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ZAMBIA
Are We Meeting Our Responsibility to Children?
Looking at the state of the great majority of Zambian
children, we are forced to ask the question, "Are we meeting our
responsibility, as a nation, to these children?" The answer is a
categorical NO, we are not meeting our responsibility to the Zambian
children. And in trying to address this crisis, we must confront the
moral or ethical failure which is at the heart of this problem.
We do have a moral or ethical responsibility to these
children. They are the most vulnerable inhabitants of our country, and
it falls to us the more powerful to protect and nurture them. However,
the problem is whether we recognise this moral or ethical responsibility
and give it priority over other concerns. Morality or ethics is
ultimately about self-interest versus interests of others. It is about
what priority we give to particular obligations or actions.
In our private actions, it is about what we do with
the time- and with our wealth that has come from our work, from our
birth. Do we use our wealth- or some of it- to aid others rather than
for our own interests or pleasures? So it is also for the nation and its
people. To honour a moral or ethical responsibility to children, we must
value children in need more than our own pleasure, more than other
priorities that clamour for our attention. It is about being committed
to more than one's personal interest. To put the interest of children as
a top priority takes leadership and courage. We say this because one
would always confront those who think their own interests should take
priority over interests of children.
We need to give priority to protecting and advancing
the rights of our children. We shouldn't forget that the actions, or
inaction, of government impact children more strongly than any other
group in our nation. Practically every area of government policy-
education, public health and so on and so forth, affects children to
some degree. Short-sighted policymaking that fails to take children into
account has a negative impact on the future of all the citizens of this
country but giving rise to policies that cannot work.
The plight of our children is rarely considered in our
political process. Children don't have vote and do not otherwise take
part in the political processes of our country. Many of the policies and
programmes we are adopting are having a disproportionate negative impact
on our children. They are transforming the family structure, shifting
employment patterns and shrinking the social welfare net in our country
and are having very strong impact on our children. The health
development of our children is crucial to the future well being of our
nation. And because children are still developing, they are a specially
vulnerable - more so than adults - to poor living conditions such as
poverty, inadequate health care, nutrition, safe water, housing and
environment pollution. The effects of disease, malnutrition and poverty
threaten the future of our children and therefore, the future of our
country. The costs to the country of failing its children are huge.
Children's earliest experiences significantly
influence their future development. The course of their development
determines their contribution, or cost, to the nation over the course of
their lives. A child who is fed and educated can grow up to defend
himself and his family, can become an economic producer and can advocate
for his or her own rights. He or she needs less future aids and can even
contribute to the welfare of others. A child in desperate need and
without hope is more easily exploited. Clearly, there is need for our
leaders to make the commitment to children a key part of their personal
ethics and philosophy, their public advocacy, and their legislative and
executive agenda.
It is often said that the future belongs to our
children. But it will be impossible to construct that future for our
children without laying a solid foundation for them now. If we are to
talk about constructing a future for our children, that future has to be
built now on the threshold of today's life and realities. Truly the
future belongs to our children and it has to be built now. But looking
at this year's budget and other government policies and programmes it is
clear that we are not in any serous way attempting to build a future for
our children. We cannot build a solid foundation for our children with
such low budgetary allocations to education and health. Education and
health have to be top priority of our country. What we have allocated to
health and education is just a small increment which falls far below
what is actually required to improve these sectors.
There is need for our government to realise that our
children are the most important natural resource and more attention
should be paid to their development. We must prepare them for the
future. In this regard, one of our top priorities should be to give them
a good education and a good health care. This means that our children
should be treated in accordance with our aspirations. We say this
because our children are the malleable clay from which the future our
country can be built. The basic clay of our work should be our children
and we should place our hope in them and prepare them to take the baton
from our hands. So it has to be, so it should be, and so it will be
because our children are human beings destined to live in a more complex
world than we are currently living.
We agree with Child Relief Switzerland secretary
general Peter Brey's observation that a government that fails to
guarantee basic needs for its people, especially children, is
dysfunctional. Any government should be able to guarantee the proper
development of children. There is need for government to assume
responsibility to addressing the welfare of the so many vulnerable and
orphaned children of our country. Our government has to make sure it
guarantees the development of these children through education and
health care, among other things. Our government must determine how it
wants to nurture its children.
The policies and programmes of our government should
be made to benefit our children. There is a lot that needs to be done
and that can be done by our government to improve the desperate
conditions of our children.
Editorial: The Post
28 March 2006
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