The republic of Benin is a West African country with an Atlantic coast line of 125km flanked by Nigeria to the east and Togo to the West. Its northern neighbours are with Burkina Faso and Niger. It has a population of about 6million and out of it 60% are women and children. A joint study initiated in 1994 by UNICEF and the ministry of labour and social affairs (MTEAS) estimated about the existence of approximately 100,000 children living in the two big cities of Benin, 85% are female, about 20% are below 10 years whereas 74% are older than 10 and 14.88% of those children are not or have not been sent to school.
Many of the parents I spoke to complain of the fact that their daughters have gotten pregnant by the teachers that they are entrusted upon and in order to save the situation they have to prevent their daughters from attending school. Many also complain of the fact that there are not many schools around and those that are they cannot afford to pay for. If the convention on the right of the child is anything to go by then one will be tempted to say that the onus falls on the authority to provide the needed infrastructure and environment for children to have the sort of education that humanity will be proud of but here is a case where many countries in the developing world can barely feed its population and morally they will tell you that they will rather provide food than build classrooms.
The situation is not much different from other parts of the country and most especially in the rural areas where access to basic education is few and non-existence at all. The children bend their hands and in silence accept a destiny that oppresses them. One does not easily undo the tenuous ties that bind two people together during a journey filled with hardship. When will education be decided for children on the basis not of sex but of potential? In an era where children are faced with lots of uncertainties the onus falls on our policy makers to protect and provide an environment with the growth of children in mind. In many parts of West Africa, children are faced with similar problems as in the northern part of Ghana, although 60 percent of the population are women and girls they also make the majority of the illiterates in a land stricken with poverty, ignorant for which men are seen as gods and masters.
Children are forced to go to the farms rather then sit under a shade for lessons which some parents termed is “unnecessary” since they feel that a child cannot have a education when his/her family is starving, coupled with the fact that classes are always disrupted anytime there is rain. With this kind of attitude and sentiment along with poverty, many children are denied the needed education that they deserve to better their lives in the near future.
The 20th century has demonstrated that with invention and ingenuity it is possible to extend access of every resource in the community to the physical, social and cultural environments, transportation, information, technology, mass media, education, justice, public service, employment, sport and recreation, voting and worship. In the 21st century we must extend this access from the few to the many, dismantling all environmental, ethnic, cultural, religious, electronic and attitudinal barriers to full inclusion in community life. With that access comes the stimulation of participation and leadership, the warmth of fellowship, the glories of shared affection and the beauties of the earth and universe? Society for that matter a nation cannot place value on the immense contribution children and women can contribute to the development of humankind, environment and society in general.
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