News

EveryChild is on the Guardian website highlighting Universal Children’s Day

19 Nov 2010

leave a comment

Tomorrow is the 21^st anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or Universal Children’s Day. The convention aims to empower children whilst protecting them from exploitation and abuse. Despite this, many children around the world still have their rights abused. Amongst the most vulnerable to abuse are the 24m children growing up without parental care. We know there are at least 24m children deprived of a family and in poorer countries their numbers are growing.

In rural Malawi, for example, young girls are leaving their families from a young age to marry. Poverty, adult migration, hunger and the HIV crisis are all contributing factors that lead to girls leaving home to marry. Once married, they lose their rights to education and childhood, and are more vulnerable to abuse and neglect. EveryChild is challenging this practice through child rights clubs, parenting classes and children’s corners by empowering girls to know their rights. EveryChild is also supporting the poorest families with seeds and fertilisers so that they have enough food for the whole family and with school uniforms and equipment so that children can remain in school.

Maria, a 14-year-old girl from Malawi says:

I got married when I was 13. When I got married I discovered there was lots of housework that I was expected to do. I had no time to rest and this was beyond what I was able to do. When I was married I missed a lot of things- one thing I missed was that I could not play with my friends. When my friends went to netball matches I could only watch because I wasn’t allowed to join them any longer.

Watch our audio slideshow highlighting child marriage
on The Guardian website here

EveryChild Senior Media & PR Officer, Chloe Kay, has recently visited projects in Malawi. Read Chloe's blog here to find out more about the issues affecting children and EveryChild’s interventions