Draws Government Attention for Consideration

In a comprehensive ten page report presented before the National Assembly yesterday, students drawn from various schools within the country raised serious concerns over issues affecting children and women in the country.

The report, which is an assessment of the progress made by The Gambia in the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, draws up recommendations for the consideration and adoption of the Legislature and the Executive.

According to the report, several factors restrain government efforts towards a higher level of programme delivery in favour of the children and therefore need to be minimised.

These restraining forces, the report went on, include the continuing decline in resource flows to the health sector, inadequate institutional capacity for child-specific programme development, increasing poverty and debt burden and inadequate co-ordination and co-operation among actors involved in the delivery of child-specific programmes resulting in duplication of efforts and lack of consistency.     

‘For instance, far too many children are still not in school, and for those who are, some do not stay long enough to complete the nine-year basic education cycle. In addition, the quality of our education continues to attract attention; hence, the strategies that have recently been mapped out to improve on setbacks, especially due to inadequate qualified teachers, who go to private schools and other walks of life as a result of poor salaries,” the report added.

The students’ report also expressed concerns over the manner in which children are treated in the name of instilling discipline. ‘We children have suffered the indignity and pain of violence and corporal punishment in schools and at home.

‘This can have lasting psychological and physical effects on us. No one is calling on parents and teachers to abdicate their responsibility to discipline their children and their students and to provide moral guidance for them. Rather they are called upon to discipline children in ways that are in consonance with the inherent dignity and self-worth of the child as a human being and with international norms of behaviour towards children.”

The report further expressed grave concern about the high and increasing incidence of physical and sexual abuse and exploitation of children, calling on government to undertake studies on domestic violence, ill-treatment, exploitation and abuse against children.

In its recommendations, the students called on the government to take effective measures, including a thorough review of all existing legislation, to ensure that domestic laws including customary and Islamic laws, fully conform to the provisions and principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and Welfare of the Child.

The report also went on to urge government to adopt and recommend some of the recommendations as soon as possible if we want The Gambia as a nation to get a better reputable place in the family of nations globally, especially when it comes to respect for fundamental human rights.

In response to the students’ report, Hon. Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay, Speaker of the National Assembly, underscored the tireless efforts made by the government in the empowerment of children and women in The Gambia, noting that Gambians should be grateful to the Jammeh administration.
Rights, according to Speaker Jahumpa Ceesay, go with responsibilities and thus called on the students to be responsible in all that they do.

‘You are lucky because under the Jammeh administration, you have almost every thing at your disposal. I can say that about 90 percent of students at the University of The Gambia are benefiting from his scholarship packages,” she added.

Speaker Jahumpa-Ceesay however expressed some concerns over some students especially regarding the  mode of dress by some students.