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#Africa: Children migrating out of school and at work as hunger deepens in Southern Africa, report finds

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African schoolReport findings found that El Nino’s impacts were worsening the lives of children in a number of areas with more migrating out of impoverished areas, facing separation, hunger, sexual exploitation, violence, child labour and psychosocial distress.  

Globally, USD3.9 billion has been requested for the 19 worst affected countries, yet the current funding gap is almost USD2.5 billion. The United Nations’ Children Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 26 million children across Eastern and Southern Africa are at risk from malnutrition, water shortages and disease.

“It seems that in disasters like this, children come last,” said Rudo Kwaramba, regional leader, World Vision, Southern Africa. The report, Regional Child Protection Rapid Assessment, was designed to explore the various ways children are impacted by a slow-onset emergency, Like El Nino.

“I did not want to marry. I wanted to study,” said a young girl in Mozambique who, aged 14, was forced to marry a man many years older, after her family ran out of food. When her husband started beating her, she ran away.

Of the multi-billions of dollars needed for a comprehensive response only USD11.7m is needed for protection programmes in Southern Africa. Of this amount, only 6% has been pledged by donors.

“The EU and its Member states need to pay more attention to child protection which is one of the most under-funded sector in the response,” said World Vision Brussels’ Executive Director Justin Byworth. “El Nino’s long-term impacts on children are shattering. Being forced out of school and into work or into marriage at a young age, it is an unacceptable breach of children’s most basic rights”.

The report is the outcome of an assessment of children’s protection issues in South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was conducted by World Vision, PLAN International and UNICEF who interviewed child protection experts on what they were seeing happening to children.

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Key findings

Child migration
- More than 70% of respondents cited a lack of food as the driver. Drought and the lack of water was the second most common cause.

Child labour - Just over half of respondents believed that child labour had increased since the start of El Niño and believed that is was more likely to impact boys rather than girls.
Unaccompanied and separated children - Just under half of the respondents said that parents commonly send their children away due to the lack of food. These children are likely to be between 5-14 years old.
School drop-outs - Nearly 80% of respondents said school drop-outs had increased since the start of El Niño. In one province in Zimbabwe alone, 6,000 children had dropped out of school due to hunger or the need to help their families with house or farm work.

Full report

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