01 June 2017•Update: 02 June 2017
By Alpha Kamara
DAKAR, Senegal
One quarter of the world's children are being denied the opportunity to have the childhoods they deserve, a new report revealed.
An international non-governmental organization -- Save the Children -- released the report ‘Stolen Childhoods’ Wednesday that coincided with International Children’s Day.
The report said most of the affected 700 million children live in disadvantaged communities in developing countries, where they face extreme violence and conflict, child labor, poor health and not being able to go to school.
Whilst the index finds that childhood is most threatened in West and Central Africa, it underlined that there has been measurable progress in these regions during the last thirty years.
The region has cut under-five mortality in half since 1990, it highlighted.
Advocacy and Campaigns Director of Save the Children’s West and Central African Office Erik Hazard told Anadolu Agency: "West Africa faces several problems including poverty, terrorism, hunger, early marriage and child labor which are all robbing children of their right to education and development."
The report called on governments to translate the commitments to end child marriage made by the African Union and United Nations into concrete, tangible and measurable actions.
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders will be meeting in Monrovia’s capital Liberia on June 4.
Hazard reminded ECOWAS leaders that African governments had made a promise in 2015 that all children would be in school, protected, and healthy, regardless of who they are, and where they live by 2030.
