this agenda were sure that building a pool of capable young statisticians was one of the solutions to tackling development challenges faced by the continent which couldn't at any cost be identified, solved, or measured without promoting quality statistics. 

More to the ISIBALO programe was the research agenda which inspired most of us to become young researchers even before we graduated. Participating in those high-level meetings required us to generate an elaborate research paper on development challenges affecting our countries. This approach aimed at sharpening our minds on creative thinking to come up with innovate, localized and strategic solutions to these issues. The activities also instilled in us confidence to defend our proposed actions. I remember one of our colleagues from Ghana wrote a book on statistics with specifics of macro economics and this book gave him a ticket to work as a public servant in the president’s office in Ghana.

At the high-level meetings, we also shared best practices from our individual countries. I remember a story of young statisticians in Uganda who questioned the government of Uganda through a letter on the postponement of the national census in 2010, indicating the implication of the delay on the country and the citizens.

Another excellent arrangement was the transfer of knowledge and study tours organized by the ISIBALO programme. Many of us had a chance to participate in the national census of South Africa and in our specific countries. Pairing us with senior national and international experts in the field enhanced our learning but also left us with best practices to carry back with us home.

Discussing national statistics curriculum used to be one of the heated debates whenever young statisticians gathered especially when it came to comparing curricula from English and French speaking countries. Finally, it became obvious that we had huge gaps in the content taught across the continent indicating the lack of standardization of statistical curriculums. The gaps were identified and reported to our seniors which informed the response to training standardization across the continent and within countries.

Believing in young people shouldn’t be a choice because the youth hold the future of our nations. The leaders of the organizations mentioned above understood this concept better, trusted, facilitated, and gave us all the necessary support required of us to become the best we can be. It had become a practice in the UN system and in our countries that each organized meeting or event considered representation of at least four young statisticians from Africa.

This journey of empowering young statisticians started way back in early 2000. Among the meetings we attended included the Expert Group Meeting on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics at UNECA offices in Addis Ababa, we participated in the process of assessing progress on Millennium Development Goals and at the Conference of Africa Ministers responsible for civil registration among many. We also had sideline meetings at such big events that allowed us an opportunity to present our research papers but also make a voice in the decisions taken by our leaders. Nurturing young statisticians also meant to position Africa on the global scene when it comes to the statistical agendas including platforms like the International Statistical Institute (ISI).

The first meeting I attended in 2007 under UNECA included members of the executive committee of young statisticians nominated by the Secretary General of Statistics South Africa Mr. Pali Lehlola the then President of the African Symposia on Statistical Development included Muhammed Semakula Rwanda, Habaasa Gilbert from Uganda, Gloria Mathenge from Kenya, Akhona Madlamini Nkenkana from South Africa, Aleghen Worku from Egypt, Kodzov Senu Abalo from Togo and Ahmed Maher, Amir Omar from Egypt. We had several other committees over the years to uplift our young sisters and brothers. With the support from ISIBALO, each country created a platform of young statisticians and registered in a central database to keep track the growth of the sector.

As much as governments and international organization invested a lot on us, we young statisticians understood and believed in the agenda as well. This made it easier to attain the goal set by the ISIBALO capacity building program. All the young male and female statisticians who benefited from these programs became exemplary leaders in their countries carrying on key public positions while others have served in international organizations. Many of them have attained their PHDs, others are lecturers in universities. As a young female statistician with a humble beginning, I rose to become a Director of an African Centre of Excellence, a continental hub that advance the Child Peace and Security Agenda on the continent. Being the first female graduate from my family and participating in STEM has inspired my nieces and one of them choose to do statistics at the University of Makerere. Young statisticiand attribute who they are today to the ISIBALO programme and our role in advancing the statistics agenda on the continent speaks for itself.

However, the journey isn’t over yet, young people need to be positioned better to explore their full potentials. Yes, they have the duty to make the leaders uncomfortable, but the leaders also know better what must be done. We want to see a generation of young statisticians empowered even more than we did because the world has changed a great deal since the last two decades. Yes, empowering young people requires huge investments, but the results are even bigger. Thanks to all our governments, the ISIBALO capacity building program South Africa and to all the leaders including former SG Pali Lehlola and his team, UNECA and the African Centre leadership who supported this great idea of empowering young statisticians on the African continent.