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Why South Korean women aren’t having babies

BBC — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 03:57:41 +0000

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Yejin is cooking lunch for her friends at her apartment, where she lives alone on the outskirts of Seoul, happily single.

While they eat, one of them pulls up a well-worn meme of a cartoon dinosaur on her phone. “Be careful,” the dinosaur says. “Don’t let yourself become extinct like us”.

The women all laugh.

“It’s funny, but it’s dark, because we know we could be causing our own extinction,” says Yejin, a 30-year-old television producer.

Neither she, nor any of her friends, are planning on having children. They are part of a growing community of women choosing the child-free life.

South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, and it continues to plummet, beating its own staggeringly low record year after year.

Figures released on Wednesday show it fell by another 8% in 2023 to 0.72.

This refers to the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. For a population to hold steady, that number should be 2.1.

If this trend continues, Korea’s population is estimated to halve by the year 2100.

A ‘national emergency’

Globally, developed countries are seeing birth rates fall, but none in such an extreme way as South Korea.

Its projections are grim.

In 50 years time, the number of working age people will have halved, the pool eligible to take part in the country’s mandatory military service will have shrunk by 58%, and nearly half the population will be older than 65.

This bodes so badly for the country’s economy, pension pot, and security that politicians have declared it “a national emergency”.

For nearly 20 years, successive governments have thrown money at the problem – 379.8 trillion KRW ($286bn; £226bn) to be exact.

Couples who have children are showered with cash, from monthly handouts to subsidised housing and free taxis. Hospital bills and even IVF treatments are covered, though only for those who are married.

Such financial incentives have not worked, leading politicians to brainstorm more “creative” solutions, like hiring nannies from South East Asia and paying them below minimum wage, and exempting men from serving in the military service if they have three children before turning 30.

Unsurprisingly, policymakers have been accused of not listening to young people – especially women – about their needs. And so, over the past year we have travelled around the country, speaking to women to understand the reasons behind their decision not to have children.

Jean Chung

When Yejin decided to live alone in her mid-20s, she defied social norms – in Korea, single living is largely considered a temporary phase in one’s life.

Then five years ago, she decided not to get married, and not to have children.

“It’s hard to find a dateable man in Korea – one who will share the chores and the childcare equally,” she tells me, “And women who have babies alone are not judged kindly.”

In 2022, only 2% of births in South Korea occurred outside of marriage.

‘A perpetual cycle of work’

Instead, Yejin has chosen to focus on her career in television, which, she argues, doesn’t allow her enough time to raise a child anyway. Korean work hours are notoriously long.

Yejin works a traditional 9-6 job (the Korean equivalent of a 9-5) but says she usually doesn’t leave the office until 8pm and there is overtime on top of that. Once she gets home, she only has time to clean the house or exercise before bed.

“I love my job, it brings me so much fulfilment,” she says. “But working in Korea is hard, you’re stuck in a perpetual cycle of work.”

Yejin says there is also pressure to study in her spare time, to get better at her job: “Koreans have this mindset that if you don’t continuously work on self-improvement, you’re going to get left behind, and become a failure. This fear makes us work twice as hard.”

“Sometimes at the weekends I go and get an IV drip, just to get enough energy to go back to work on Monday,” she adds casually, as if this were a fairly normal weekend activity.

She also shares the same fear of every woman I spoke to – that if she were to take time off to have a child, she might not be able to return to work.

“There is an implicit pressure from companies that when we have children, we must leave our jobs,” she says. She has watched it happen to her sister and her two favourite news presenters.

‘I know too much’

One 28-year-old woman, who worked in HR, said she’d seen people who were forced to leave their jobs or who were passed over for promotions after taking maternity leave, which had been enough to convince her never to have a baby.

Both men and women are entitled to a year’s leave during the first eight years of their child’s life. But in 2022, only 7% of new fathers used some of their leave, compared to 70% of new mothers.

Stella says her lifestyle makes it impossible to have children

Korean women are the most highly educated of those in OECD countries, and yet the country has the worst gender pay gap and a higher-than-average proportion of women out of work compared to men.

Researchers say this proves they are being presented with a trade-off – have a career or have a family. Increasingly, they are choosing a career.

I met Stella Shin at an afterschool club, where she teaches five-year-olds English.

“Look at the children. They’re so cute,” she cooed. But at 39, Stella does not have children of her own. It was not an active decision, she says.

She has been married for six years, and both she and her husband wanted a child but were so busy working and enjoying themselves that time slipped away. Now she has accepted that her lifestyle makes it “impossible”.

“Mothers need to quit work to look after their child full time for the first two years, and this would make me very depressed,” she said. “I love my career and taking care of myself.”

In her spare time Stella attends K-pop dance classes with a group of older women.

This expectation that women take two to three years off work when they have a child is common among women. When I asked Stella whether she could share the parental leave with her husband, she dismissed me with a look.

“It’s like when I make him do the dishes and he always misses a bit, I couldn’t rely on him,” she said.

Even if she wanted to give up work, or juggle a family and a career, she said she could not afford to because the cost of housing is too high.

The cost of housing has made it unviable for many people to have children

More than half the population live in or around the capital Seoul, which is where the vast majority of opportunities are, creating huge pressure on apartments and resources. Stella and her husband have been gradually pushed further and further away from the capital, into neighbouring provinces, and are still unable to buy their own place.

Seoul’s birth rate has sunk to 0.55 – the lowest in the country.

Housing aside, there is the cost of private education.

From the age of four, children are sent to an array of expensive extra-curricular classes – from maths and English, to music and Taekwondo.

The practice is so widespread that to opt out is seen as setting your child up to fail, an inconceivable notion in hyper-competitive Korea. This has made it the most expensive country in the world to raise a child.

A 2022 study found that only 2% of parents did not pay for private tuition, while 94% said it was a financial burden.

As a teacher at one of these cram schools, Stella understands the burden all too well. She watches parents spend up to £700 ($890) per child a month, many of whom cannot afford it.

“But without these classes, the children fall behind,” she said. “When I’m around the children, I want to have one, but I know too much.”

Korean children are sent to an array of extracurricular classes from the time they are four

For some, this system of excessive private tuition cuts deeper than cost.

“Minji” wanted to share her experience, but not publicly. She is not ready for her parents to know she will not be having children. “They will be so shocked and disappointed,” she said, from the coastal city of Busan, where she lives with her husband.

Minji confided that her childhood and 20s had been unhappy.

“I’ve spent my whole life studying,” she said – first to get into a good university, then for her civil servant exams, and then to get her first job at 28.

She remembers her childhood years spent in classrooms until late at night, cramming maths, which she loathed and was bad at, while she dreamed of being an artist.

“I’ve had to compete endlessly, not to achieve my dreams, but just to live a mediocre life,” she said. “It’s been so draining.”

Only now, aged 32, does Minji feel free, and able to enjoy herself. She loves to travel and is learning to dive.

But her biggest consideration is that she does not want to put a child through the same competitive misery she experienced.

“Korea is not a place where children can live happily,” she has concluded. Her husband would like a child, and they used to fight about it constantly, but he has come to accept her wishes. Occasionally her heart wavers, she admits, but then she remembers why it cannot be.

Over in the city of Daejon, Jungyeon Chun, is in what she calls a “single-parenting marriage”. After picking up her seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old son from school, she tours the nearby playgrounds, passing the hours until her husband returns from work. He rarely makes it home by bedtime.

“I didn’t feel like I was making a major decision having children, I thought I would be able to return to work pretty quickly,” she said.

But soon the social and financial pressures kicked in, and to her surprise she found herself parenting alone. Her husband, a trade unionist, did not help with the childcare or the housework.

“I felt so angry,” she said. “I had been well-educated and taught that women were equal, so I could not accept this.”

Jungyeon says she is sad that women are being denied the wonder of motherhood due to the ‘tragic situation’ they are in

This sits at the heart of the problem.

Over the past 50 years, Korea’s economy has developed at break-neck speed, propelling women into higher education and the workforce, and expanding their ambitions, but the roles of wife and mother have not evolved at nearly the same pace.

Frustrated, Jungyeon began to observe other mothers. “I was like, ‘Oh, my friend who’s raising a child is also depressed and my friend across the street is depressed too’ and I was like, ‘Oh, this is a social phenomenon’.”

Jungyeon says she is in a single parenting marriage

She began to doodle her experiences and post them online. “The stories were pouring out of me,” she said. Her webtoon became a huge success, as women across the country related to her work, and Jungyeon is now the author of three published comic books.

Now she says she is past the stage of anger and regret. “I just wish I’d known more about the reality of raising kids, and how much mothers are expected to do,” she said. “The reason women are not having children now is because they have the courage to talk about it.”

But Jungyeon is sad, she says, that women are being denied the wonder of motherhood, because of the “tragic situation they will be forced into”.

But Minji says she is grateful she has agency. “We are the first generation who get to choose. Before it was a given, we had to have children. And so we choose not to because we can.”

‘I’d have 10 children if I could’

Back at Yejin’s apartment, after lunch, her friends are haggling over her books and other belongings.

Fatigued with life in Korea, Yejin has decided to leave for New Zealand. She woke up one morning with a lightbulb realisation that no-one was forcing her to live here.

She researched which countries ranked highly on gender equality, and New Zealand emerged a clear winner. “It’s a place where men and women are paid equally,” she says, almost disbelievingly, “So I’m off.”

I ask Yejin and her friends what, if anything, could convince them to change their minds.

Minsung’s answer surprises me. “I’d love to have children. I’d have 10 if I could,” So, what’s stopping her, I ask? The 27-year-old tells me she is bisexual and has a same-sex partner.

Minsung (right) has a same sex partner and would love to have children – but cannot use a sperm donor to conceive

Same-sex marriage is illegal in South Korea, and unmarried women are not generally permitted to use sperm donors to conceive.

“Hopefully one day this will change, and I’ll be able to marry and have children with the person I love,” she says.

The friends point out the irony, given Korea’s precarious demographic situation, that some women who want to be mothers are not allowed to be.

But it appears politicians might slowly be accepting the depth and complexity of the crisis.

This month, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol acknowledged that the attempts to spend their way out of the problem “hadn’t worked”, and that South Korea was “excessively and unnecessarily competitive”.

He said his government would now treat the low birth rate as a “structural problem” – though how this will translate into policy is still to be seen.

Earlier this month, I caught up with Yejin from New Zealand, where she had been living for three months.

She was buzzing about her new life and friends, and her job working in the kitchen of a pub. “My work-life balance is so much better,” she said. She can arrange to meet her friends during the week.

“I feel so much more respected at work and people are less judgemental,” she added.

“It’s making me not want to go home.”

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Prosecute bandits for raping, killing women, children – UNICEF tells FG

Usman Abdullah — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:16:01 +0000

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Nigeria, has asked the Federal Government to prosecute bandits for their atrocities of murder and rape committed against women and children.

The Country Representative of UNICEF in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate Cristian made the call during a press briefing preparatory to the commemoration of World Humanitarian Day in Maiduguri on Friday.

She noted that it was unacceptable that governments had not taken drastic actions against those who abducted schools children, killed women and teachers, and raped young schoolgirls.

She called for proper strengthening of judiciary systems and warned that the barbaric act should stop so that children could go to schools without fear of being kidnapped or raped.

She said, “So, yes it is bad. You can read these on a daily basis on the number of attacks on the community and schools. Just a couple of days ago, teachers were attacked and unfortunately, they were murdered. This aspect requires immediate action.

“It is not acceptable that bandits are not taking to courts and they have been assaulting, killing children and women; abducting and raping etc. It scares me, if there is any process, I think there is no proper punishment for these people legally.

“We have international laws and also a legal system. Of course, the country has their national laws and these laws have to be applied.”

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Nigeria needs 4m toilets to end open defecation by 2025 – UNICEF

Friday Ajagunna — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 03:01:28 +0000

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says Nigeria needs to construct about 3.9 million toilets to achieve the open-defecation-free goal by 2025.

Jane Beva, UNICEF chief of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), spoke on Monday at the opening of a two-day maiden toilet business owners’ conference in Abuja.

Beva said Nigeria has insufficient toilet facilities, adding that only about 180,000 to 200,000 washrooms are built annually.

She raised concern over the poor sanitation level in Nigeria, adding that the 2021 WASH national outcome routine mapping reported that 48 million people are still practising open defecation in the country.

She said the report also noted that 95 million Nigerians do not have access to basic sanitation services.

“About 1.3 per cent of GDP or N455 billion is lost annually due to poor access to sanitation – health, health care savings and productivity,” NAN quoted Beva as saying.

“Every dollar invested in water and sanitation results in economic benefits ranging from three dollars to 34 dollars.

“Nigeria cannot continue business as usual or it will miss the target of 2025 and 2030. There is a need to strengthen and scale up proven strategies to reach the country’s goals.

“The private sector must work closely with all tiers of government and communities to actively create sustainable solutions to address the sanitation needs of unserved and underserved communities and help grow capital investment and human capital.’’

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Nigeria, DRC recorded grave violations against children globally in 2022 – UN

Friday Ajagunna — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 20:29:32 +0000

The United Nations (UN) says Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recorded an increase in grave violations against children in 2022.

The data was disclosed in the UN’s annual report on children and armed conflict, which was released on Tuesday.

According to the report, the splintering of armed groups and intercommunal violence affected children, and an upsurge in the activities of armed groups, including those designated by the UN as terrorist groups, led to the increase of violations in Nigeria.

“The United Nations verified 524 grave violations against 307 children (135 boys, 172 girls) in north-east Nigeria, including 139 children who were victims of multiple violations,” the report reads.

“In 2022, the United Nations verified 79 grave violations against 40 children (17 boys, 23 girls) that had occurred in previous years. A total of 136 children (49 boys, 87 girls), between the ages of 8 and 17, were recruited and used by Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad (JAS) (118) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) (17), mostly following the abduction, and by the Nigerian Security Forces (1).

“Most girls (66) were victims of sexual violence during their association. In 2022, the United Nations verified the recruitment and use of 32 children (17 boys, 15 girls) by JAS (27) and ISWAP (5) that had occurred in previous years, in Borno state.

“Some 40 children (35 boys, 5 girls), between the ages of 8 and 17, were detained by the Nigerian security forces for their alleged association with armed groups. All were released following United Nations advocacy. The killing (22) and maiming (31) of 53 children (37 boys, 16 girls) by ISWAP (30), the Nigerian security forces (12), unidentified perpetrators (10) and JAS (1) were verified.”

The casualties were mostly the result of instances of crossfire and shelling, the report added.

DRC SITUATION WORST IN THE WORLD

The report said the outlook was grim for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Save the Children International (SCI), a charity organisation, said the Central African country recorded the highest number of grave violations against children in armed conflict in the world for a second year in a row in 2022, with at least 2,420 children suffering from violations such as killing, maiming, abductions, and sexual violence.

According to SCI, most of the recruited children were used in combat or in support roles, with others used as guards and spies.

About 26 children were verified as being used as “fetish keepers”, a term which refers to children who are recruited because of a belief they possess magic powers, the charity organisation added.

“These are children who undergo a ceremonial ritual of a deep knife cut to the stomach. Those who do not die of these wounds may be recruited and put on the front lines due to their supposed powers,” a statement released by the organisation reads.

The DRC also recorded the highest number of child abductions globally, with 730 children forcibly taken from their homes last year.

Despite the high levels of violations recorded, SCI research shows that the war in Ukraine received five times more media coverage than the combined coverage of the ten worst conflict-affected countries to be a child in, in 2021.

Greg Ramm, SCI country director in the DRC, said humanitarian response is severely underfunded in the country which is aggravating the food shortage and leading more children to starve and drop out of school.

“All parties to the conflict must end the unlawful recruitment and use of children in conflict. We urge the government and international community to use their power to hold perpetrators of grave violations to account and to put in place a system of support for those affected,” Ramm said.

“It is vital that schools are safe zones spared from conflict and more action is taken to protect children from the killing, maiming and sexual violence. This war on children needs to stop.”

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22,000 Nigerian children infected with HIV annually – UNICEF

Adejoke Adeogun — Wed, 05 May 2021 11:53:33 +0000

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says about 22,000 Nigerian children get infected with HIV annually.

Claes Johansson, UNICEF’s chief of management for results, said about two-thirds of the infected children do not get treatment.

Johansson spoke on Tuesday at the national dialogue meeting for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in Nigeria.

He described the meeting as a crucial one for Nigeria to discuss ways of eliminating vertical transmission of HIV — also known as mother-to-child transmission.

“We are working within a framework to map out a strategy that we will work with for the next five years along with Nigeria,” he said.

“Ending the vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS is one of the key actions that will also help end pandemics, which is what the global world is looking forward to.

“However, we have so much to do and a long way to go, especially with mother-to-child-transmission taking about 32% and one out of seven being infected on a monthly basis is a Nigerian with about 22,000 infected yearly.

“This is a situation that is simply not acceptable and for all these children who get infected, about two-third of them do not get treatment.

“So, we in the global community want the Nigerian government to tell us what their sustainable strategic plans are and what they need to eliminate vertical transmission. The UN and its affiliated agencies and bodies are always willing to help Nigeria put an end to PMTCT.

“Let us know your priorities so that we can assist and help map out strong, sustainable ways to eliminating vertical transmission.”

Gambo Aliyu, director-general of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), emphasised the need for a better strategy to deal with PMTCT.

He explained that in 2016, there were about 13,000 infected pregnant mothers that were not getting treatment, which had risen to 421,000 as of 2019.

Aliyu attributed the rise to the fact that many pregnant women were not visiting health facilities, adding that part of the strategies discussed at the dialogue was how to get treatment to the women if they were not willing to come to the facilities.

Betta Edu, Cross River’s commissioner for health, who spoke on behalf of health commissioners of all the 36 states, said it was important to work alongside other HIV-related organisations in order to make the PMTCT a success.

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Despite significant increase in birth registration, 17m Nigeria’s children remain ‘invisible’ – UNICEF

Friday Ajagunna — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 18:49:26 +0000

The number of children whose births are officially registered has increased significantly in Nigeria from 30 per cent in 2013 to 43 per cent in 2018 by integrating birth registration into health services. Still, about 17 million children under-5, or 1 in 5, remain unregistered, according to a new report on global birth registration released by UNICEF.

“We have come a long way in Nigeria and ensuring that children are registered through the health services is making a big difference – but still too many children are slipping through the cracks,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria.

“These children are uncounted and unaccounted for – nonexistent in the eyes of the government or the law. Without proof of identity, children are often excluded from accessing education, health care and other vital services, and are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.”

Worldwide, 166 million children under-five, or 1 in 4, remain unregistered, according to the new report Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030: Are we on track? – which analyses data from 174 countries and shows that the proportion of children under-five registered globally is up around 20 per cent from 10 years ago – increasing from 63 per cent to 75 per cent.

In West and Central Africa, under-five registration increased in 10 years from 41 per cent to 51 per cent, despite the multiple challenges the region is facing.

“Birth registration in West and Central Africa remained stagnant for a long time, leaving millions of children without their basic right to legal identity. This situation has now changed and millions more children are registered at birth”, said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

“With UNICEF’s support and under the leadership of the African Union and of national governments, countries have invested in integrating birth registration in health and immunization platforms to extend the coverage and accessibility of services and reach even the most vulnerable populations. This simple shift in service delivery is not only low cost but effective in increasing national registration rates, contributing to progress in the region as a whole.”

Despite progress, the majority of countries in sub-Saharan Africa lag behind the rest of the world and some of the lowest levels of registration are found in Chad (12 per cent) and Guinea-Bissau (24 per cent).

Barriers to high registration coverage in Nigeria include the operation of two parallel and competing systems for birth registration at federal and state levels, insufficient birth registrars, lack of public awareness on the importance of birth registration for children, coupled with ingrained social beliefs that do not encourage the registration of children.

In Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030, UNICEF calls for five actions to protect all children:

* Provide every child with a certificate upon birth.

* Empower all parents, including single parents, regardless of gender, to register their children at birth and for free during the first year of life.

*Link birth registration to basic services, particularly health, social protection and education, as an entry point for registration.

* Invest in safe and innovative technological solutions to allow every child to be registered, including in hard-to-reach areas.

* Engage communities to demand birth registration for every child.

“Every child has a right to a name, a nationality and a legal identity,” said Peter Hawkins. “We have just marked the 30th anniversary of these rights – as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child – and 2020 will mark the 30th anniversary of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child – which provides that every child be registered immediately after birth. We must continue to register and not stop until every Nigerian child is registered – every child counts!”

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Snail reduces malnutrition in children, pregnant women – Nutritionist

NAN — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 12:14:23 +0000

Henrietta Ugwu, the Nutrition Officer, Enugu State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, says snail meat helps in reducing malnutrition.
Ugwu stated this in interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Enugu.

She said the reduction was because snail meat corrects iron deficiency in children and pregnant women.

The nutritionist explained that pregnant women and children whose diets contain snail would definitely be healthy.

Ugwu said that snail meat, which is also white meat, contains protein and polyunsaturated fatty acid, iron, Vitamin A, Calcium, zinc and folate.

She pointed out that it also contains healthy essential fatty acids, adding that the high-protein, low-fat content of snail meat makes it a healthy alternative food.

According to her, snails contain non-harmful fatty acid in the body as well as protein which helps in building blocks for haemoglobin.

“Snail meat is a source of protein which is an important building block for bones, muscles, cartilage, skin and blood in our body.

“It is low in calories and high in protein like any other animal derived protein; the protein in snail is complete which means it contains the amino acid that is expected to be derived from a diet,” she said.

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Police raises alarm over disappearance of children in Adamawa

Suleiman Ibrahim — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 16:07:04 +0000

The Police Command in Adamawa has expressed concern over frequent disappearance of children in the state and urged parents to be more vigilant.

The command in a statement issued on Saturday in Yola by its spokesman, DSP Habibu Musa said parents monitor the movement of their children and those they related with.

The statement described the situation as “worrisome and disturbing,” but said it has deployed its personnel to track and apprehend the perpetrators.

”The Adamawa Police Command wishes to inform members of the general public that, incessant stealing of children by unknown persons is on the increase in the state.

”The Command, therefore, advise parents to be security conscious and be watchful of the movement of their children and whom they relate with. Also those that convey your children to schools to and fro should be equally identified by the school authorities” the statement read.

The command further advised parents to warn their children against taking free rides and receiving gift from unknown persons

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One in 4 children live in country of conflict or disaster – UN

Special Correspondent — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 11:42:42 +0000

A quarter of the world’s children — about 535 million — are living in a country affected by conflict or disaster, the head of the UN children’s agency said Monday.
Henrietta Fore told a Security Council meeting on children and armed conflict that it is “almost beyond comprehension” that one of every four young people are caught in that situation.

She pointed to children and young people whose lives are being shattered by conflicts, including in Yemen, Mali and South Sudan. She also cited youngsters recruited to fight, killed by a land mine or an attack on their school, and “losing hope not only in their futures, but in the futures of their countries.”

Syrian children

Sweden, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, organized the open meeting on the theme “Protecting Children Today Prevents Conflict Tomorrow” and sponsored a resolution unanimously adopted by the 15 members to strengthen UN actions to ensure the care and safety of youngsters.

“We are not doing nearly enough to protect our children,” Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who presided at the meeting, said, stressing that “350 million children are affected by armed conflict today.”

The resolution states for the first time that children recruited or caught up in armed conflict should be treated primarily as victims, he said.

It urges all countries “to consider non-judicial measures as alternatives to prosecution and detention that focus on the rehabilitation and reintegration for children formerly associated with armed forces and armed groups.”

Lofven said the resolution also for the first time makes the point that the needs and vulnerabilities of girls and boys are different and stresses that access for all youngsters to education and physical and mental health care is essential.

It also sets out a framework to reintegrate children associated with armed groups or armed forces into society, which “places children as part of the solution, not part of the problem,” he said.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council that “more than 60 percent of people in conflict-affected countries are under the age of 25.” In countries like Afghanistan, an entire generation has never lived in peace, she said.

She stressed the importance of education as “a way to recover from conflict and prevent it in the future,” warning that children who grow up uneducated, unskilled and resentful “will be prime targets for recruitment by extremists and armed groups.”

Virginia Gamba, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said she is “profoundly shocked” by the more than 21,000 violations of children’s rights in 2017 recently reported by the UN, a significant increase from 2016.

“The majority of these despicable acts were perpetrated by armed groups although government forces and unknown armed actors played an important part. Each and every one of them led to unspeakable suffering for children, families and entire communities,” she said.

Gamba said the level and severity of the latest violations demonstrate the need for united action “to change the tide of history,” including by focusing on prevention and reintegration “to break cycles of violence” against children.

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Children with special needs can contribute to national development – Aisha Buhari

Friday Ajagunna — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 20:01:27 +0000

Wife of the President, Aisha Muhammadu Buhari has advocated for an enabling environment for children with special needs to contribute to national development. She made the statement at the closing ceremony of a week-long Training Programme for Teachers of Children with Special Needs in the FCT on Friday, June 22, 2018 at the School for the Handicapped, Kuje, Abuja.

She was speaking through the National Coordinator of Future Assured Programme, Dr. Kamal Abdurrahman Muhammad.

“Everywhere in the world” she said, “children with physical or mental disabilities are confronted with learning difficulties, but they need to reach their full potential and contribute to national development”

“There are highly specialized institutions and facilities to cater for their special needs,” She noted, “but for these institutions to function effectively, they need appropriate infrastructure, highly trained teachers and modern teaching tools.” She observed gaps especially in the use of modern technological tools and called on stakeholders and philanthropists to refocus and engage.

Aisha Buhari Foundation (ABF), she said, has the vision of improving the health and social status of women and children in this country, and with Education being one of the priority areas, ABF is focusing on special education in line with Sustainable Development Goal 3, which is about leaving no one behind.

She said the need to ensure that these children are not left behind led to the partnership with Nika Project to train their teachers on the use of modern technological tools. She expressed happiness that the teachers have learnt well.

Speaking earlier, one of the facilitators from Nika Project, Dan Philips expressed happiness with the rate of absorption by the teachers. “They have quickly adapted to these modern tools” he said, calling on them to go back to their classrooms and impart on the children what they have learnt. He called for the expansion of the project to cover teachers from the whole nation.

Dr. Shola Faniran, a UAE- based Developmental Paediatrician, another facilitator pointed out that the rate of disability in Nigeria is huge with 15% of all 5 – 15 year old children in Nigeria having some form of disability, she restated the need to engage these category of Nigerians with knowledge and skills, reiterating the need to start early so as to reduce the impact of the disability.

The training was attended by teachers from the School for the Handicapped, School for the Blind, School for the Deaf, Autism Center, and Institute for the Disabled.

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